Your Conference App Starts With a Spreadsheet
No Indico. No EasyChair. No ConfTool. No Confex. One row per talk, saved as CSV, is enough: upload it, confirm by email, and your programme is in the app in about 30 seconds. A sheet the importer can't read, we build by hand within 48 hours. Built for 5,000 papers, effortless at 50.
Most Events Don't Use a Named Platform. That Shouldn't Stop You From Having a Great App.
Conference management systems like Indico, EasyChair, ConfTool, and Confex are excellent tools, but most conferences in the world don't use any of them. They use Google Sheets. Excel. A custom database export. A PDF that someone eventually converted to a table.
HEPCon was built for these events too. If you can describe your programme in a spreadsheet, with sessions, times, speakers, rooms and abstracts, the app can be built from it, with offline access, personal schedules and push notifications. You don't need to learn a new system or change how you work. You upload the sheet.
- Any sheet, from Excel, Google Sheets or your system's export, saved as CSV for the upload
- No strict column names or order: columns are read by name, and every row is checked before anything is built
- Full offline access, search, personal schedule, and push notifications
- In the app in about 30 seconds from the upload; built by hand within 48 hours when the sheet needs it
One Row per Talk
Save it as CSV and upload it below; the importer reads your columns by name. An .xlsx with a tab per day, a PDF table or a database dump: send it to us instead.
Who Uses Spreadsheet-Based Setup
Custom In-House Systems
Labs and research institutes that built their own agenda tools and export programme data as CSV or XML.
Any Other Platform
EDAS, Softconf/Precision Conference, Pretalx, Whova, Cvent: any system that can export a schedule to a spreadsheet.
Hybrid & Society Events
Professional society conferences built in-house without a standard submission system. The programme lives in a shared spreadsheet.
Internal Corporate Events
Internal summits, company all-hands with a formal programme, and R&D days where the agenda is maintained in Excel by the events team.
What Your Spreadsheet Needs to Contain
The importer insists on one column only: the title. Everything else is optional, and the more of it you have, the more the app can do with it.
For a working timetable
- Talk title, the one required column
- Date as 2026-06-03, start and end as 14:30
- Room
- Speakers, separated by semicolons when there are several
- Session, the name that groups talks into one block
With these, the app has a day-by-day programme with rooms, speaker pages, personal schedules and offline access.
Adds significant value
- Abstract: every talk becomes searchable by what it is about
- Track (or topic, theme, specialty): a filter tab in the programme
- Affiliations, in the same order as the speakers: shown on each speaker's page
- Type (keynote, talk, poster, workshop): another filter
- CME or CPD credits per session: the credits on the session's tile and a CME-only filter for delegates
What the Check Tells You Before Anything Is Built
Spreadsheet data is messy. The importer reads every row first and builds nothing from a file with errors.
Every Row, by Number
A date that is not 2026-06-03, a time that is not 14:30, an end before its start, a start without a date, a CME cell that is neither a number nor yes or no: each is listed by row and column. Fix them in your sheet and upload again.
One Spelling per Name Is One Person
The same spelling on ten rows makes one speaker page with ten talks. "J. Smith" and "John Smith" make two, so settle on one spelling before you upload. Several speakers in a cell are separated by semicolons, with their affiliations in the same order.
Sessions, Tracks and Rooms From Your Columns
The session column groups talks into blocks in time order. Track, room and type each become a filter tab, and a CME column puts the credits on the session tile, as it does for a programme read from Indico or ConfTool.
How to Lay Out the Sheet
There is no required template, but a few choices make the upload pass first time.
Structure that maps cleanly
- One row per talk, with title, date, start and end time, room, speaker and abstract as separate columns, and a session name column that groups the talks. Two sheets, one for sessions and one for talks, are a job for us rather than the upload: send both.
- No merged cells. They look tidy and break any programmatic reading; unmerge and repeat the value in each row.
- No colour as data. A track or session type that exists only as a cell colour is lost in a CSV export; add a text column for it.
- One spelling per value. "Hall A", "Hall A (Main)" and "Main Hall A" become three rooms, and "J. Smith" and "John Smith" two speakers.
The mistakes that cost a day
- Times in a zone. The sheet holds the venue's own clock, 24-hour, and you name the venue's time zone once in the upload form. "14:30 CEST" in a cell is flagged as an invalid time.
- Ambiguous dates. "03/06/2026" reads two ways, so the importer accepts only 2026-06-03 and flags the rest.
- Sessions without a room. Use a placeholder such as "TBC" rather than a blank, and update it later.
- Hierarchy in one cell. Keep session names and talk titles in separate columns.
- Abstracts somewhere else. A linked document or a PDF is hard to match; put the abstract in a column, or in a companion file keyed by paper id and send both to us.
Where other platforms keep their export
If your system is not one HEPCon reads from a link, its schedule export is a spreadsheet source like any other.
| Platform | Where the schedule export is | Format |
|---|---|---|
| EDAS | Paper data export with a selectable set of fields; sessions are built under Conference > Sessions | Excel-compatible |
| Pretalx | Schedule exports, or the configurable CSV / JSON export where you choose the fields | frab XML, JSON, iCal, CSV |
| Whova | Content > Agenda Center > Session Manager, the session spreadsheet it imports and exports | Excel |
| Cvent | Agenda > Session List > select sessions > Actions > Export Sessions | CSV, Excel |
| Google Sheets | File > Download | CSV, Excel |
| An in-house system | Ask your IT team for an export of the sessions table | CSV, XML or JSON |
Export paths checked against each vendor's documentation in September 2026; menus move, so check yours.
How It Works
- Save it as CSV, one row per talk. Excel: File › Save As › CSV UTF-8. Google Sheets: File › Download › CSV. The template in the form below has the column names ready-made, if you would rather start from it.
- Upload it below, with the event name and the venue's time zone. Times in the sheet are the venue's own clock, and the zone is set once in the form. Left blank, the preview assumes Central European time.
- Read the row report. Anything the importer can't read is listed by row and column. Fix those rows in your sheet and upload again; a clean file builds. Nothing is imported until the file is clean and you have confirmed.
- Confirm by email. One click on the link we send, so only you can build your programme.
- Open it, in about 30 seconds. The confirmation click opens your organizer console with the sessions, talks and speakers it read from the sheet, the phone link and QR code for a colleague, and one click to invite them to the console. Browse the programme on your phone, test the search, open a few speaker pages. Evaluate free; the go-live decision is due 7 days before your event.
- A sheet the importer can't read, we build by hand within 48 hours. Merged cells, an .xlsx with a tab per day, a PDF table, two sheets linked by id: send it through the build-it-for-me form and we build the preview ourselves, with a list of anything we could not place.
When the Programme Changes
A programme read from a link re-reads itself on a schedule. A programme built from a file has nothing to re-read, so a change is a new file:
- Before go-live: upload the changed sheet. The same event name with the same content opens the preview you already have; changed content builds a fresh preview, with a new join code, in the same about 30 seconds.
- Once your event is live: send us the changed sheet and we import it into the event your attendees already have installed.
- During the event: a room swap or a cancellation is an announcement you write yourself in the organizer dashboard, with formatting and links; it appears in the app and reaches attendees as a push.
No Platform Doesn't Mean No Capability
A programme built from a sheet gets the same app as one synced from Indico. Three things it keeps that a printed programme can't offer.
Conflict detection on personal agendas
When attendees save two overlapping talks, My Schedule warns them before the day starts, whether the times came from a cloud platform or a spreadsheet column.
Filters and CME credits from your columns
A track, room or type column becomes a filter tab; a CME column puts the credits on each accredited session's tile and gives delegates a CME-only view, typed as "1.5" or "yes".
Search by meaning over the abstracts column
Put an abstract column in your sheet and attendees search by what a talk is about, not only by a word in its title. Where the abstracts came from is invisible to them.
What Attendees See
The same offline-first, searchable app, built from your spreadsheet data.
One day of the programme: parallel sessions side by side, each with its room
My Schedule, with a warning when two saved talks overlap; works offline after the first open
Screens from EuNPC 2025. The app is the same whichever system, or sheet, the programme comes from.
Ready to turn your spreadsheet into a conference app?
Upload your CSV below and see your conference in the app in about 30 seconds, or send us your agenda in any other format and we build the preview within 48 hours. No credit card required, no platform to learn.
Rather see a live one first? The app is the same whichever system your programme comes from. Open ICHEP 2026 in the free app (App Store, Google Play).
Evaluate free with your live data; the go-live decision is due one week before your event. No credit card required. Prefer a guided tour? Book a 20-minute call.
Spreadsheet to app, answered
Can I get a conference app if I only have a spreadsheet?
Yes. One row per talk in a CSV builds your programme in the app in about 30 seconds: upload it, confirm by email, open it on your phone. The importer insists on one column only, the title, and reads the rest by name. A sheet it can't read, we build by hand within 48 hours.
What spreadsheet formats are accepted?
The upload takes a CSV file. Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers and LibreOffice all save one from their File menu; the values survive, colours and merged cells do not, so a track or a type that lives in a cell colour needs a column of its own. Anything else, such as an .xlsx with several tabs or a PDF table, send to us and we build the preview within 48 hours.
What columns does my spreadsheet need?
Only the title is required. For a timetable add date (2026-06-03), start and end (14:30) and room; a session column groups talks into blocks; speakers and affiliations, separated by semicolons in the same order, give each speaker a page; an abstract makes the talk searchable by meaning; track and type become filters; a CME column puts credits on accredited sessions.
How do programme updates work without an automated sync?
Before go-live, upload the changed sheet: changed content builds a fresh preview with a new join code in about 30 seconds. Once your event is live, send us the changed sheet and we import it into the event your attendees already have. A room swap on the day is an announcement you post yourself from the organizer dashboard, and it reaches attendees as a push.
Does it work for events using EDAS, Softconf, Pretalx, or other platforms?
Yes, if the platform can export its schedule to CSV or a spreadsheet. EDAS, Pretalx and Whova document such exports; for any other system, check that the export carries title, date, time and room columns, then save it as CSV and upload it.