How to Create an Interactive Conference Agenda from Google Sheets
October 15, 2026 · 5 min read
Most event schedules start life as a spreadsheet and end up as a PDF. That's fine until the first room change. Then someone re-exports the PDF, re-uploads it, and half your attendees are still looking at the old one on their phones.
An interactive agenda on your event website solves both problems. Attendees can find the sessions they care about, see what's on right now, and add sessions to their own calendars. You keep editing the same spreadsheet, and the website updates itself.
This guide covers what attendees need from an online agenda, how to set up the spreadsheet, and how to put it on your site.
What attendees need from an agenda
Think about how people use a schedule during an event: standing in a hallway, on a phone, with five minutes before the next session.
- One day at a time. Day tabs, opening on today's date, beat scrolling through a three-day list.
- Parallel sessions side by side. Sessions that start at the same time should be grouped, so people can compare their options.
- Tracks they can filter. "Show me only the workshops" or "only the youth ministry track".
- Search. For a speaker's name, a room, or a topic.
- Happening now and up next. The single most useful label during the event.
- A personal schedule. Starring sessions to build "my agenda", without creating an account.
- Add to calendar. One tap to put a session in Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar.
- The right time zone. Times should show in the event's local time, not whatever time zone a remote attendee's phone is set to.
Three ways to publish a schedule
| Approach | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| A PDF or image of the schedule | Small, single-track events | Hard to read on phones; every change means a new file; nothing is clickable |
| An event app or ticketing platform | Large conferences with registration, networking and sponsors | Per-event or per-attendee fees; attendees may need to download an app |
| A spreadsheet plus a website component | Conferences, retreats, trainings and festivals that already have a website | Your site builder needs to allow custom code |
Step 1: Lay out the spreadsheet
Use one row per session. These columns cover almost every event:
| Title | Date | Start | End | Track | Location | Speakers | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opening Keynote | 2026-11-06 | 9:00 AM | 10:00 AM | Main Stage | Fellowship Hall | Dana Reyes | How three small towns doubled their volunteers. |
| Writing Grants That Get Funded | 2026-11-06 | 10:15 AM | 11:15 AM | Workshops | Room 101 | Lee Park | Bring a project idea and leave with a draft. |
| Websites on a Shoestring | 2026-11-06 | 10:15 AM | 11:15 AM | Tech & Tools | Room 104 | Sam Ortiz | Free and low-cost tools for small organizations. |
A few tips that save trouble later:
- Use real dates and times.
2026-11-06and10:15 AMare unambiguous. Avoid "Friday morning". - Give every session an end time. It's what makes "happening now" and calendar entries accurate.
- Keep track names identical. "Workshops" and "Workshop" become two different filters.
- Separate multiple speakers consistently, for example with semicolons:
Lee Park; Hannah Cole. - Include breaks and meals. Lunch and registration help attendees plan their day, even without a track.
- Mark the highlights. A "Featured" column for keynotes lets them stand out.
Step 2: Publish the sheet
In Google Sheets, choose File → Share → Publish to web, pick the tab with your sessions, and choose Comma-separated values (.csv). Copy the link it gives you. Use this published link, not the address in your browser bar.
Publishing makes the sheet's contents public, which is fine for an agenda but means you should keep private notes (speaker phone numbers, AV requests) on a separate tab that you don't publish.
Step 3: Add it to your event page
Add an HTML or code block to the page where the agenda should appear and paste the schedule component's snippet with your link. Set the event's time zone, for example America/Chicago, so every visitor sees local event time.
Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, Webflow, Shopify, Ghost and Carrd all have a block for custom code. Some only allow it on certain plans, and most only run it on the published page, not in the editor.
Step 4: Change it during the event
When a session moves rooms or a speaker cancels, edit the row in the spreadsheet. Google refreshes published sheets every few minutes, and the website shows the change. There's no file to re-export and nothing to re-upload. Anyone on your team with access to the sheet can do it from their phone.
Before you share the link
- Open the agenda on your own phone and try finding a session by speaker.
- Check a day with parallel sessions: are they side by side?
- Add one session to your calendar and confirm the time is right.
- Ask someone outside the planning team to find "the workshop after lunch". If they can, attendees can.
A ready-made option: Event Schedule
We built Event Schedule to do all of the above from a Google Sheet, a CSV file, or rows pasted into the page:
- day tabs that open on today's date during the event, with parallel sessions grouped by start time
- a filter and color for each track, plus search across titles, speakers, rooms and descriptions
- "Happening now" and "Up next" labels and an "Upcoming only" filter, all in your event's time zone
- "My schedule" stars saved in each attendee's own browser, with no account
- Google Calendar links and .ics downloads for Apple Calendar and Outlook on every session
It works on any site builder that lets you paste HTML, with step-by-step instructions for each. It's a one-time purchase from $39 for one website, with an agency license for designers building event sites for clients.
Try the live demo of Event Schedule, or ask us a question about your event.