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I'm looking for apps that satisfy the following criteria:

A really well-designed and usable interface.

  1. Doodle makes you manually type times in, rather than being able to click on a timeline. It also does a full page-load when you click on each day this meeting can take place. Several problems in general.
  2. Whenisgood.net is a little better, but still needs work.
  3. Google Calendar "find a time" requires everyone to have scheduled all of the things in their calendar, which tends to only happen at work for most people, making it unsuitable for finding a time to hang out with friends.

The ability for the organizer to easily choose several time intervals in which the meeting can take place.

The ability for the recipients to both select intervals which work for them, or intervals which don't work for them.

This is so if someone has a relatively full schedule, they can easily choose what times work for them, and if someone has a relatively empty schedule, they can choose times which don't work for them. The software should figure out the rest.

The ability to copy and paste a list of names and email addresses to specify recipients for your meeting request.

It should be something similar to the form:

Name One <[email protected]>, Name Two <[email protected]>, ...

This is so you can start an email in your email client, and simply copy the output of the "To:" field after your email client auto-completes the list of names you've typed. (This is a much more quick-and-dirty way to accomplish what you could do with contact list integration, which is harder).

Something that gives recipients a unique one-click URL to specify their free time

They shouldn't have to do anything unnecessary at all, such as creating an account, pasting stuff that should be in the URL.

Good reporting tools to find the best intersection of time for the most amount of people.

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9 Answers 9

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TimeToMeet should satisfy those requirements. It has been a while since I used it though.

http://www.timetomeet.info/tour/

How it works:

  1. Everyone receives a private link to enter their availabilites on a common schedule. No sign-ups or logins necessary.
  2. We'll find the best candidates and you can easily confirm a final time. RSVPs are built-in.
  3. And you're done already.
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I like doodle.com. It is simple and integrates with my google calendar.

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In the Netherlands we use Datumprikker. Has English as well. But I don't think it's as good as the other answers.

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+250

– Edited 2024-03
TimeBridge is Shut Down
TimeBridge announced November 2017 on their site that they would cease operations November 30, 2017.


 

A few years back, Lifehacker recommended webapp TimeBridge for scheduling meetings. I haven't used it personally but it looks like it meets all of your criteria except:

  • The ability to copy and paste a list of names and email addresses to specify recipients for your meeting request: Not sure if it does that; however, they do provide "connectors" for Outlook and Google Calendar that hook into your address book.
  • Something that gives recipients a unique one-click URL to specify their free time: also unsure of this; the only way of finding out would be to create an account and try it. (I didn't do that, though.)
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– Edited 2024-03
MeetingWizard is Shut Down
MeetingWizard announced August 2016 on their site that they would cease operations August 12, 2016.


 

MeetingWizard meets criteria 1,2,4 and 5.

I think it meets criteria 3 "copy and paste list of email addresses". An address book is maintained within the application. Rather than tediously entering each address in the address book, go directly to "Create a meeting request". Propose one or more dates and times. On the next "Meeting Event Details" screen, paste your list of email addresses, one address per line or separate with a comma, to a maximum of 50. Select the "Add all new addresses to Address Book" box, to eliminate entering the addresses the next time.

I recently implemented this for a local community band. Many of the musicians are not comfortable using computers, so the two click response without the need for a login was excellent. The response rate 75%+ greatly exceeded what we were getting with just email. It has lots of features which came in handy eg reminders to non-responders, adding additional details, printing lists of people attending etc.

The price is great; free. At one time they had planned a paid version for more than 50 email addresses, but that option does not appear on the website.

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My personal favorite lately has been When2meet. Time selection is easily clickable/draggable, reporting is intuitive and visual, and there's minimal setup involved (read: practically none). There is no contact list integration, but you can send the short, private link directly to your recipients. And, of course, it's free!

The only criterion listed above which I'd say it falls a bit short on is the ability for the organizer to specify time intervals that are "on the table". You can specify a list of dates, and a range of times on those dates, but that range must be contiguous and the same across dates. In effect, the organizer doesn't get special priority in limiting the choices.

Although it wasn't one of your criteria, it also lacks time zone support, so it's really only good for face-to-face or highly localized meetings. Edit 2024-03: When2meet added time zone support for non-recurring meetings in early 2018.

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well I've used this before:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

World Clock Meeting Planner

Find best time across Time Zones

Need to make a call to someone far away or arrange a web or video conference across different time zones? Find the best time across time zones with this Meeting Planner.

there's also an 'advance mode'

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/advmeeting.html

also, both are the top results in google if you search for 'world time meeting'...

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    This is just based on timezones, not availability of participants. Oct 1, 2011 at 21:52
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Have look at Tungle.me. I use it on a regular basis for both group meetings and one-on-one where I'll let the other person pick a time among a set of availabilities that are good for me.

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    Note: Tungle.me shut down on 3 December 2012. Jun 22, 2013 at 16:01
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May be this can be of help: http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/

Feature overview:

http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/features

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    from what I can tell, this is mostly a timezone side-by-side display tool; finding a time that works for multiple people is kind of a manual process there. Oct 1, 2011 at 3:06

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