After possibly attending various meetings, you may currently find yourself burdened by the administrative tasks associated with them. Although meetings play a crucial role in every business, the process of sifting through numerous emails to identify suitable meeting times for everyone involved can be both tedious and time-consuming.
Your time is valuable and should not be wasted on scheduling and keeping track of meetings. Nowadays, there are numerous scheduling apps, including your calendar app, that can assist you in arranging meetings with others.
The utilization of meeting scheduling apps, such as Zoho Bookings, simplifies the procedure significantly. By simply clicking a few times, your invitees are able to schedule a meeting during a time slot that is open, eliminating the need for communication back and forth. The entirety of the scheduling process is automated, synchronized with your calendar, and, of utmost significance, you can be assured that your meetings will not overlap with any other commitments on your agenda.
To make it easier for your guests to schedule meetings directly and reduce your workload, it is important to choose a good meeting scheduling software. However, before making a decision, consider the additional benefits it offers, such as integrations, user experience, and meeting customizations. Below is a curated list of meeting schedulers to help you get started.
The 10 best apps for scheduling meetings:
1. Google Calendar: A free and a simple meeting scheduler
If you have a Google account, there is already a meeting scheduler available for you to use. Google Calendar serves as more than just a daily scheduler, as it can also assist in the scheduling of meetings and appointments.
With Google Calendar, you can:
- Create a Meeting by adding an event to your calendar
- Customize the time
- Add the location
- Set up reminders
- Meet virtually through Google Meet
- Invite your guests and grant them different permissions
Google Calendar simplifies the process of sharing calendars, staying informed about each other’s schedules, and finding a mutually convenient time for a group meeting.
2. Zoho Bookings: A single app for all your scheduling needs
Zoho Bookings is a robust online meeting scheduler that provides a user-friendly interface for effortlessly arranging and reserving meetings. It accommodates different scheduling needs for businesses, including one-on-one meetings, team management with round-robin scheduling, and conducting classes or workshops.
Zoho Bookings features:
- Create a booking form to get information
- View your booked appointments on a calendar dashboard to access them easily
- Customize minimum and maximum booking notice for meetingSet different availabilities for your service
- Customize your booking page domain and your meeting URLs
- Add meeting intervals and buffer time
- Personalize email notifications and reminders
- Set up virtual meetings, through Zoho Meeting or Zoom
- Choose whether guests can choose a team member or assign them automatically
3. Doodle: Poll and meet with your guests
Doodle provides a convenient and easy-to-use method for organizing meetings. To eliminate the need for lengthy discussions, Doodle permits you to generate a poll and promptly transform it into a meeting without requiring registration. Additionally, you have the ability to establish individual meetings and carry out surveys with your invitees.
While creating a poll and 1:1 meeting, Doodle allows you to:
- Select multiple dates and times for the meeting
- Choose a location or create a Google Meet link
- Send reminders to people who didn’t vote
- Set a deadline for the poll
Doodle aids in time saving by converting the highest voted time slot into a meeting and informing the participants via email, while also updating your calendar automatically.
4. SavvyCal: Meetings made modern
SavvyCal provides a scheduling page that resembles a calendar which allows your guests to compare their availability with yours in order to select a meeting time.
With its straightforward design, SavvyCal enables users to effortlessly schedule meetings and synchronize with multiple calendars, such as Google and Outlook calendars. Additionally, it offers integration with various apps such as Zoom, Google Meet, Zapier, and others, which facilitate the automation of meeting processes.
With SavvyCal, you can also:
- Choose the location of the meeting (offline/online)
- Create meeting polls to share with guests, and convert the most polled time slot into a meeting
- Limit the number of meetings for a day or a week
- Add team members to the meetinSwitch between collective team meetings or a round-robin allotment
- Personalize the meeting for a specific guest by mentioning their name and email
- Collect questions from guests before they book
- Embed your scheduling page onto your website
The proposed time feature allows you to choose multiple time slots within a specific meeting type and transform them into text which you can send to your guests. From there, your guests can click on a time that suits them to be taken to the scheduling page and immediately reserve that slot.
5. Chili Piper: One-stop scheduling solution for your sales team
Chili Piper differs from the previously mentioned apps in that it is tailored to a specific audience, namely sales teams utilizing Salesforce and HubSpot CRMs. It serves as a meeting scheduler exclusively designed for this particular user base.
Chili Piper provides sales teams with several crucial and unique features. To illustrate, Chili Piper promptly adds a lead to the CRM once the lead initiates contact. Moreover, it retrieves and associates relevant data about the lead, ensuring that scheduling a meeting becomes a customized and efficient process for the lead.
With Chilli Piper, you can:
- Send suggested times through email
- Set meeting buffers and minimum notice time for appointments
- Create automated email signatures
- Manage team scheduling
- Send automatic email/SMS reminderTrack and manage your appointments from CRM
6. Calendly: To elegantly meet with your guests
Calendly simplifies the process of scheduling meetings and enables guests to meet with you effortlessly. Its intuitive interface showcases your availability with a sophisticated calendar-style design on the booking page. When guests select a date, Calendly subsequently presents your open time slots for them to schedule a meeting.
Calendly allows you to:
- Set different working hours for meeting
- Sync with your Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, or iCal
- Limit the number of slots that can be booked in a daCreate a form and route guests to the right scheduling page based on their responseSet the minimum and maximum booking period your guests can schedule with you
- Make the event secret by only allowing access to guests who already have the URL
- Set up automatic notifications and reminderIntegrate with other apps through API and Zapier
If you are looking to save time and streamline your meetings, Calendly’s workflow feature is the solution. It allows you to establish rules and create a workflow that automates tasks before and after meetings. This includes automated processes such as email reminders, follow-up emails, sending resources via email, thank you emails, and text notifications.
7. CozyCal: Minimal design for maximum meetings
CozyCal enables easy and seamless scheduling of meetings via a booking page. Guests have the flexibility to browse through your available meetings, select a suitable date and time, and proceed to make a reservation with you. The streamlined setup process and minimalist design contribute to time savings during the creation of a booking page.
You have the ability to create a single event, a folder to house numerous events for selection, and a bundle comprising both events and folders. The calendar page facilitates effortless monitoring of the scheduled events through an agenda-style display.
While setting up a meeting with CozyCal, you can:
- Set up the host(s) for the event
- Choose whether guests can pick a host or are automatically assigned one
- Choose the number of guests that can book for a time slot
- Choose to confirm meetings manually
- Customize the meeting confirmation pagr
- Set up resources, like meetings halls, and add them to a separate calendar
8. HubSpot Meeting scheduler: A simple scheduling app to get started with
The HubSpot meeting scheduler falls under the sales category of HubSpot CRM software, and it serves as a valuable product. If you are looking for a free and user-friendly meetings scheduler, this app is a great choice.
If you want to have the option to use various meeting templates with different durations, you can do so with the free plan. However, to have the ability to create multiple one-on-one meetings, group meetings, and round-robin team scheduling, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.
The booking page design is easy to navigate with a calendar layout that displays your free time, enabling others to quickly schedule an appointment.
When setting up a meeting with HubSpot Meeting Scheduler, you can:
- Choose multiple duration for your guests to choose from
- Customize the scheduling page link
- Create a buffer timSet pre-booking and last-minute booking duration
- Collect paymentSet email notifications and reminders for the meeting
- Create a booking form
When using HubSpot Meeting Scheduler, you have the ability to handle your team and include them on the scheduling page while setting up a group meeting or implementing round-robin scheduling. In this case, they will receive an email notification whenever guests schedule a meeting.
9. YouCanBook.me: A meeting scheduler for your team
During our testing of other apps, we observed that the majority of them have the option to set up and customize meeting types before configuring them for team management. In contrast, YouCanBook.me prioritizes the inclusion of your team in the meeting first and then offers the ability to customize meeting features.
With YouCanBook.me, it is possible to generate separate booking pages and set up multiple meetings for guests to book on each page. By adding team members to these pages, assigning them various roles, and determining whether guests can choose a team member or be automatically assigned one on a rotational basis, you have full control over the booking process.
While setting up meetings with YouCanBook.me, you can:
- Set a recurring or custom availability
- Choose whether guests can pick a team member or are automatically assigned one based on priority
- Allow guests to choose any duration for the meeting
- Set the minimum and maximum number of bookings to take for each slot
- Allow multiple meetings to be booked at the same time
- Approve every meeting individually
By providing a live preview of the scheduling page, it allows you to perceive how guests will encounter your booking process and make necessary adjustments.
10. ScheduleOnce: A single app for various business meetings
ScheduleOnce is a tool that is intended to manage all scheduling requirements for an organization or business. It streamlines the process of coordinating team meetings, sales meetings, and customer meetings by offering different types of meetings in one central location.
ScheduleOnce allows you to generate reports on your meetings, offering valuable insights into their progress. You have the option to analyze individual performances by generating reports for various meeting types, team members, customers, and revenue-based criteria.
Their meetings have been divided into three segments including event type, booking pages, and master pages.
- Event types are the different meetings that you provide
- Booking pages are the individual meeting pages for your team member
- Master pages are a combination of your event types and booking pages
By utilizing these categories, you have the ability to generate various meeting scenarios for your potential clients, such as individual meetings, meetings with a panel, meetings conducted in a group setting, and complete packages. The booking page possesses a professional layout that is particularly suitable for business purposes. Once you have selected the desired meeting time slot, you can request guests to fill out a form to gather their information prior to the meeting.
Schedule a meeting in Microsoft Teams
When you schedule a meeting in Outlook, it will appear in Teams because your calendar in Teams is linked to your Exchange calendar, and the same is true vice versa.
If you schedule a meeting in Teams, it will automatically be an online meeting. If you schedule a meeting from Outlook, find out how to include Teams in your Outlook meeting.
Schedule a meeting
There are multiple methods available for scheduling a meeting in Teams.
To book a meeting with the participants in a chat, click on “Schedule a meeting” located below the messaging box within a one-on-one or group chat. Please note that it is not possible to schedule a meeting from within a meeting chat.
To access the Calendar, locate it on the left side of the application and then choose the option “New meeting” in the upper right corner.
Choose a period of time on the calendar, and a scheduling form will appear.
To organize a meeting, you will need to complete the scheduling form by giving your meeting a title, inviting participants, and providing meeting details. Utilize the Scheduling Assistant tool to determine a suitable time for all attendees.
In Scheduling Assistant, attendees’ time zones, schedules, and availability during different timeslots can be viewed. The schedule of each attendee will be displayed in the Scheduling Assistant grid, with shaded areas indicating busy or tentative meetings and unshaded areas showing free time for attendees.
After completing the details, save the scheduling form and invite attendees to the meeting.
Add a dial-in number
To ensure that participants can join the Teams meeting via phone, make sure to provide a dial-in number and conference ID. When scheduling the meeting through Outlook, the dial-in number and conference ID will be automatically included in the meeting invitation. If you are scheduling the meeting directly in Teams, follow the instructions provided in the Add a dial-in number for a meeting in Teams guide to include these details.
Assign categories to a meeting
You can color code your calendar by assigning categories to meetings, similar to Outlook. There are multiple ways to assign categories.
To assign a color to an event in your calendar, follow these steps: First, right-click on the event. Then, choose the option “Categorize” and select a color.
To schedule a meeting, choose Category at the top of the scheduling form.
Invite people outside your organization
When using Teams, you have the option to invite individuals from outside your organization, even if they do not possess a Teams license. To invite them, you will require their complete email address.
Navigate to the section labeled “Add required attendees” and in the case of any optional attendees, choose the option “Optional” instead.
Please rephrase the text below while maintaining the same meaning. Type the person’s full email address (ex: Joe@example.com). “Please provide your full email address when filling out the form.”
Choose the option “Invite” and the recipients of the invitation will be sent an email containing a link to join the meeting.
Invite people with a link
To share the link for a meeting, you can utilize Teams to invite people.
To initiate the meeting in Teams, go through each step carefully.
Navigate to the Calendar tab located on the left side of Teams and choose the meeting that has been scheduled.
To copy the meeting link, select it when it appears as a URL.
Add a co-organizer
Once you have sent out invitations for your meeting, you have the option to designate up to 10 co-organizers to assist with the management of your meeting. Prior to adding co-organizers, ensure that the individuals you wish to add have already been included as mandatory attendees, and then proceed with the following instructions:
First, choose your meeting and then choose the option to modify it.
Click on More options and then select Meeting options.
To choose a co-organizer, go to the meeting options page and click on the down arrow next to “Choose co-organizers” , then select the name of the co-organizer.
- Select SAve at the bottom if your screen.
Make it a channel meeting
Choose the option of scheduling a different meeting.
Without adding new information or removing any, please specify the name of a channel in the designated area labeled “Add channel” located below the time and date fields.
If you want to make changes or add channels after sending the invitation, you will have to send a fresh invitation including the updated channel.
After you have added the desired people, select the Scheduling Assistant feature to determine the optimal time.
To rephrase the text while maintaining the same meaning, step by step, you can follow these instructions: 1. If the meeting occurs regularly, click on the dropdown menu located next to the option “Does not repeat” (just below the date). 2. From the pre-selected choices, specify the frequency at which you want the meeting to occur. Alternatively, choose the “Custom” option to personalize your own pattern.
Schedule meetings in a channel calendar
If you don’t know how to add a calendar to a channel, you can find the instructions at See all your meetings in Teams. After completing that, there are several methods to add events to the shared calendar available to you.
Click on the option to Add new event located at the calendar’s top.
To select a block of time, simply click and drag your cursor on the calendar.
To rephrase the text while maintaining the same meaning, you can say: Alternatively, click on the arrow beside Meet now located at the top of the application to access the menu, and then choose Schedule meeting.
By following these steps, you will be able to open the scheduling form with the channel name already filled in. If you wish to include an Outlook group or specific individuals, you can manually enter their names. It’s important to note that guests and partners who are not part of your organization will not have access to the channel calendar and will need to be added to the meeting invite separately.
Right-click for more options
To RSVP, remove, or view meeting details of an event in your calendar, right-click on it. In case the event is canceled, you can also remove it. If the event is a Teams meeting, additional options like Join online and Chat with participants will be available.
The join button on a Teams meeting will become visible on your calendar event five minutes prior to the meeting’s scheduled start time. When a participant joins the meeting, the event’s color will be altered to indicate their online presence.
To ensure your preferred camera and microphone settings before joining the online meeting, click on Join and open the meeting settings window.
