Scheduling meetings with team members and clients is a necessary requirement in any workplace. However, the back-and-forth communication that comes with trying to coordinate everyone's schedules can be extremely tedious and time-consuming. Thankfully, there are several great meeting scheduling tools that can streamline the scheduling process for you.
These online meeting scheduling apps allow you to easily set up meeting polls, coordinate schedules, book meetings, send email and SMS reminders, and more. Whether you need to schedule recurring team meetings or one-off calls with clients, these tools enable you to seamlessly integrate scheduling into your existing workflow.
What Are the Key Features People Look for in a Scheduling Tool?
There are a few vital features that scheduling apps must provide in 2024. These include:
- Ease of use: The tool should have an intuitive user interface that's simple to navigate. Complex platforms with steep learning curves are not an optimal choice for many.
- Seamless integrations: The ability to sync with your existing office tools, like Google Calendar, Office 365, and Outlook, is extremely beneficial.
- Reminders: Email and SMS reminders help avoid meeting no-shows and late arrivals.
- Rescheduling: A great meeting scheduler should provide easy meeting rescheduling and cancellation capabilities.
- Affordability: The tool should be affordable for your business use case.
- Mobile access: Mobile apps allow scheduling on the go for remote teams.
- Customization: Customizable booking pages, branding, meeting types, and questions help personalize the tool.
Top 5 Meeting Scheduling Apps and Tools of 2024
The meeting scheduling space has exploded with excellent new platforms over the past few years. Based on reviews and capabilities, here are the five front-runners that have edged ahead of the pack.
1. Google Calendar (Best for Life and Work Calendar Integrations)
As part of the Google Workspace suite, Google Calendar is the go-to scheduling app for many individuals and teams. When booking meetings with Google Calendar, you can easily see everyone's availability side by side, provided that all invitees use Google services. This makes picking time slots that work for the entire team simple and straightforward.
With recurring meeting capabilities, you can also set up regular team meetings and one-on-ones without having to manually create new events each time. Additionally, Google Calendar allows you to automatically integrate meeting details like videoconference links into all invitations. It also connects with popular office tools like Slack, Scoop, Trello, and Asana and allows you to avoid toggling between apps to share details.
It's one of the most robust options, but Google Calendar does work better when all attendees use Google services. For teams that heavily rely on Office 365 or Exchange, other tools might suit your needs better.
2. Doodle (Best for Tracking Appointments for Free)
Doodle started as a simple polling tool for groups to vote on an optimal meeting time. Since then, it has evolved into a fully featured appointment tracking system.
Users can easily share a customized link to their booking page and invite attendees to pick from a list of available meeting times. As selections are made, the calendar updates in real-time.
One of Doodle's best features is its free plan. While there are paid options with more features, the free version provides ample capabilities for your basic scheduling needs.
Some of the key highlights include:
- Group date/time polls to find availability across internal and external attendees
- One-on-one meeting scheduling with preset time slots
- Email reminders to avoid no-shows
- Syncing with Google and Office 365 calendars to automatically track availability
For straightforward scheduling, Doodle continues to be a great free solution.
3. Scoop (Best for Meeting Planning and Simplifying Hybrid Work)
While it's not purely a scheduling app, Scoop provides exceptional visibility into your upcoming meetings. As hybrid teams blend remote and in-office work, having clarity around meetings is vital.
From the Scoop Snapshot to the mobile app's Live Activities feature, you get a constant overview of meetings on your calendar. Know at a glance when sessions start and finish and the expected attendees' locations.
With Scoop's mobile app, you can also quickly notify attendees if you're running late. There's no need to scramble to find email addresses and phone numbers before walking into a meeting.
As hybrid work evolves, expect Scoop to further help teams effortlessly plan great in-office and remote days around key meetings and collaboration opportunities.
4. Calendly (Best for Embedding Your Calendar With Websites)
Calendly stands out for its exceptional embedded booking pages. Users can easily customize their pages with brand colors, logos, and meeting types. You can then embed the pages directly onto your company's site for self-service scheduling.
When invitees book meetings, Calendly syncs across connected calendars (Google, Office 365, Exchange) and updates their availability in real time. This prevents double bookings or overfilled days.
Other handy features include:
- Buffering between meetings to prevent back-to-back bookings
- Restrictions on last-minute meetings
- Custom schedules
- Mobile apps and browser extensions
5. Rallly (Best for Collaborative Team Meeting Scheduling)
Scheduling meetings for large, dispersed teams can prove to be extremely difficult. The constant back-and-forth emails trying to find a consensus day and time usually involve lots of spreadsheets and version tracking.
Rallly modernizes this process by enabling collaborative scheduling on a single platform. Users can easily create customized pages for events with potential date/time polls, agendas, comment sections, and more.
Team members then visit the page to vote on their preferences, discuss agenda items, and plan the details together in one place. It's much easier than getting lost in email chains or missing key conversations.
With hybrid teams slated to become more prevalent in 2024, expect tools like Rallly to see growing use cases.
Get the Ultimate Tool for Hybrid Work Planning
With hybrid work models becoming more predominant, having clarity around your meetings is more vital than ever. Constantly toggling between calendars, emails, spreadsheets, and other platforms to plan your time is tedious and inefficient.
This is where Scoop pulls ahead of traditional scheduling tools. With exceptional visibility into your daily meetings and the location status of attendees, Scoop always gives you an up-to-date overview in one place.
With Scoop, you can easily plan your in-office and virtual collaboration days around key meetings. Never scramble when running late again; reduce unnecessary communication clutter with an all-in-one office and meeting planning tool. Get started for free today.
