The evolution of appointment scheduling

May 2, 2012

When you want to organize a meeting, one of the first things that you have to do is find a time that works for everyone. For many people, this involves sending an email or a meeting invitation to the participants. Of course, there’s always a number of people who can’t be available at the time that’s indicated, and before you know it, your inbox is full of messages from multiple people about what’s possible and what’s not. Needless to say, this isn’t an enjoyable experience.

The easiest way to determine a good time to meet is to figure it out when you’re with all of the participants. However, this isn’t always possible, so it’s important to have a tool that can provide assistance. The tool should be quick and easy to use so the meetings can actually happen.

The following chart provides an overview of some of the options that are available and rates them against specific criteria.

Depending on the situation, one of the poorly rated tools can still provide some value. For example, calling all of the participants is a nice and personal thing to do, but it takes a lot of time.

Additionally, calendar invitations can be useful when you just need to send out one option and all of the participants use the same calendar system (Outlook, Google, Lotus Notes, iCal, etc.). With that said, they’re almost useless in other situations.

On the other hand, an online scheduling service like Doodle works for anyone who has Internet access and it radically simplifies the scheduling process. It’s free and easy to use, and we hope you love it as much as we do.


Calendar connections: update

April 17, 2012

Being able to connect one’s calendar to Doodle is a great feature–and one we recently invested into making faster and more reliable. It works best with Google Calendar (both via individual Google accounts and via Doodle’s Google Apps integration), but our goal is to also play well with Apple and Microsoft.

Until there are calendar APIs for Apple’s iCloud and Microsoft’s Office 365, we want to provide Doodle connectors for iCal and for Outlook. The iCal connector already works reasonably well even though it is still in beta. While the Outlook connector also works well for the majority of its users, it does not work well at all for a large minority of its users. And in the case of the Doodle’s Exchange integration, the situation is even worse: it kind of works for a small minority and does not work at all for a large majority.

We apologize for this unsatisfactory state of affairs and are going to remedy it as follows:

  • The Exchange integration is going to be discontinued (by May 2nd) in order not to eat up more precious time that is better spent on Google Calendar, iCal, and Outlook.
  • The Doodle connector API is going to be modified according to the actual use of the Outlook connector. One important reason for the problems that the large minority of Outlook connector users experience is that some of the assumptions that we had made for Doodle’s connector API turned out to be wrong.
  • We try to outsource the maintenance of the iCal connector and the Outlook connector. We have developed them ourselves in order to verify (and, as it turned out, falsify) the Doodle connector API, but we are experts in Java and Web development and not in Mac or Windows development.

If you are a Google Calendar user, all is good. If you are an iCal user, keep updating the Doodle connector as it is maturing. And if you are an Outlook user, please remain patient (we realise that you have been patient with us already!): the Doodle connector API in general and the Outlook connector in particular are slowly but steadily going to improve over the next weeks and months.

by Paul E. Sevinç, Co-founder & CTO


Faster and more reliable calendar synchronization

April 11, 2012

If you have an electronic calendar, then you can connect it to Doodle. We provide connectors for all of the major calendar systems, including Google, Outlook, and iCal (beta). All other calendars can be connected via ICS feeds.

Today we’ve released an improved back-end that will synchronize with Google Calendar in a more reliable way. Calendar data that’s being exchanged between your calendar and Doodle will be persistently queued first, which massively reduces the possibility of events being lost in the process. The second major improvement is that you won’t have to wait anymore when you want to access your calendar data on Doodle, like when you’re using the wizard.

The calendar connectors with an online interface (like Google) will immediately benefit from the improvements, but the iCal and Outlook Connector are still under development and will benefit from the improvements with a future update (see update).

Our premium users are also getting an update because our design editor has been revised and extra fields that can request additional information from participants can now be activated after the purchase of a Premium Doodle subscription.


Survey shows Internet users could organize their schedules in a smarter way

March 29, 2012

A recent survey performed on behalf of Doodle (1) shows that while there are simple tricks and tools that can be used to maintain a lean calendar, most Internet users still organize their calendars in a rudimentary way. Nearly half (48%) of the respondents don’t use any of the tips and tricks, and 85% don’t use online tools for sharing calendar data or scheduling events. Earlier Doodle surveys showed that Internet users waste almost an entire week per year with scheduling, which highlights the huge potential for improved management of calendars and appointments.

Most Popular: One Central Calendar

Three of the tips are used more than the others. The first one is Consolidate, which means using one calendar as the central place for the entire schedule (38% of Internet users do this). The other two popular tips are Declutter (keep random notes out of the calendar) and Separate (don’t mix the To-Do List with the calendar).

It’s also interesting to compare the results in the different countries. For example, Americans are more positive about the tips (45% compared to 40% on average), and the Germans dislike the tips the most (14% compared to 8% of the Americans). The British were the most undecided, with the highest share of neutral answers (52%) whereas the French matched the overall responses in all categories.

Doodle Users Stand Out

A parallel survey of Doodle users (2) showed that they are more than twice as positive about the tips and tricks. 94% of Doodle users take advantage of at least one of the tips, which is a very high percentage when compared with average Internet users. The three most popular tips for Doodle users are Consolidate, Declutter, and of course, Simplify (by using Doodle).

See all tricks and tools that can be used to maintain a lean calendar.

(1) Online survey of Internet users from Germany, France, UK, and US by Toluna Inc. (2,000 people; 500 per country)

(2) Survey of Doodle users in the US and the UK (1,250 people)


Doodle Mob on Gbanga

March 8, 2012

The Doodle Mob was the first “sponsored phonebooth sidequest” in Gbanga, taking place between January 26th and March 1st and was part of Gbanga’s ongoing Startup Quest. The winners of the Doodle-sponsored round were “Orxx”, “Tikanis” and “Tiberius” who all recieved a Doodle Premium Solo subscription.

Congratulations and a big thank you to Gbanga and the engaged players!


Tips and tricks to keep your calendar lean

March 8, 2012

These days, many people are trying to live and work in a smarter way, and it’s important that they know how to manage their time and calendar wisely. To help with this, Doodle has compiled the following list of ten tips and tricks that can decrease the amount of time that you’ll spend on coordinating meetings and managing your schedule.

Consolidate – Use one tool as the central place for your schedule. Everybody has a different preference (paper agenda, online calendar, etc.), but the key is that you make sure that you have everything in the same place. This prevents double-booking issues and general confusion.

Consolitate

Share - A sharable online calendar like Google Calendar should be used by individuals who frequently need to coordinate meetings with other people. Depending on the situation, the calendar can be shared with coworkers, family, friends, or anyone else.

Share

Separate - Add appointments to your calendar, but don’t mix them with your To-Do List. Keeping your tasks separate will keep your mind clear, and a tool like RememberTheMilk can help with this.

Separate

Declutter - Don’t store random notes in your calendar. Instead, store your notes in a paper notebook, a document, or a service such as Evernote.

Declutter

Simplify Scheduling – When you need to setup a meeting or social event with more than one person, use Doodle for online scheduling instead of sending email messages or making phone calls. This will eliminate the constant back and forth communication, and your inbox will thank you.

Simplify

Focus - Make the calendar entries (or the events from the online scheduling tool) the communication channels for your appointments (invitations, updates, location changes, etc.).

Focus

Organized Travel – Including travel information in your calendar can help to keep you organized while you travel, and a tool like TripIt will do a lot of the work for you. Also, instead of traveling for meetings, consider scheduling conference calls or online meetings to save even more time.

Anticipate

Visualize – Highlight particularly important appointments in a different color so they stand out. Use calendar feeds in different colors for appointments related to work, family, vacations, etc.

Personalize – It’s your life and your schedule. Find the calendar management methods that work best for you and stick with them.

Personalize

Expert Advice – Productivity experts like David Allen, Merlin Mann, and Tim Ferriss have shared a lot of good advice that you can use to make your life more productive and enjoyable.


Doodle goes east and west

March 6, 2012

During the last weeks, we were able to realize new sales partnerships with both our west and east neighbours. In France, 24/7 Real Media, a WPP company, will from now on represent Doodle’s display advertising sales.

In Austria, the specialists from adworx internetservice GmbH could achieve the sales mandate from Doodle. Both partnerships are exclusive mandates in the respective market. Please contact our sales team for bookings and further information.


Doodle goes east

March 6, 2012

Doodle speaks Romanian thanks to the extra hours of our new software engineer Adelina Ciurumelea! With that new version we are back to 28 languages that are more or less completely supported. We are always happy about volonteers who support us translating our service.


Redesign: clearer interface for Calendar Connect

February 28, 2012

Some of the most helpful Doodle functionality is Calendar Connect, so we are delighted to reveal today our redesigned calendar view. The calendar integrations will be a big focus for us throughout the year and this fresh new interface with a purer layout makes single calendars much easier to read at a glance.

New design: a different colour for each connected calendar, Doodle-events hatched, selected option highlighted

2011 saw three times more users connect their electronic calendar with Doodle than the previous year, and we are working on a number of different projects that will let the major calendar systems talk to each other more efficiently in 2012.

Doodle’s calendar function consists of two central parts: a highly user friendly calendar interface that can be used as an alternative to the basic tabular view and the integration with the major calendar systems Outlook, Google and iCal (other systems can be connected via ICS-feed).

Infographic and more information about Doodle Calendar Connect

And we’d really like to hear what you think of our new redesigned cal view. We love it and hope you do too!


Paper sells

February 2, 2012

Our latest product called Doodle Unplugged was launched last week and has been covered as bringing about a “back to paper” trend! Take a look:

 

Funny Businesses For Ex-Lovers and Office Meetings

It’s called a piece of paper.

CNBC

 

Paper Making a Comeback at Doodle

Speaking of the digital trend, one outfit has come full circle.

Flack Me

 

Doodle takes its scheduling service offline … to paper.

the Rude baguette

 

These and other great responses have encouraged us to go to the next level. How about Doodle on the Rocks?


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