This week’s Things are about organisation and productivity, especially when it comes to collaborating with others. Online scheduling tools are a great way to schedule events for several people.
Task
One of the most popular scheduling tools is Doodle. Doodle is free, easy to use and doesn’t require any registration (although it offers added features to registered users). For this week’s Thing, please explore Doodle and, if you can, give it a try for scheduling something.
Step-by-step instructions
- Go to http://www.doodle.com/.
- Click on the Schedule Event button.
- Follow instructions for Steps 1-4 each time clicking ‘next’ to get to the next page. Decide on the dates that you are free and the time slots within each date that you are free and add them in the chart.
- At Step 4 you need to decide whether you want to send an email to your colleagues yourself or whether you want Doodle to do this.
- If you have chosen to send the poll out yourself then check your emails from Doodle and follow the clear instructions in them.
- Send the link out and wait for response!
A sample doodle poll
Exploring further
You can integrate Doodle with other online tools, including your Microsoft Outlook calendar, Google calendar or iCal; Doodle can sync meetings you set up with these calendars and update based on poll results. Doodle’s calendar integration page provides more info on how to set these up.
Doodle isn’t the only online scheduling tool, although it is one of the most popular. You might want to explore other options such as Meet-o-Matic or Scheduly.
Blog post
Did you try to schedule a meeting using Doodle? Do you think you would in future? Tag your post Thing 21.