Question

What's the best way to let people choose an event time and add it to their calendar?

I'm looking for a way to list 3 weekly onboarding events where each one is run by a different person on our team, and where multiple people can attend each events. Ideally we could let people see a list of upcoming events, pick the one they want to attend, then get that event added to their calendar.

I've tried building this out with Calendly, but either you can do round-robin events where a different person runs each time slot (but then, you can only do one-on-one events) or you can do a group event with multiple attendees run by one person (but then, it doesn't send Google Calendar invites automatically).

Got any better options you'd recommend? Eventbrite, perhaps?

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bastien_vairet's avatar
2 years ago

Have you tried X.AI ? https://x.ai/
I have met with the founder. I like the tool but in my case it was too expensive and not fully sync with iCal. But it is for sure more flexible than Calendly and Acuity.

3 points
maguay's avatar
@maguay (replying to @bastien_vairet )
2 years ago

@bastien_vairet I hadn't tried it before—just took it for a spin and looks promising at least for scheduling team meetings. Don't think it'll fit what we need here though, but will keep digging!

1 point
ammbo's avatar
@ammbo (replying to @maguay )
2 years ago

Hey Matthew, I think we can do this with a little bit of setup. Mind if I get back on your calendar to walk you through it?

1 point
iCanAutomate's avatar
2 years ago

Have you tried youcanbook.me or scheduleonce or booklikeaboss?

2 points
maguay's avatar
@maguay (replying to @iCanAutomate )
2 years ago

Great suggestions—those might be better options since they're designed around booking instead of standard meeting scheduling.

1 point
iCanAutomate's avatar
@iCanAutomate (replying to @maguay )
2 years ago

Exactly!

1 point
Macrina_'s avatar
2 years ago

Hi Matthew, you can use freebusy.io. For this scenario you can create 3 signup sheets (each one will have a different host and a different day of the week) in your collection of event templates and embed the collection in your website.

  • create a signup sheet (choose collection and keyword)
  • add the desired host
  • add the desired time & date
  • add event capacity
  • add duration
  • add event location (integrate with a web conferencing tool)

When somebody reserves a slot, both the organizer and the participant will receive an email notice and the participant will have the option to add the event to calendar.

For more details you can directly talk to the founder Stefan https://freebusy.io/stefan/30min

Hope this helps!

2 points
maguay's avatar
@maguay (replying to @Macrina_ )
2 years ago

Awesome, I'll have to check it out, thanks!

1 point
maguay's avatar
2 years ago

So as an update, comically, I ended up back where I started and built this out with Calendly, Zapier, and Google Calendar.

I made a Calendly account for the team (instead of for one person), made a group event so multiple people could attend, set the recurring timeslots that each person from our team will run, and added all the details.

Then, since Calendly won't send calendar invites for group meetings, I made a Zap that watches for new attendees then makes and adds the attendee to a new Google Calendar event.

Finally, I embedded the Calendly event page in our onboarding flow, so people can book the slot they want to join for a personalized onboarding.

And with that, I got a calendar embedded into an onboarding page for Capiche FM that lets people book the slot they want, and sends out invites correctly.

Thanks for all the extra tips and pointers!

2 points
yannn's avatar
@yannn (replying to @maguay )
2 years ago

Thanks for sharing this! Will come in handy.

1 point
danicomar's avatar
2 years ago

Have you tried https://x.ai/ ? I’m not sure if it covers all you need as stated above, but it seems to have more features than Calendly. I’m just getting started with it.

1 point
stefanrosenlund's avatar
@stefanrosenlund (replying to @danicomar )
2 years ago

+1 for x.ai I'm a quite happy user as well

1 point
maguay's avatar
@maguay (replying to @stefanrosenlund )
2 years ago

@stefanrosenlund What do you like most about x.ai?

1 point
stefanrosenlund's avatar
@stefanrosenlund (replying to @maguay )
2 years ago

The Slack integration, can setup a Zoom call directly in a channel or DM

3 points
_helloitse's avatar
@_helloitse (replying to @danicomar )
2 years ago

I love x.ai! I don't have a team account but you can reach out to Dennis on their customer service team and he may have an idea on how to pull this off

1 point
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