Doodle Meeting Scheduler via Calendar Poll for Many Attendees

Doodle is an online scheduling tool to find a date and time to have a meeting. Unlike other meeting schedulers for which many persons use for only one-on-one meetings, you may prefer Doodle for agreeing on dates for meetings that involve numerous multiple people (and not just one other person). Additionally, another unique characteristic is that Doodle allows numerous dates and times to remain open for multiple meeting attendees until the manager of the schedule selects a final meeting time.

First you suggest dates and times for the meeting from which participants can. Doodle then creates a polling calendar that you may send to participants for feedback on those proposed dates and times. Since each participant see your proposed meeting times in their time zone, it is ideal even for virtual teams that work across time zones. As each participant selects convenient dates and times, Doodle aggregates the responses and tells you which option works best for everyone.

Disadvantages of the free trial version

• Unlike other meeting schedulers whose free version allows you to select the finally agreed time and sends (email and or SMS) reminders to participants automatically for you, Doodle's free version only allows the meeting participants to see their commonly available dates and times.
• Doodle's polling calendar has so many ads that the presentation is very tacky and unprofessional. 

Steps to set up a polling calendar for a meeting for virtual team members 

• Click the 'create a Doodle' button (as pictured below)

• Enter the event name (example 'Meetup with Jessica', as pictured below)
• Specify the location. As you can see, it can be linked a webpage, to several apps (like Skype), physical address and so on.
• Enter a message with an event description, instructions, time zones and how participants will know the final time. Example: 

We wish to schedule a welcome meetup for Jessica, our newest ABC Writer. To this end, please select as many dates and times when you are available for certain (single click) and tentatively (double click).

NB. The time zone will automatically convert to that of your current location.. -- OR -- The time zone is fixed to only UK time.

We will announce the common or most popular date and time that we will use for the meeting in tomorrow's meeting. 

• Select the month or week view. 
• Click a date. If the time will be the same for all days, select multiple dates before the next step (to select times)
• Enter as many time slots for that date as you wish.
• Time zones 
• If you want each participant to see their own time zone, leave the default setting (which should display your time zone) just below the time slots.
• Sometimes you may want everyone to see only one time zone. Scenarios include preferring to use the time zone of a physical location where currently globally dispersed participants will eventually meet or the time zone used for reports. Tell everyone that the time zone is fixed (and will not automatically convert to their current location). This is sometimes useful to avoid conversion issues if participants must manually report the meeting's dates and times which are in a time zone other than their own. For instance, they may need to update the minutes of the meeting somewhere outside of Doodle. NB. Once set, you will not be able to change this setting.
• Click 'continue'

• On 'poll settings' page (pictured below), make the following selections
• yes, no, if need be ... (to allow participants to tick next to a date and time)
• hidden poll (if you do not want participants to see each other's entries)
• Continue

• Enter your name. If some participants do not know you, it is advisable to write  your name in a descriptive way like 'Jacqui from The Writing Club'
• Enter the email address of whomever will monitor the dates and times. Doodle will send automatic notifications whenever a participant makes an entry. For virtual assistants for whom I sometimes create calendars with third parties, I enter their (not my) email address and teach them how to do the following tasks. 
• delete the current participants
• Select 'More' (on top of the page of the calendar poll manager's poll view)
• 'Delete all participants' 
• edit the dates and times
• Select 'edit' (on top of the page of the calendar poll manager's poll view) 
  
• Continue
• Change the dates and times
• Click 'Finish'

• Copy the link and paste it where participants can easily click it to access the survey -- and / or -- select 'email' below the 'invite participants via ...'. You will need to enter the email addresses of all participants. For virtual team members, I do both (ie pasting the link on a notice board and emailing it in a group email), to allow polling access to all participants, including the one who will manage the poll.

• As the creator of the calendar poll, you may opt to also
• scroll down and select your available time slots (as pictured below).
• Write a comment (which will be sent as an instant email to the inbox of the person managing the poll and made public to all participants on the scheduling board).

• Each participant will see the scheduler like the image below (if the poll results settings are open / not secret).
• Each participant will be able to enter his / her name and click on available time slots, once to confirm available and twice for tentative.
• Notice the tally of votes for confirmed and tentative availability (next to the 'send' button. 
• Notice the green vertical bars that highlight dates in green when dates are confirmed versus yellow when dates are tentative

Based on the settings above, each participant can change his / her original entries. To do this, they must revisit the page which will usually recognize them. For instance, Peter (a participant in the calendar poll pictured below) can click on the edit icon (the image of a pencil) next to his name. Failing this, Peter (or anyone else) may enter a new entry by clicking the '+'.

Unlike other participants, the poll's manager has the option to select the final time slot (in the top section of the calendar poll, as highlighted below.

By default, the system suggests the best time and places a star there (like 8 to 8:15 am on 30th October below). However, you may select a time for which there are tentative responses (like 8:30 to 8:45 am, 26th October).

You can simply send an email that manually advises the date or post it on a public messaging board. Note the time zone written on the screen. Alternatively, you can send the results to everyone using the following selections.

• More (below the 'choose final option' button highlighted above)
• Print
• copy and paste the URL into an email for everyone to visit

CONTENT RELATED TO USING DOODLE TO SCHEDULE MEETINGS

• Use this tool as part of the onboarding process of new employees. Your new recruits can meet with onboarding buddies and the rest of your virtual team.
• Apart from using Doodle for polling times for upcoming meetings, you can use Doodle for polling anything. For instance, if you are catering an event and need to know how much of each item to prepare, you can use Doodle to ask attendees to select their meal preferences