Doodle

Puntos a favor

It can be extremely difficult to arrange/schedule meetings, appointments, and events when multiple people are involved. But the brilliant thing about Doodle is that it does the hard work for you! Here's what I love the best:
- In a matter of a few moments, you can create a poll of options or available meeting times. I can quickly send a link to teammates, who can quickly and easily access the poll and begin to select times that work. What's more is that they can also see other times that have been selected, so I feel like they are more willing to cooperate (if that makes sense).
- This removes text or email chains that go on, and on, and on without end... until we finally come to the conclusion that there's never a good time for everyone to meet up. (After wasting a day.)
- It's absolutely free. I can't believe it. I would think they could be making money with user fees off of this fantastic idea/platform, but no - it's free!
- It's quite simple and intuitive. There aren't a lot of bells and whistles, but that's great. There doesn't need to be advanced features.
- It's easy to use for the first time. It's not overly complex.
- You are notified when responses come in, and you ultimately get to control the meeting time.
- This is somewhat random, but you can be very specific with meeting points. Want to meet at 12:02? Perfect. Want a meeting to end at 9:07... Doodle will do that, too.
- Can link or access your Gmail contacts - fabulous feature!

Puntos en contra

There's really nothing to complain about in my opinion. It's a simple designed platform that accomplishes it's goal. Some potential updates to consider would be adding "most commonly used emails," though, that would be helpful. Another idea is build in some sort of Skype, Hangouts, or FaceTime feature if an individual is unable to attend at the appointed time. I realize that gets complicated, though, and is not Doodle's problem to solve!

Puntos a favor

We've all been in a group text or email chain trying to figure out what date and times work best for everyone. It's impossible to keep track of who can meet when! That's where doodle comes in as your group's best option. Doodle allows you to create a poll with dates and/or times of your choosing. You then send that Doodle link via email or text message to your group of friends. They simply click the link, type in their name, and click on all the dates/times they can meet. Once everyone has voted, it is easy to see what dates/times work for the most amount of people.
The best thing about Doodle is that it is free for everyone. There's nothing to download. You simply click a link. After doing so, the instructions are crystal clear. There is basically no learning curve. And no one has to keep track of who said what date and what time because Doodle will present that information for you in a very simple way.
Also, you can choose whether everyone can see what dates others chose or not. You can even choose to limit the # of votes each person has if you wish to.

Puntos en contra

One of the cons is that if you want to put a deadline on your poll, you're going to have to pay for it by being a premium doodle user. This is not such a big deal because you can just tell your friends to vote by a certain date... but we all have those slackers in our groups who decide not to vote until it is already too late.
Another con is that Doodle's homepage has become increasingly cluttered as it attempts to add features to its premium users (for organizers and for businesses over 1,000 people). It's simple enough to filter through to create your poll though.

Puntos a favor

Have you ever tried to get a bunch of science professors to meet in the same room at the same time for a few hours? It's like herding cats, but luckily there is Doodle. The best part about Doodle is that I don't have to e-mail people back and forth to try to coordinate an event from multiple perspectives. Doodle eliminates ambiguity and allows everyone to see everyone else's exact availability for multiple weeks at a time which saves time and effort. It is so interesting to me that meetings can be scheduled really without any words from any of the participants, and I think that is beautiful. Bonus points for not having to try to sound really smart in multiple e-mails to people who are way smarter than you.

Puntos en contra

The calendar syncing function seems like it could be a really good idea, but I have had some trouble syncing up all of my calendars in the past and I usually can't see any of my events on there. I'm not quite sure what the function is supposed to do but there is no explanation and I felt like it was not super intuitive.

Puntos a favor

Doodle is FANTASTIC for group scheduling. I have used the free version extensively for groups of various sizes and scheduling options of various numbers, and it beats any other form of group scheduling that I've tried (although I haven't used any other scheduling softwares, only emails/texts/unfortunately lengthy conversations). When creating a Doodle, there are many customizable options for date and time combinations, and it's easy to send a quick link to participants or send it directly from Doodle's site. There are options for polls to be visible to other participants or private; the visible option is great when we're trying to fill various volunteer shifts and want people to be able to see where we need the most support! When filling out a Doodle as a participant, it helps to be able to toggle back and forth between calendar and list views for schedules (although long lists still get a bit tedious to fill out if you are using a phone instead of a browser on your computer). It's also easy to go back to the link and edit your entry if your plans change.

Puntos en contra

If you have LOTS of scheduling options to consider, it can be difficult to add all of the entries when first creating the poll. There is a helpful "duplicate" option, but it doesn't work as well if you don't have the same times available each day.

Puntos a favor

I enjoy how easy it is to use the tool to collaborate with others in order to find their availability for example. We are a lot of young people in the company I work at and Doodle is always the first step when it comes to organizing events and out of the office parties. Considering we are all busy with friends, exams and nights out Doodle makes it super easy and fast to find out a time and day that best works for all of us. The tool is very user friends and simple, there is almost no way to get confused about what you need to do even if you are not tech savvy.

Puntos en contra

My main dislike is that there is no option to change the dates with text, it would be great if I can select if we want to vote for date or venue or activity. Also, it would be better if dates on the checklist were shown at once. Of course there is the expand button, but I think it should be expanded by default when there are lot of options to choose from. Would be nice if the calendar view is improved as well, similar UI to the monthly/weekly Google Calendar type of view would be a great improvement and will also make it easier to use, and it will make the tool look less messy and unorganized.