Scheduling and more with Moreganize

Mark Gibbs' Web site tips, plus network applications news headlines

In a couple of recent editions of this newsletter I discussed free services that allow you to schedule meetings for groups of people so that their different availabilities could be accommodated.

Today I have yet another free scheduling service that raises the bar a bit higher: Moreganize.

Moreganize is (so far) the best of this group, combining a slick presentation with time slots (arbitrary blocks of time that can match actual meeting durations) and the ability for attendees to edit their responses.

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In a couple of recent editions of this newsletter I discussed free services that allow you to schedule meetings for groups of people so that their different availabilities could be accommodated.

Today I have yet another free scheduling service that raises the bar a bit higher: Moreganize.

Moreganize is (so far) the best of this group, combining a slick presentation with time slots (arbitrary blocks of time that can match actual meeting durations) and the ability for attendees to edit their responses.

Registration requires minimal personal data and you can immediately create a Web form that attendees can use to indicate their availability.

Allow me to digress for a moment and note that in your account Preferences section Moreganize provides a feature that allows you to delete your own account. Excellent! This may not sound like a big deal but actually it is – registered users should always be able to delete their accounts along with all personal data and be automatically removed from all future mailings.

For Web applications this feature is a courtesy that shows that you have thought through your responsibilities to your users. Will it make a huge difference to your success or failure? Probably not at a make or break level but it will help those of us who notice such things to feel positive about what you’re doing and more ready to recommend your service. And should we ever get serious privacy legislation in the U.S. the ability for users to have their personal data deleted may become a requirement.

Anyway, once you have created an appointment survey, Moreganize provides you with a link to the survey’s admin page and another link that you can e-mail to attendees – these links are also sent to the admin’s e-mail address. In addition there’s the facility to have the invitees e-mailed directly by Moreganize.

You can select a deadline after which you and all attendees will be notified, in addition, you can indicate that a notification should be sent to you when a specific number of attendees have responded and whether you want to be notified on each response.

When an attendee clicks on the link you send them they are taken to the appointment survey page where they enter their name and e-mail address (which is kept private from all other attendees). They can then select which dates and times work for them and which are the selections they prefer. When they confirm their choices a page is displayed that offers them the opportunity to return and correct their details. If they have entered their e-mail address correctly they will be sent a link so that they can return to their response later and make changes if necessary.

The admin page is nicely laid out and summarizes which slots have been selected by how many attendees, making it fairly easy to choose the time slot that fits the most people.

You can delete the appointment survey or change it’s details, and when you select a slot as the definitive meeting time you can have Moreganize help you create text for an invitation and e-mail it to all of the attendees (you can also add additional addresses) along with an iCal calendar file.

Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, columnist and blogger.