Me Looking also for the answer.

Hey all! Of course, I’d be happy to help here. For users who want to setup alternating dates for a lunch and learn, I’ve included some steps below on how to set this up!

First, you’ll want to create the event (You can choose the One-on-one event type if you’d like it to be with one other person, or the Group event type if you’d like it to be with multiple)

Once you have your event created, you can add the name and the location of the event like normal. Once this is done, to setup the dates, you’ll need to go into your Scheduling Settings option here:

Once here, select the option below Hours and Calendar Settings, and set available hours to Custom Hours:
 

Once its set to Custom Hours, go ahead and remove any Weekly hours to prevent those times from appearing. Afterwards, select the Add date-specific hours option to select every other wednesday, and to adjust the time for those dates:

Once this is done, you can save and apply all of these options and send it to your clients or vendors. They will be able to book those Wednesdays (Or any other days you choose) from there! Let us know if you have any other questions. 

Currently I have a “free” account. Do I need to upgrade to Standard in order to have this option?

Hi ​@Dena41680! This option is available to anyone that has a Calendly account, including free accounts! 

I get this when I click on Create New Event>Group.  I can’t get past this prompt.

My apologies for the confusion - Using Date-specific hours like I described is available on each plan. However using the Group event type is available on our Standard plan and above. You can read more about our paid plans here: https://calendly.com/pricing

You’ll still have access to one-on-one events, and users can add up to ten guests when booking. But the Group Event is only available on our paid plans.

If I understand correctly, if I am wanting to send to multiple vendors for them to each choose a date, I will need to do that as a Group event type. It’s first come - first serve for each of them to choose a date.

Yes thats correct - However one potential workaround you can use is by utilizing the Add Guests feature on the One-on-one events. This way, any invitee that signs up for a slot can add up to 10 other users for the same time. This is a good alternative in case you don’t want multiple vendors accidentally choosing the same slot.

Let me know if you have any questions!

I want only one vendor for each date. So, what you are saying is that I need the Standard plan and not the free plan, correct?

I think either plan could suit you in this case. If you’d like to prevent more than one vendor signing up for each date, I think the one-on-one event would be a great case for this. You can have multiple days open through a single booking page, but you would only be able to have one booking page on the free plan.

The Standard Plan includes the Group event type, which would allow you to have more than 10 people sign up for a single slot, additionally, you can have multiple events types active at the same time like a Lunch & learn, Coffee Chats, ect. 

If you tell me more about different types of events you’d like to schedule, and what features you’re looking for, I can go a little more in depth. But based on what we discussed, this would be possible on a Free Plan through the one-on-one event type.

Currently I send an email to each individual vendor with a couple of date options, wait a couple of days for their response, then move onto the next vendor. This causes alot of back and forth with all the vendors all while more than one wanting the same date. I am looking at how to be more efficient with sending out the available dates to multiple vendors, all at one time, and them registering themselves “first come-first serve”. The schedule would be 12-1pm on alternating Wednesdays. Once a vendor registers for a date, that date should be unavailable for another vendor to register.

Great, in this case, the one-on-one event should do just fine. If you use a Group Event, it would allow multiple vendors to book at the same time, so using the one-on-one event should prevent them, but also still be able to add users from their end to the meeting if needed. They can do this after booking by adding them as a guest, or by adding them to the event on their calendar.

let me know if you have any other questions!

It would be more for the purpose of coordinating the available dates and I will send out a separate Outlook calendar invite. The vendor can add someone to the Outlook invite.

I have chosen Date-specific hours (alternating Wednesdays) but the preview is showing every Wednesday. For example, I do not want Jan 15 as an option, but it shows on the calendar.

Hi ​@Dena41680! Happy Monday! I appreciate your patience here.

In this case, the next thing you’d want to check is ensuring all weekly hours are removed from the availability page. Right above where you set Date-specific hours, you’ll have the option to set Weekly hours. In your case, since you don’t want this recurring every week, you’ll want to unselect it here:

Can you try unselecting this and let me know if it works? Thank you!

David, thank you so much for all the information! This is working out great for us!