I'd like to allow invitees to choose meeting durations

  • 18 November 2023
  • 27 replies
  • 2135 views
E
Userlevel 1

Hey all. I generally love Calendly, but one missing feature bugs me. For some meeting types, I want to allow invitees to choose the duration of the meeting, within some choices I specify, sort of like this:

Calendly support suggested this:

The problem is, I already have multiple event types (Client, Prospect, Student, Client including evenings and weekends, Student extended hours etc.) If I clone all these events to allow for 45 / 60 / 90 / 120 min meetings, I will end up with an unwieldy list of way too many event types. Then if you need to edit an event, you also need to remember to edit all the various duration instances of the same meetings. It’s wildly inefficient and unruly.

Is there any reason you could see why Calendly is not letting us specify these choices for SOME meeting types?

For Calendly employees reading this: Is this feature in the works? If not, why not? 

27 replies

Kelsi at Calendly
Rank
Userlevel 7

Hey @E28808 - thanks so much for this thorough breakdown of your feature request. I LOVE seeing your use case drawn up for us in this way and truly appreciate it.

While this is not a feature I can make happen for you right now, I will make sure our product team puts eyes on this and considers it for future updates.

In the meantime, I have a work around to suggest that might help you out!

While you would still ultimately need to clone your event types and change the duration, offering a version of each event type with each desired duration - you do not have to send your open booking link to every invitee and allow them to pick from that plethora of event types.

What you could do instead is create a Calendly routing form. Routing forms let you request information such as industry, company size, specific interests, etc. from website visitors and automatically direct them to a specific scheduling or web page based on their responses. It's great for screening and qualifying sales leads on a website or matching clients or students to the booking page of the right subject-matter expert based on their interests, program, or other criteria. You can read more about setting up routing forms, here!

On your routing form you could ask a couple of questions, like “How long would you like to meet?” with several options to choose from and “What topic would you like to discuss?” or “What meeting type are you interested in booking?” with a list of your event type titles to choose from. Then, based on their answers, each invitee would be auto-routed to the appropriate event type booking page for booking! This means they would never even have to set eyes on your main booking page with all of the options you have to choose from. You could even choose to make all duplicate events “secret” so they don’t appear when you do share your booking link, and only invitees booking via the routing form have the additional options to be routed to! 

I truly do believe this is a great answer to your issue in the now - while we work on collecting feedback and implementing new features in the future! Let me know if you have any questions. =) I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, if you celebrate! 🦃

Kelsi - Calendly Community
I

I also would like this feature.  There are occasions where you can only specify one link, and I would like that link to be a “15, 30 or 60-minute meeting”.  When creating this type of event, it would need to have up to three distinct durations that are allowed to be chosen.  Then the user would see a radio button to select exactly one of the three durations.

 

Update: OK, reading the answer above, I tried out the routing solution and it works really well. It means it is a two-stage thing, but I think that works OK.

jillian
Rank
Userlevel 6

Hi @Ian48816!

Glad to hear the routing options works for you, but I’ll make sure I add your feedback as well.

R
Userlevel 1

Adding my voice to the chorus asking for this variable duration feature!! Please, please, put your developers on this task.

I am a solo clergyperson at a small congregation, and I use Calendly (successfully and happily) for many educational and pastoral functions.  But I really wish there were an easy way for congregants to indicate--without having to go through multiple steps and forms, which deters many older and less tech-savvy folks--how long they expect it’ll take when they book a pastoral conversation with me, or a consultation for an upcoming life cycle event, or a rabbi visit to their Hebrew school classroom, etc. 

Beyond how this would vastly improve the flow and user experience generally, it would also help minimize some of the power imbalance that people can feel when requesting my time.  I feel bad holding the unilateral ability to pre-determine how long the interaction “should” last--which can in turn make congregants feel bad if their expectations don’t match that duration, making them feel rushed, judged, or overwhelmed.

Kelsi at Calendly
Rank
Userlevel 7

Adding my voice to the chorus asking for this variable duration feature!! Please, please, put your developers on this task.

I am a solo clergyperson at a small congregation, and I use Calendly (successfully and happily) for many educational and pastoral functions.  But I really wish there were an easy way for congregants to indicate--without having to go through multiple steps and forms, which deters many older and less tech-savvy folks--how long they expect it’ll take when they book a pastoral conversation with me, or a consultation for an upcoming life cycle event, or a rabbi visit to their Hebrew school classroom, etc. 

Beyond how this would vastly improve the flow and user experience generally, it would also help minimize some of the power imbalance that people can feel when requesting my time.  I feel bad holding the unilateral ability to pre-determine how long the interaction “should” last--which can in turn make congregants feel bad if their expectations don’t match that duration, making them feel rushed, judged, or overwhelmed.

Hello, @RabbiJDN - I greatly appreciate the description of your use case and will absolutely add your feedback to this along with the others. I wish that I could put the developers on this task for you immediately! I hope you have a wonderful weekend. 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
L

hello, I want to add my request too. I am showing you my example to indicate it to the development team. I come for a head massage which can last 20 mins, 40 mins or 60 mins and getting the option of choice would be much easier for clients when booking. I also use an online store to sell my massages in the form of gift vouchers and this one offers 3 duration options, this would allow me to standardize my online offers. Thank you for listening and I hope to see this possibility soon. In the meantime I'll look at the routing forms.

Kelsi at Calendly
Rank
Userlevel 7

hello, I want to add my request too. I am showing you my example to indicate it to the development team. I come for a head massage which can last 20 mins, 40 mins or 60 mins and getting the option of choice would be much easier for clients when booking. I also use an online store to sell my massages in the form of gift vouchers and this one offers 3 duration options, this would allow me to standardize my online offers. Thank you for listening and I hope to see this possibility soon. In the meantime I'll look at the routing forms.

Thanks so much for your use case, here! I understand completely why an ability to add multiple duration choices to your massages would be beneficial. For now, the solution of creating one event type for each duration and using routing forms will be excellent for you! I will include your feedback for our product team, as well! I hope you have a wonderful New Year. 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
P

It is pretty embarrassing that Calendly doesn’t have this feature in a straightforward way… Any update on when we can expect this fairly basic feature?

 

 

R

Also chiming in to support my need for this. I’m an accessibility consultant and sometimes sessions take 15 minutes, sometimes they take 2 hours. I’m sort of caught between a rock and a hard place because Calendly is actually really accessible for screen reading software, and as an accessibility consultant, I care deeply whether or not the products I use are accessible. Unfortunately, I also can’t afford a teams subscription to use the routing forms method. Really hope this functionality gets added soon, but in the meantime I’ll be looking at other scheduling platforms.

Kelsi at Calendly
Rank
Userlevel 7

Also chiming in to support my need for this. I’m an accessibility consultant and sometimes sessions take 15 minutes, sometimes they take 2 hours. I’m sort of caught between a rock and a hard place because Calendly is actually really accessible for screen reading software, and as an accessibility consultant, I care deeply whether or not the products I use are accessible. Unfortunately, I also can’t afford a teams subscription to use the routing forms method. Really hope this functionality gets added soon, but in the meantime I’ll be looking at other scheduling platforms.

Thank you so much for the explanation of your use case. While I cannot make promises about if/when a new feature might be implemented based on user feedback I can assure you that your voice is being heard! We will include all of this feedback (from everyone commenting in this thread) in our reports for the product team to consider for future updates. 

In the meantime, if routing is not an option for you, you might consider creating an event type for each duration you’d like to offer. So, in your case, it might look like: 

  • “Accessibility Consultation: 15 minutes” 
  • “Accessibility Consultation: 30 minutes”
  • “Accessibility Consultation: 1 hour” 
  • “Accessibility Consultation: 90 minutes” and
  • “Accessibility Consultation: 2 hours”

Then, each of these event type options will appear on your main Calendly booking page (read more here: Share Your Calendly Link) for invitees to choose from. I know this does not entirely resolve your issue, but hopefully the info helps a bit! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
C

Missing the basic and essential feature of being able to select meeting duration time is a total deal breaker for me. I just completely wasted my time setting up an account. The workarounds are completely moronic and so is missing the feature for selecting the meeting duration in a single field on the form. Such a simple thing to do. WHY is this missing it’s like an hours worth of work?

R

Completely agree with the above. The absence of this feature is purely to push people to a paid plan. The above suggestions Kelsi gave were still for a paid plan lol. I would even pay for a lifetime subscription, but nope, all tech based companies are switching to software as a service, which I refuse to give into. People like me who aren’t willing to pay are probably still the minority, so I’m sure Calendly is making bank from enterprises who can afford the subscription with all the functionality. 

R

I really need this feature too

P

Any update on this feature? 

 

Would be super helpful. 

P

Missing the basic and essential feature of being able to select meeting duration time is a total deal breaker for me. I just completely wasted my time setting up an account. The workarounds are completely moronic and so is missing the feature for selecting the meeting duration in a single field on the form. Such a simple thing to do. WHY is this missing it’s like an hours worth of work?

There must be deeper logic here because from an implementation perspective this should be trivial. 

 

As an otherwise happy customer would love a direct fix or workaround. 

Kelsi at Calendly
Rank
Userlevel 7

@Richmond82627 and @Peter - thanks for adding your desire to see this feature to the topic! I will make sure that is included in our monthly feedback report and can promise that our product team has been made aware of this feature request - and how popular it is. We want your voices to be heard, and they are being heard! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
G

Hi,

 

Yes please, add this feature ASAP! Really usefull. 

 

Thank in advance. 

G

+1 on this request.  It was one of the first things I tried to configure after signup and couldn’t believe it’s not one of the basic options. 

T

+1 on this request.  It was one of the first things I tried to configure after signup and couldn’t believe it’s not one of the basic options.

(yes I’m lazy on this sunday)

J

You can try this instead which is in the booking option.

 

jillian
Rank
Userlevel 6

Hi @juggernad,

Appreciate the approach there! The downside to that approach is that it doesn’t actually change the event that’s booked unless you - the host - want to go in and manually update it. So in this example, your 15 minute meeting remains 15 minutes for both you and your invitee(s) until the event is changed on your native calendar.

M

I want to jump in on this one as well.  Having one invite for all would be ideal.  I can already offer multiple location options (zoom, face to face or let client decide) but nothing on the time.  

 

I do not want this topic to fade before a solution (other than the routing) is available.  To be perfectly honest, already searching for another product that has this feature.  

W

++++++++

T

Completely agree that this is needed. This will help so much for the sole traders with streamlining our booking processes without needed to upgrade to teams.

A

+1!!

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