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Question

One-off meeting name not being used as title for calendar event, why???

  • 6 February 2024
  • 16 replies
  • 688 views

In the documentation for one-off meetings there is this note,

“Note: The name of this meeting will not appear in the title of the calendar event that is created for this event. E.g. if you name this meeting “Quick Chat” that name will not appear on the calendar event. What will appear on the calendar event is nInvitee Name] and ]Host Name]. The meeting name will be shown in the body of the invitation.”

Can someone from Calendly explain to me why the calendar invite is set to “sInvitee Name] and NHost Name]” and not the event title?

I do not understand why this is “hard wired” this way as it is a horrible experience for my customers when I try to use this.

At minimum, could there not be an option that we can select whether we want the event title or this “ Invitee Name] and IHost Name]” to be the title for the calendar invite?

This seems very strange that the name of the meeting is not used as the title of the calendar invite.  Are these not the same thing?

Please help me understand.  Honestly, this single thing is preventing me from using Calendly.  If this were fixed (or a more useful option provided) I would use this service extensively!!!

Thank you for your insight!

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16 replies

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hey there, @DanS - thanks so much for your topic! I had to reach out to a colleague on our product team to make sure I provided you accurate, insightful information on this one. I appreciate the patience while I made that happen! =) 

Here is what I’ve got for you: 

The short answer is that a one-off event type works like any other event type in that the default setting shows “Invitee Name > Host Name” on the calendar event. However, other event types (one-on-one, Group Event Types, Round Robin Event Types, Collective Event Types) allow for changing this setting. A workaround, for your use case, would be to create a one-on-one event type rather than a One-Off Meeting and create single-use links, while also making that event type secret (if need be). This way, you can change the title of the event that appears on calendars and still functionally use a one-off event (sort of)! You might also be interested in our Customize Once and Share feature - check it out at the link to learn more! 
Longer answer: The “event type name” exists as the name that appears on the booking page. Using that as the event name would have the host’s calendar have many meetings with the same name (e.g. “Quick Chat”). To help both parties more quickly remember who they’re meeting with, the default event name has both parties in the title. But, this can be changed (for event types) in communications under “calendar invitation.”

Just in case you aren’t aware - I’ll also show you how to update the name (title) of an event type (other than one-off meetings) within the event type settings, below! 

 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
D

Thank you for your quick response.  I see how using the one-to-one allows you to change the event name but then I lose the ability to specify the specific times for the event since it uses the block schedule availability.

How I would love to use your platform is to utilize the one-off event, have it utilize the name that I give it, and then be able to specify the specific times I want to offer the invitee.  The fact that I can see my calendar in the interface, select available time slots that are most appropriate and then send the calendly invite and allow the invitee to choose which time works best is POWERFUL!!!  The sugar on top is that all of the options I propose have a hold put on my calendar until the invitee selects one, then the holds are removed.  This automation alone is worth the subscription price.  Unfortunately, this weird event title on the calendar invite issue is keeping me from using the Calendly platform at all.

It just strikes me as strange that the calendar invite title is editable for everything other than a one-off.  Why no flexibility there?  Your point about changing the invite title for the “Quick Chat” templated meetings makes sense, but every one-off meeting is likely going to have a unique name, why not use that instead of a derived name of the invitees (which is not the topic of the meetings in my case).
This would be soooo powerful for me to have this capability as explained above.  Unfortunately, without this flexibility, I will need to continue to manage my calendar manually. :-(

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hey there, again, @DanS! Firstly - I do want to clarify a few things!

  1. You do not lose the ability to specify the time block when using a one-on-one event type! It just looks a bit different. You can do this a couple of ways. Firstly, when setting your Availability Schedules you can choose to use “date specific hours.” Secondly, you can use our Customize Once and Share feature when sharing an event with a single invitee (this functions nearly exactly like a One-Off Meeting) - also setting a date specific hours time block and sharing with that invitee! 
  2. I very much appreciate your feedback on the One-Off Meeting feature, and will make sure to include it in our monthly report for the product team!

I hope this helps! Please let me know if I can further assist - I’ll be here alllll day! :) 

 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
D

Thank you for the additional information. I took some time to go through that option and I ran into a few kinks that would not allow the optional path to work for my use cases.

To better explain how I wish to use the Calendly platform I have recorded a video showing how I am using the one-off meetings, which are PERFECT except for event title not being the calendar invite title.

I also contrasted that with the workaround you recommended to show how that does not work well.

I hope this context helps.  Please let me know if there is any chance this can be incorporated into the product.  If this were to work, I know for a fact that a HUGE portion of my sales team (over 7000 world wide) would die for access to Calendly.

 

 

Thank you!!!

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hey again @DanS! Thank you SO much for this thorough walkthrough of your use case. I truly appreciate it. I do want to let you know that something must have gone wrong as you recorded - there is no sound in your video! I double checked by trying in two browsers and played another few YouTube videos really quickly to ensure it wasn’t my computer - and it’s just the video you provided lacking sound. You can try Loom for free if that might be easier! It’s the screen recording tool we use often, here, for video tutorials you might notice me posting (for example). 

I also have to make it clear that I cannot promise anything in regards to if or when our product team might implement new features. However, I will ensure that your feedback and feature request are included in our monthly report. Our product team is always considering user feedback when making decisions to improve Calendly as a whole. I do wish I had more to offer and am sorry we aren’t able to figure out a better solution for you right now!

Please let me know if you have any other questions - and feel free to repost your video so we can listen and share with product! =) 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
D

I did not record any audiio as I annotated throughout the entire video with the red text to explain the process and other information.  I was not in a spot that I could do a voiceover, so I went with text instead.

Let me know what kind of beer the product manager likes if that would help encourage the update :-)

A
Userlevel 1

I would like to second this request. The one-off creation flow asks the user to input an event title; it should follow that the calendar event name be titled the same.

D

I’m not following you jeremymichels.

A title is being created for the event regardless of any integration. All I want is for Calendly to use the title I set (which they are putting into the body of the invite, so the data object is there) instead of one they generate which is contextually irrelevant for the use cases I have making the service unusable for some simple use cases.

 

Plus, I am using the Calendly interface for my use case as shown in the video so I am not sure that integrations are really part of the issue at all. Feels more like a developer oversight. 

O

Hi Kelsi,

I’ve been running into the same issue as DanS and Ami78411. Can you explain why it defaults to the Invitee as the Event title? That seems hard-coded and not very user friendly. In addition, it uses the invitee name which isn’t too helpful for the invitee when it appears on their calendar. 

Attempting to force the “one-to-one” event type sounds like a hack. 

I do enjoy Calendly and think its pretty wonderful, but the Event title thing is beyond me and a friction point for your product that seems easily solvable.

Thanks,

Owen

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

I’m not following you jeremymichels.

A title is being created for the event regardless of any integration. All I want is for Calendly to use the title I set (which they are putting into the body of the invite, so the data object is there) instead of one they generate which is contextually irrelevant for the use cases I have making the service unusable for some simple use cases.

 

Plus, I am using the Calendly interface for my use case as shown in the video so I am not sure that integrations are really part of the issue at all. Feels more like a developer oversight. 

I am so sorry for the confusion. The user you responded to was posting spam and has been banned from the community. Please disregard what they said! I think they were using a tool to pull from what I and others had already commented, spitting it back out like it was their own comment. They’re gone now! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hi Kelsi,

I’ve been running into the same issue as DanS and Ami78411. Can you explain why it defaults to the Invitee as the Event title? That seems hard-coded and not very user friendly. In addition, it uses the invitee name which isn’t too helpful for the invitee when it appears on their calendar. 

Attempting to force the “one-to-one” event type sounds like a hack. 

I do enjoy Calendly and think its pretty wonderful, but the Event title thing is beyond me and a friction point for your product that seems easily solvable.

Thanks,

Owen

Hey there! I appreciate your feedback here and will make sure it’s also included for our product team to look over in our monthly report! To date, the information I have already provided in the comments in this thread is all I have to offer as far as the “why” behind the way this works goes. 

Your thoughts on this matter to me and to us - and they will definitely be heard by more than just me! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
D

Thank you for staying so close to this thread, @Kelsi at Calendly!

From your perspective, is there any additional information that we, as users, could provide that would be beneficial to the product development team?

Product development is my line of work, so I understand the complexity of managing priority of the development team.  Anything that I can do to provide additional clarity on the request, count me in!

 

Thanks again!

Dan

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hey again @DanS - thanks for asking (and for your understanding)! 

Let me ping @SchedulingSteve to see if he can offer any insight re: what specific feedback might be most valuable in this case. 

He should be able to let us know, and you can comment from there! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Thank you for staying so close to this thread, @Kelsi at Calendly!

From your perspective, is there any additional information that we, as users, could provide that would be beneficial to the product development team?

Product development is my line of work, so I understand the complexity of managing priority of the development team.  Anything that I can do to provide additional clarity on the request, count me in!

 

Thanks again!

Dan

Hey there again, Dan! Please be on the lookout for an email from a member of our team to chat about this! We are excited for the opportunity to learn more from you and discuss. Thanks! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
D

Fantastic!!  I am excited to help however I can.

 

Again, thank you for being so engaged in this community! 

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Fantastic!!  I am excited to help however I can.

 

Again, thank you for being so engaged in this community! 

Thank YOU for being so engaged! Have a great day! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
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