Tungle.blog

Getting Meetings Booked – Reminder feature

Let’s face facts:  sometimes, people forget.  They get busy, distracted or just have an off day.  Maybe they opened your invitation, but then a call came in and they forgot to reply.  It happens, it’s forgivable, but at the end of the day (or preferably before), your meeting still has to get booked.

That’s where the reminder feature comes in.  Here’s how it works:

• Sign in to Tungle
• Go to your Management tab
• Click “My meetings”
• Select the meeting that’s still pending
• Look for invitees with a “remind” link net to their names, which means they have not yet replied
• Click “remind” and confirm

Each person you send a reminder to gets an email like this (click to enlarge):

The email only goes to the person you selected, and they only get it one time.

A good idea is to take a minute each morning to check on any pending meetings you have and see who hasn’t replied yet.

Have pending meetings right now?  Sign into your account and see who hasn’t replied.

Not a Tungler?  Get a free account here.

Scheduling made easy – For everyone

When you send a meeting invitation, people who receive it should know what to do right away and be able to easily reply.  That's why we are constantly looking for ways to simplify all aspects of Tungle – for you, and for people you invite.  After all, scheduling should be the easiest part of everyone's day.

In response to your feedback, here are a few recent Tungle changes we've made to keep it simple:

• Email meeting invitations are clean, concise and look like regular text emails (there are no images).
• Instructions on the meeting page are just one line, and easy to understand.
• If an invitee selects only one time and clicks submit, a notification will prompt them to choose more times and remind them that this will give others flexibility and get the meeting booked faster.

Many of you have also noted that when you propose times in other weeks, people you invite sometimes don't notice that they can scroll through the calendar for more possible times.  We want to let you know that we are on the case and will be making the "more times" tab much more obvious very soon.

In the meantime, a quick and simple solution is to include a message in the comments section indicating that there are times in the coming weeks to choose from.  We've noticed that the personal message is the first thing people see in their email meeting invitations, and appreciate introductions, personal greetings and even simple instructions in this message.

If you have feedback, or suggestions for how Tungle can be even easier, please let us know.

If you'd like to see what Tungle looks like to people you invite, click to enlarge the image below.  You’ll notice the comments section and “more times” tabs are circled.

Not a Tungler?  Get a free account here >

How to Break the Extra Business Habit and Keep Meetings on Track

It never fails.  You’re at the end of a meeting and you ask the question, “Does anyone have anything to add?”  The flood gates open.

The problem – ‘Extra business’ wastes time.  It leads to unguided discussions outside your scheduled agenda.  There’s no time limit because there’s no next item to move on to, and there’s no outline to keep the discussion on track, which often leads to arguments,.

The solution – Don’t allow it.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Unfortunately, old habits die hard, and getting out of the extra business habit may not be so simple. 

The key is to offer an alternative and make sure it’s understood that you’re not ignoring people’s concerns, you’re simply getting them onto an organized schedule, which will be more efficient, save time for everyone, and allow each discussion topic the structure it deserves.

Here are a few tips to get out of an old habit and into a new one:

Before the meeting

• Have attendees submit topics.  Set a deadline (date & time).
• Create a meeting agenda with brief outlines and time limits for each topic.  This keeps everyone on track, and discourages tangents.
• Send the agenda a few hours before the meeting so everyone knows what’s on it, and what’s not.
• When you send the agenda, remind attendees of your new strategy, and that this meeting is now closed for new submissions.

During the meeting

• Before starting, announce that the meeting will be agenda-only.  Remind attendees once again that if they have additional business, they can submit it later for the next meeting.
• Stick to the agenda.  If it starts to veer off topic, get everyone back on track as quickly as possible.
• If someone interjects with another topic, acknowledge the topic and ask them to email you later with the points they’d like to discuss.
• Close the meeting by repeating when and how other topics can be submitted for the next meeting.  This makes it clear that the meeting is now over, and discourages extra business from being brought up.

After the meeting

• Send an email to your attendees thanking them for their participation.  Remind them, yet again, that you are open to topic suggestions – they simply have to be submitted by the next deadline.

If it seems like a lot of repeating, it is.  If you’re determined to keep your meetings on track, you have to be committed to the change and get everyone else on board too.  Be ready to repeat, repeat and repeat!

Put it into action:

• Sign into your account and schedule a new meeting
• Not a Tungler yet?  Sign up for a free account >

NEW: Send Personal Emails & Free-Up Busy Times

Because of your feedback, Tungle recently made 2 exciting updates:

1. Email meeting invitations are simpler and have very little Tungle branding
2. You can now free-up your busy times if a new meeting comes up that is more important.

Personal Emails

Before, when you sent meeting invitations through Tungle, your contacts received emails with a Tungle header.

However, many of you felt that it made the email look impersonal.  Some even felt it could look like spam to recipients, and would prevent them from replying.

In response to your feedback, we simplified the email template.  Your contacts now receive a text-only email that puts your personal message front and center.  The Tungle name is still there, but in a small footer.

See the before and after (click to enlarge):

Before

After

See it in action > Sign in to your account and send yourself an invite!

Free-Up Busy Times

Before, when you proposed times over already booked meetings, Tungle would automatically pull your busy times out of meeting invitations to prevent conflicts.  But sometimes, you may want to offer a time slot, even though it is already booked.

Now, Tungle allows you to free-up your busy times if a new meeting takes priority.

Let’s look at an example:

You’ve scheduled lunch with a friend tomorrow.  But you wake up that morning and get an email from a client who absolutely needs to meet you right away.  This meeting is very important and you would be willing to cancel lunch if that time works for your client.  Now, you can simply propose that time along with many other times, and Tungle will open that spot for your client to choose from.

It’s easy to do – when scheduling a new meeting in Tungle, simply propose times over meetings already in your calendar.  Tungle will take care of the rest.  

Note:  A little warning icon will appear on meetings you are “over-riding” – This is just to make you aware that you are making yourself available even though your calendar says you are busy.

See an example of the icon (click to enlarge):

See it in action > Sign in to your account and test it out!

If you have ideas, feedback or feature requests, send them to support@tungle.com.

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