Not so new but Calendly keeps it moving

Fortune magazine told the story of Nigerian Tope Awotona’s voyage to get Calendly off the ground. Fast forward a few years and the app is a global business staple.

For years, I have used Microsoft, Yahoo and Google products for scheduling meetings. The choice between the three options was made based on whom I was inviting to a meeting.

If the person had a Google account, I would simply send a Google mail invitation. By doing this, I was making the communication easier for my clients but making things harder on myself. The client would not have to download and import the .ics file (*this is still required in some cases!) but I would have to merge several calendars into one.

Using the multiple calendar approach became difficult to manage when business started picking up. Calendly was a welcome innovation and I learned about it when I was scheduling an interview as a trainer for another organization. I was immediately converted by the ability to do some minor setup tasks, copy and paste a link and have clients and students to schedule themselves. Today, I use Calendly for scheduling new meetings and interviews, as well as training and other public sessions.

Because there is often a payment component to my meetings, creating a meeting request via Calendly does not result in a confirmed meeting. There are some additional background processes in the workflow, including payment via Cash App. Calendly integrates with different apps, including those that collect payment. However, I use a manual approach and I’ll explain why later.

Calendly integrates with web browsers and with apps to facilitate virtual meetings, market to customers and send email. This is convenient, especially for marketing professionals.

Despite the high level of integration, I have only used a portion of the capability. Why? As always, I am concerned with cybersecurity risks. Having links to multiple accounts across multiple apps has its advantages but it has never been appealing to me. Hackers are known to exploit system and network vulnerabilities. All of the apps contain digital security but the users often have risky behaviors. For example, there are risks for accountholders when they utilize the same password across apps, or when allow the applications to store their passwords.

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In my opinion, Calendly is as good as it gets when it comes to managing a public calendar. Write me and let me know how you are using it. If you’re using another app, send that too and I will review it in a future post. Let’s share ideas!