Appointment scheduling service Calendly has redesigned its browser extension in a bid to improve its appointment management features and streamline scheduling.
The new extension, available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Outlook, has a 'Meetings' tab that hosts your meetings and allows you to join, cancel or reschedule them. However, it only shows meetings booked through Calendly. The company said it will explore expanding the extension's functionality based on customer feedback.
There's also a new 'Contacts' tab that allows you to see your upcoming meetings with the people who are in them, as well as your meeting history with them.
The extension also allows you to share links to different types of meetings (longer or shorter meetings, for example) or instantly book a follow-up call with someone in the current meeting.
Image credits: calendar
Calendly is also expanding its overall feature set. The service now allows users to book multiple meetings at a time and even prioritize one meeting over another. You still need to prioritize your meetings manually, but the company said it's considering adding some sort of intelligence to provide suggestions to help with prioritization.
Calendly also introduces a team feature that allows members of the sales or marketing teams to book a call on behalf of their teammates. To do this, teammates must give the group permission to edit their calendars.
Image credits: calendar
The company said that with this extension, along with integrations to tools like Gmail and LinkedIn, it aims to reduce the amount of time people spend switching between websites and apps.
Looking beyond programming
Calendly Chief Product Officer Stephen Hsu told TechCrunch in an interview that Calendly aims to evolve beyond scheduling and become a useful product throughout the entire meeting lifecycle. In particular, he noted that the company wants to focus on helping people prepare for meetings and providing information during and after meetings.
Hsu also said the company wants to enter the meeting transcription space. “We have customers who use tools like Otter or Zoom Assistant, but they don't necessarily integrate easily and are managed separately,” he said.
Hsu said the company wants to give users more information about attendees and the meeting agenda by gaining insight through its integrations with platforms like Salesforce and LinkedIn. Additionally, Calendly could also incorporate insights from historical meetings and action items, she added.
Currently, you must open the web app to take notes with Calendly. The company wants to move this feature to an easily accessible location like the extension, Hsu said.
Tools like Notion Calendar, Vimcal, Akiflowand Amie have made it easy for users to provide their availability in all time zones. Calendly said she is looking to revamp her guest experience and make it easier to book meetings across time zones.
Using ai to make meeting tools smarter
There are many meeting-related tools, from large corporations like Zoom to startups like Limitless (formerly Rewind ai) that aim to leverage ai to better understand the information generated during meetings.
Calendly also wants to leverage ai to improve its product. The company said it wants to create a model that can leverage meeting data along with insights from systems like CRM platforms to provide a more complete picture of a meeting.
“If we have a world where we can create a model that allows the user to access any type of information throughout the entire meeting lifecycle from anywhere, whether it's in Slack or a new conversational interface in Calendly, that will be super powerful. “Hsu said.
