How to Schedule a Meeting with Multiple People (5 Methods)
Scheduling a meeting with one person is easy. Scheduling with five people turns into a week-long email thread where nobody can agree on anything.
The problem isn’t that people are difficult. It’s that most approaches don’t scale past two participants. “When are you free?” works for one person. For a group, you need a system.
Here are five ways to schedule a meeting with multiple people, from simplest to most automated.
1. Use an Availability Grid
An availability grid lets everyone mark when they’re free on a shared visual grid. The overlap shows you which times work for the group — no voting, no back-and-forth.
Carly (with calendar auto-fill)
- Go to Carly’s group scheduling page
- Create a new poll — name the event and pick date/time ranges
- Share the link with everyone who needs to attend
- Participants drag-select their available times on the grid (or connect Google Calendar / Outlook to auto-fill busy times)
- The grid shows overlapping availability ranked by group coverage
- Pick the best time and send a calendar invite directly from the tool
Gray cells are auto-filled from connected calendars. Teal intensity shows group overlap.
No account needed for participants. People who don’t want to click the link can respond over email instead.
When2Meet
- Go to when2meet.com
- Name your event and select a date range
- Share the link
- Everyone paints their available times on the grid
- The heat map shows where the group overlaps
- You pick a time and manually create a calendar event
Fast and free. No login. Works best on desktop — the drag interface is hard to use on phones. No calendar integration, so everyone fills it in from memory.
LettuceMeet
Same concept as When2Meet but with a modern interface that works on mobile. Toggle between week and date views. Clean overlap visualization. No account required.
2. Send a Scheduling Poll
If you already have a few candidate times, a poll is faster than a full grid. You propose options and people vote.
Doodle
- Go to doodle.com
- Create a poll and add a meeting title
- Select 3-5 candidate date/time slots
- Share the poll link
- Participants vote yes, no, or if-need-be on each slot
- Pick the time with the most “yes” votes
Works well for groups under 8 people when you have a rough sense of timing already. The free tier is limited — one active poll, ads on every page.
Rallly (free, open-source)
Same polling model as Doodle but completely free, no ads, and open-source. Self-hostable if you want data control. Participants don’t need an account.
3. Use Calendar’s Built-In “Find a Time”
If everyone is in the same organization (Google Workspace or Microsoft 365), your calendar already has group scheduling built in.
Google Calendar
- Create a new event
- Add all attendees as guests
- Click the Find a time tab
- Google shows a timeline of everyone’s free/busy blocks
- Find a gap where no one has conflicts
- Save the event
Only works for people in your Google Workspace organization. External contacts show as “no information available.”
Outlook Scheduling Assistant
- Create a new meeting in Outlook
- Add attendees
- Click the Scheduling Assistant tab
- View the timeline showing everyone’s availability
- Find an open slot and set the time
- Send the invite
Works for anyone in your Microsoft 365 org. External participants only show availability if their organization publishes free/busy data.
4. Propose Times Over Email
Sometimes the simplest approach is the right one — especially for a one-off meeting with 3-4 people.
The key is to propose specific times instead of asking an open-ended “when works?”
Subject: Design review — picking a time
Need to get the four of us on a 30-minute call this week. Here are some options:
- Tuesday 3/4 at 10am ET
- Wednesday 3/5 at 2pm ET
- Thursday 3/6 at 11am ET
Reply with which ones work and I’ll send the invite.
Tips for making this work:
- Propose 3-4 times across different days
- Mix morning and afternoon options
- Always include the timezone
- Set a deadline: “Let me know by end of day tomorrow”
- If no single time works for everyone, go with the majority and find a separate time for the holdout
This breaks down past 5-6 people. Beyond that, use a grid or poll.
5. Let an AI Scheduling Assistant Handle It
If you coordinate group meetings regularly, you can delegate the entire process.
Carly (via email)
CC carly@usecarly.com on an email to everyone who needs to be in the meeting:
From: you@company.com To: alex@design.co, sam@agency.com, jamie@company.com CC: carly@usecarly.com Subject: Q2 planning — finding a time
Hey all, need to get us on a 45-minute call next week. Carly will help find a time that works.
Carly checks calendars, reaches out to each person, collects availability, finds the overlap, and books the meeting with a video link. If someone’s schedule changes, Carly reschedules automatically.
No poll to set up. No link to share. One email and the meeting ends up on everyone’s calendar.
Which Method Should You Use?
| Situation | Best method |
|---|---|
| 3-4 people, you don’t know their schedules | Availability grid (Carly, When2Meet) |
| 5+ people, need to find any overlap | Availability grid with calendar sync (Carly) |
| You already have 3-4 candidate times | Scheduling poll (Doodle, Rallly) |
| Everyone is in the same org | Calendar’s “Find a Time” |
| One-off meeting, small group | Email with proposed times |
| You schedule group meetings every week | AI assistant (Carly via email) |
For a one-off meeting with 3 people, an email with proposed times is fine. For anything bigger or more frequent, an availability grid saves time.
The biggest time sink in group scheduling isn’t finding the overlap — it’s getting everyone to actually respond. That’s where calendar auto-fill helps: the grid is partially filled before anyone touches it, so even if someone is slow to respond, their busy times are already accounted for.
More on scheduling: Group scheduling tools · How to find a meeting time that works · Doodle alternatives
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