Research shows that people spend an average of 30 mins to schedule a meeting.

The other research shows there are average 8 meetings per week in all kinds of organizations.

If you add up both of the above facts, it is 4 hours a week. These many hours to just schedule a meeting!

Managers often struggle to schedule meetings, especially when the invitees are from different teams and time zones. It is a struggle to find the right time for everyone’s availability.

Even scheduling a meeting with customers (non-CRM users) is a difficult task. But we have a solution to all your problems. Our Dynamics Calendar is something that can vanish all your troubles.

Suppose you do not know who in your company needs a calendar. Keep reading!

Who can use the Calendar 365 plugin?

Any organization using Dynamics 365 can use the Calendar 365 plugin. However, not all departments of your organization are facing significant challenges without a calendar. But there will be sales, marketing, or other departments for whom the calendar would be a revolutionary integration. Firstly, you need to figure out who in your organization seriously needs a calendar. Once you know that, you can subscribe to the yearly model. We help with all the integration processes along with support. We will be by your side until you understand the product well.

The next question is why you should use a calendar. What are the challenges that a calendar can help you resolve? Let’s find out.

Challenges faced while scheduling a meeting and Solutions

1. Do you struggle while managing your daily activities?

Your employees have many minor and major tasks to complete in a day. Sometimes, minor tasks take up so much time that you do not realize where half of the day goes. You would not be left with enough time to complete the major tasks at the end of the day.

Solution: That is why proper planning is required. Planning your day wisely can make your day more productive. We suggest you create tasks for all kinds of activities that you need to do in a day. Create tasks for minor tasks as well. With our Dynamics 365 Calendar, it is easy to create activities. The calendar fetches data from the CRM, making it extremely easy to create a task. You can also add birthdays and any other events and never miss a chance to celebrate.

2. How do you manage your employees’ availability?

Assigning tasks to your team is not as easy as it looks. You have to check their availability and, at the same time, ensure all tasks with high priority are completed on time. It includes a lot of back and forth as the managers must keep checking their team’s availability and then assign the task accordingly.

Solution: To resolve this issue, our calendar has features that can help you handle your resources to resolve this issue. It allows users to add leave requests from the calendar itself. The approver can approve it from within the calendar. As you can know their availability from the calendar, it becomes easy to check while assigning tasks. It would save you from mistakenly assigning an urgent task to someone already on leave.

3. How difficult is it to book appointments, especially with customers?

Scheduling a meeting internally might not be that difficult as you can see them or have a conversation via mail or chat. But when a customer wants to book an appointment, it becomes difficult for them to find a time that works for all. It takes a lot of email conversation to finalize a 30 mins meeting. This adds a lot of pressure on the managers, especially as they have to constantly keep checking their emails, as late replies are something that can put off your potential customer. Even internally, why should it be a struggle to book an appointment?

Solution: To resolve this issue, our team developed a feature that will help you easily schedule a meeting. This feature allows you to add your working hours or the slots that you are available. Once you add those, it will create a meeting link. You can share this link in-house and with your customers. They do not have to be a CRM user. Using the meeting link, any non-CRM user can schedule a meeting as well. Once they open the link, they can see the available time slots. They can select the one that works for them and confirm the appointment. Once a meeting is scheduled, you will be notified via an email regarding the time and person. This will nullify all the emails it took to find a time for a meeting. Anyone with a link can schedule an appointment in no time.

4. Are your team members always confused about who is working on what?

Employees find it difficult to find answers when they do not know whom to ask. This issue is raised when teams are remote. Remote culture inspired companies to hire employees from all over the globe. So when you have teammates sitting all over the globe, they might not know who is working on which task. They are not around you that you can simply ask. It creates confusion especially when multiple people are working on the same task.

Solution: The easiest way to tackle this challenge is by sharing the calendars with your teammates. Let’s say you have all your tasks added to your calendar. Now you can share this calendar with all your teammates. If they have any questions, or queries related to a topic, they can quickly come up to you. Additionally, sharing calendars helps in scheduling a meeting as well. Higher management is primarily busy in meetings. If you want to set up a meeting with someone always busy in meetings, you can check their schedule and find a spot for yourself. Hence, shareable calendars are the perfect solution to have everyone on the same page. If anyone has any questions related to their task, they can ask to their teammates who were working on the same task. It also builds a competitive environment amongst teammates, which must improve their productivity.

5. Do you have everything added up in one calendar?

Calendars are helpful for simplifying your day by dividing your day into small slots. But, you are defeating its purpose if you pile it up with random tasks or activities. There will be a lot of confusion if you had everything added to one calendar. Especially different types of activities. At the end of the day, you would not know how much you could accomplish.

Solution: If one calendar creates confusion, make multiple calendars. Our calendar allows you to save multiple calendars with the same or different entities. You can create those calendars with different filters. You can color-code them to have a better visualization. Thus, it will help when you want to know details about just one type of task.

6. Do you set only meeting reminders?

Most employees use calendars as a reminder for meetings. Calendars are the best way to manage your daily tasks, not just meetings. You should not be struggling to complete your task because you lose track of time.

Solution: Why use a feature just to remind you before a meeting when you can use the same for different purposes? You can set reminders for tasks, especially the high priority ones. If you have a reminder, you will not have to rush at the end of the day. Reminders will keep you updated, and you will have your day sorted. You receive reminders in front of pop up and emails. You can decide the time of notification; how much prior you want it. Our calendar allows you to view custom or Google Calendar holidays and events. You do not need to manage multiple tools to get different things. It is a one-stop solution to all your problems and requirements.

Appjetty has closely worked with customers over the years, and we understand your challenges. If you relate to these challenges, you can contact us, and our team would be happy to help you. You can share your requirements with us, and we will help you find the right solution for you. If you have any custom requirements, developers will make it happen. Let’s have a call..

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This article is originally published on:
https://www.appjetty.com/blog/meeting-scheduling-dynamics365-calendar/