Life is busy.
We have so many things going on, during each individual day, it becomes difficult to keep them organized–your day job(s), clients’ work, personal projects, staying on top of your industry, your personal life, daily errands, issues, email.
Luckily, there are plenty of solutions to keep yourself organized including smart phones, software and web applications, and the old fashioned pen and paper schedule books; however, if you have ever tried to fit a meeting with a client in your schedule, you know it’s enough to drive a person insane. We’ve all been through the game of email ping-pong with clients trying to find the best time and date to go over details of a project or to show them progress of their work or even for a simple progress update over the phone. Sometimes it’s the proverbial straw breaking that damn camel’s back.
Don’t you wish everybody just knew when you were available so they could schedule a meeting with you? Well, now they can.
Tungle.me is a fairly new web based scheduling application that allows all your potential clients to see when you’re available and schedule a time that will work for both of you. No more constant emailing or calling back and forth to try and connect. With Tungle.me, it truly is scheduling made easy.
Signing up for an account is free, and clients that you send to your Tungle.me page don’t need an account to schedule an appointment. To set up your calendar you’ll first create a small profile that will be displayed on your Tungle.me page which keeps the information at a minimum: your name, picture, web address, a few social links and a short message. The real magic is when you import your calendars from your desktop scheduling application (Outlook, Exchange, Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Entourage for Mac and Lotus Notes). Rather than manually input all the calendars, Tungle.me imports only the calendars you want onto your Tungle.me account. Next, you choose the times you want to be available each day and Tungle.me automatically blocks out the times you are unavailable for you so you won’t be double booked. Brilliant.
When a client goes to your Tungle.me page, they will see your profile, your calendar and only the times you have available for those specific days. They be able to give you their name, email address, a short message and choose up 6 different times so they know they’ll be able to meet with you. They specify how long the meeting will take (from a set amount of time you determine: 30 minutes to 10hours!) and then send you the message. When you get the email, go to your page and choose the time you want to meet them out of the available times and you’re done. No more back and forth trying to figure out a time to meet.
There are a few downsides to this app that I’ve found so far. One, it doesn’t factor in travel time from whatever event you have uploaded. For example, one of my calendars is my Work calendar. I have a 30 minute commute to and from this job. The only way to make sure clients don’t schedule this time is to constantly refuse this time when it’s selected, or I can block out this time from my schedule; however, if my work schedule changes from day-to-day, the latter option will not work. It’s not a big deal, but still a little frustrating.
*Another downside, and this is nitpicking, is that I don’t have an option of posting the calendar to my site yet other than with an HTML link. They are reworking their widget, but It looks like that only has the current day displayed on it and links to your calendar page (view an example here). It would be nice to have an integrated calendar like the one my friend, and brilliant photographer, Jess Nolan has on her site; however, that would mean micromanaging times taking you away from the work that makes you money.
Regardless, Tungle.me is an excellent web application that will save you time and frustration when scheduling appointments. The team is hard at work on making it as good as everyone wants it to be, so you can expect many more great updates and features coming in the future. Right now, even in its early stages, Tungle.me is a must try for all busy individuals.
*EDIT: As if the Tungle.me team read my post and answered my prayers, they released the widget which does everything I could ever ask of it. To see it in action, please take a look at my Contact page. Also, if you are looking for a photographer, you should check out Jess Nolan’s website as she is a great photographer and a wonderful person to work with (I struck out the link above so I thought I would just mention it again).
Product: Tungle.me Scheduling Software
Website: http://www.tungle.me
Tungle Me: http://tungle.me/johnkostrzewski