Appointment scheduling service Calendly has redesigned its browser extension to improve its appointment management features and speed up appointment scheduling.
The new extension, available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Outlook, features a Meetings tab where your meetings are saved and you can join, cancel, or reschedule them. However, only meetings booked via Calendly are displayed. The company said it will explore expanding the extension’s functionality based on customer feedback.
There’s also a new Contacts tab where you can see your upcoming meetings with the people in them, as well as the history of your meetings with them.
The extension also lets you share links to different types of meetings (e.g. longer or shorter meetings) or instantly book a follow-up call with someone from the current meeting.
Photo credit: Calendarly
Calendly also expands its entire range of functions. The service now allows users to book multiple meetings in a time slot and even prioritize one meeting over another. You’ll still need to manually prioritize your meetings, but the company is considering adding some sort of intelligence to provide suggestions to help with prioritization.
Calendly is also introducing a Teams feature that allows sales or marketing team members to book a call on behalf of their teammates. To do this, teammates must give the group permission to edit their calendars.
Photo credit: Calendarly
The company said that with this expansion, along with integration with tools like Gmail and LinkedIn, it aims to reduce the time people spend switching between websites and applications.
The look goes beyond scheduling
Stephen Hsu, Calendly’s chief product officer, told TechCrunch in an interview that Calendly wants to evolve beyond scheduling and become a product that is useful throughout the meeting lifecycle. In particular, he noted that the company wants to focus on helping people prepare for meetings and providing insights both during and after they end.
Hsu also said the company wants to enter the meeting transcription space. “We have customers who use tools like Otter or Zoom Assistant, but these are not necessarily easy to integrate [are] managed separately,” he said.
Hsu said the company wants to give users more information about the participants and the meeting agenda through its integrations with platforms like Salesforce and LinkedIn. In addition, Calendly can also bring knowledge from historical meetings and action items, he added.
Currently, you need to open the web app to take notes with Calendly. The company wants to move this function to an easily accessible location like the expansion, Hsu said.
Tools like Notion Calendar, Vimcal, Akiflow, and Amie have made it easier for users to provide their availability across time zones. Calendly said it wants to overhaul the experience for invited guests and make it easier to book meetings across time zones.
Using AI to make meeting tools smarter
From large companies like Zoom to startups like Limitless (formerly Rewind AI), there are many meeting tools aimed at leveraging AI to better understand the information generated during meetings.
Calendly also wants to use AI to improve its product. The company said it wants to develop a model that can use meeting data along with knowledge from systems such as CRM platforms to provide a more complete picture of a meeting.
“If we have a world where we can build a model that allows the user to access any type of information across the entire meeting lifecycle from anywhere, whether in Slack or through a new conversation interface in Calendly, then that would be very powerful. said Hsu.