My Tungle.me calendar
With a hat tip to Atlanta-based adviser Russ Thornton, I learned that Tungle.me, my go-to public calendar service, announced today that it is shutting down in December.
See the Life is About the Journey post from Tungle founder Marc Gingras on the company blog.
Sad but not surprising
This is a big disappointment, but it is not unexpected. Ever since being acquired by Research In Motion (the makers of BlackBerry mobile phones) in April 2011, Tungle’s blog and Twitter feed went silent, and customer service stopped responding to inquiries, mine included.
Still, over the two years that I used the service (see A Simpler Way to Schedule Meetings at Morningstar), I booked well over 200 meetings and avoided unnecessary correspondence.
Why advisers need a public calendar
In my Transformative Technology You Can Implement Today presentation, I demonstrate how financial advisers can stop playing “email Battleship” when attempting to schedule meetings.
Instead of the constant back-and-forth emails trying to lock down a time that works for all those involved in a meeting, public calendar services allow one or more attendees to draw in the times they are available, and everyone receives a confirmation when a time is identified that all can attend. No more “how does Tuesday at 1pm work for you?” volleys.
Tungle alternatives
Never one to leave FPPad readers out in the cold, here are some free and low-cost alternatives to Tungle worth investigating. I’m not making any one specific recommendation now, but will soon have to switch my own public calendar over to one of these services.
- Doodle (watch my interview with Doodle founder Myke Naef)
- ScheduleOnce
- TimeBridge
- Meetifyr (I already don’t like the user interface on this one!)
- Bookeo
- Acuity Scheduling
- TimeTrade (recommended by Chuck Hammond via Twitter)
- Book’d (currently in private beta)
Have any others to recommend? Leave a comment below.
Hi Bill,
at Advisor Websites, we have been using Genbook. You can see it in action here:
http://www.genbook.com/bookings/slot/reservation/30099768
It’s pretty nice!
Cheers,
Loic
Loic,
Thank you for the recommendation of GenBook. I took a quick look at it and see it does a LOT more than simple meeting scheduling.
On the calendar, I wish GenBook would show a week’s worth of availability, rather than having to click each individual day to see what hours are open. Also, as a customer, I don’t really care about first selecting the category of meeting, I just want to get a meeting scheduled. It adds another unnecessary step to booking a meeting.
For sure, you can actually link directly to specific category, team member etc…
I agree with the week availability, which is not something offered by Genbook at this point. Who knows, they might be watching this thread…
I will sorely miss Tungle – having been using it heavily as a great way to let folks propose appointments in my open windows.
I am on the hunt for a new service and will be running down your list….
Hey Bill,
I was also using Tungle. Just curious if you’ve made a decision on a new service yet?
I’ve used Timetrade a little, and it seems like it does the job, but I haven’t really explored the other options you’ve listed, so I just curious if you had narrowed down the list? Thanks Bill-
Thanks for the resources. I’m sorry to see Tungle go, but not surprised. It’s been flaky since RIM bought it.
I was looking at TimeBridge but couldn’t figure out what they charge. When I searched for pricing info I found a negative review of it here: http://just2technical.com/blog/business-tools/review-timebridge-not-recommended/ I’d love to hear from people who are using it.
At this point ScheduleOnce and TimeTrade look most promising.
ScheduleOnce looks the closest to Tungle. I also signed up for TimeTrade but as far as I can tell it doesn’t create a page where people can browse my availability. Instead, I need to send out proposed meeting times (more like Doodle or MeetingWizard).
I read several reports saying that TimeBridge’s future is uncertain after it was acquired, but I hope that’s wrong.
Bill,
Thanks for sending this out. I narrowed the list to solutions on the Google Apps marketplace, and decided to try out scheduleonce. It integrates well with Google Calendar, and is easy for clients and vendors to schedule meetings. The free version is good enough.
Tim
Tim,
Thank you for the feedback on ScheduleOnce. I haven’t yet had time to set up an account, but will do it this week and will report back on how I like it.
Bill
Update – we have upgraded from the free version to the “professional” plan. My partner and I do most of our client meetings together, and we were able to setup a “meetme” page that shows our joint availability. We are also able to setup a “book now” page for prospects or clients that allows them to schedule a phone call or meeting with either of us. We have integrated the functions onto our website as well. I also like the ability to specify timezone. The Google apps integration is good. It’s already paying off with current clients. It’s up to them to find a date that works for everyone, and we still the ability make final approval for an appointment.
Tim,
That’s great to hear that ScheduleOnce is working so well for you and your partner. Thanks for returning and providing your feedback.
If you haven’t checked out calendarme.in yet its looking to be an interesting contender in the scheduling arena.
Hi Bill – We’d love to hear what you thought of YouCanBook.Me – a service we’ve been building up over the last few years, largely on the back of a steadily growing community of enthusiastic users. As an incentive to try we’re throwing in a special offer to all former ‘tunglers’ http://youcanbook.me/tungle
any questions please don’t hesitate to ask, cheers Bridget
Thank you Bridget, I’ll check out YouCanBook.Me soon.
You can Check out vCita!
Just like Tungle.me, vCita can help with scheduling appointments from any website, email signature, or a standalone contact-page we create in minutes.
vCita can also help engaging online visitors and turning them into clients.
Proactive contact form, phone conferencing, video meetings, credit-card payments, and even email campaigns, are all part of vCita.
visit http://www.vcita.com and try our Free forever plan!
Dotan,
The Vcita UI resembles both ScheduleOnce and TimeTrade, and it frustrates me.
What I don’t like is viewers first have to click on a date, then they see available times.
Help my visitors save mouse clicks and show them a full week of availability instead.
Hey Bill,
I hear you’re not a fan of our interface, which I admit needs a bit of a facelift! I wanted to share some info on our latest release. http://www.timetrade.com/timetrade-6-demo. It would be great to hear your thoughts. Feel free to reach out to me via email.
Thanks,
-Chris
@Chris,
Thank you for letting me know about the update. I sent my feedback to you privately via email.
Bill
Doodle seems to be working well for one of my professional organizations. It’s easy for me as one of the people whom they’re trying to schedule.