How to schedule a group meeting (Tips + tools)

You need to set up a check-in meeting for a project. No problem! 

Except the meeting includes six people across three time zones and two companies. 

Finding common availability across teams, time zones, and locations can feel like a juggling act — but it doesn't have to be. When you take the back-and-forth messages and calendar cross-referencing out of scheduling a group meeting, you have more time to prepare for the meeting itself and create a better experience for attendees.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to make scheduling a group meeting quick and easy, plus tips to set every group meeting up for success. We’ll also walk through how Calendly can simplify group scheduling and help your team have better meetings.

6 tips for scheduling group meetings

Scheduling and managing an effective multi-person meeting starts before you even open your calendar. Here’s how to get a group of people together for a meeting without spending the day bouncing between email threads. 

1. Set (and share) the meeting objective

To avoid the dreaded “that could have been an email” feeling, make sure you set a clear objective for each meeting. If there isn’t a strong “why” behind the event, you might not need to meet at all. 

Defining a meeting objective ahead of time sets expectations, determines the agenda, and keeps the meeting focused. Different meeting types have different objectives, from brainstorming for a campaign to solving a specific problem to improving teamwork. Include the objective in your meeting invite so everyone’s on the same page.

“How can you host a great meeting if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish? How can attendees expect to contribute to a productive meeting if they don’t know the goal?”

Lindsay Cope

Senior Marketing Ops Project Manager at Calendly

2. Invite the right people

When a meeting and its outcome impact a lot of people, it’s tempting to add everyone even tangentially related to the topic. But it’s important to balance that impulse with respect for people’s time.

If many different teams are stakeholders in a project, consider asking each team to choose a representative to attend the meeting and report back. Make meeting minutes and recordings easily accessible for folks who can’t attend.

Pro tip

Make a list of must-have guests. Our State of Meetings report found that one of the main aspects of unproductive meetings is missing critical attendees, causing important decisions to be stalled.

3. Be mindful of time zones

The more people you add to a meeting — particularly virtual meetings or hybrid events — the more likely you are to have a mix of time zones. Keep everyone’s location in mind when choosing a meeting time. Or better yet, use a shared calendar app that automatically converts available times into everyone’s time zone so they don’t need to do mental math.

4. Share an agenda and pre-reads before the meeting

Sharing a meeting agenda is conventional wisdom for a reason! Once you know the meeting objective and who should attend, plan a thoughtful agenda that will help the group meet that goal.

If the group would benefit from some additional background info, consider sending a pre-read (or pre-watch) along with the agenda. A (short!) doc, Loom video, or voice memo are all great ways to provide context.

“I think the world would be a better place if everyone tried to send a pre-read or one-pager about whatever they want to debate, propose, or get help with — before the meeting.”

Jeff Hardison

VP, Product Marketing at Calendly

Here are a few ways to turn a basic agenda into an extra-helpful one:

• Set time limits for each item to keep the meeting on track

• Note who owns each agenda item

• Share the agenda at least one day in advance

• Include the agenda in the calendar invite

Pro tip

Your agenda and pre-reads are a great opportunity to make sure everyone in the meeting understands why they’re invited and what their role will be. Calendly’s State of Meetings report found that people reported feeling more engaged in meetings where they had an active role.

5. Reduce no-shows with meeting reminders

Picture this: You’ve scheduled an important group meeting, and everyone actually shows up on time and prepared. You’re able to get to all of your agenda items and efficiently move priorities forward. Your meeting was a success!

How do you make that happen? It sounds simple, but automated meeting reminders can make a major difference.

For meetings that follow a consistent template, like a sales discovery call or interview phone screen, include the agenda in your reminder email to set expectations.

Here’s how to perfect your meeting reminders:

• Use a combination of email and text notifications to catch attendees’ attention

• Opt for at least two reminders, like one 24 hours before the meeting and another 30 minutes out

• Send reminders to everyone, including meeting hosts

• Include a rescheduling or cancellation link

• Automate your reminders and follow-ups with a tool like Calendly Workflows, so you can set every meeting up for success without spending time on manual admin work

Reminder emails can even double as check-ins to gather additional information from invitees before the meeting. For example, the sales team at CallRail uses Calendly’s automated reminder emails to ask free trial users what questions they have about CallRail’s product.

“Not only are these reminders helpful, but they also make our meetings more to-the-point and shape the discussion for our sales team members and customers.”

Nick Jackson

Sales Manager at CallRail

6. Use scheduling software made for multi-person meetings

Any way you slice it, scheduling group meetings manually can be time-consuming and frustrating. Adding a group scheduling app to all the best practices we’ve covered creates a better experience for meeting hosts and attendees. In CallRail’s case, using Calendly to automate scheduling doubled their sales conversion rate. 

At its most basic, a group scheduling app helps you find meeting times without back-and-forth emails. The best scheduling platforms go beyond that — they make all the admin tasks surrounding meetings easier. You save time, delight your clients or customers, and connect with the right combo of people at a time that works for everyone.

Simplify group scheduling with Calendly

Calendly is a meeting scheduling tool that takes the time-consuming admin work out of scheduling multi-person meetings.

Here’s how Calendly works:

1. You connect your work and/or personal calendar(s) to Calendly and set your available hours, so you don’t have to worry about double booking. Calendly syncs with Outlook Calendar, Exchange, Office 365, and Google Calendar.

2. Calendly uses this info to show your available meeting times on your booking page. (No one can see the details of your whole calendar — Calendly only shows your available time slots.)

3. When you share your Calendly booking page, invitees can quickly see your availability. Available times are automatically shown in invitees’ time zones, so nobody has to do mental math.

4. Invitees choose their preferred time and, in less than a minute, your meeting is scheduled!

With video conferencing integrations, you can connect Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and more. Calendly will automatically include video conferencing details in the calendar event, so you and your meeting attendees don’t have to waste time trying to hunt down a link.

Let’s walk through three ways Calendly makes scheduling group meetings easier.

Find a time for one-off group meetings with Meeting Polls

Trying to get a big group together for a one-time meeting like a project kickoff, team meeting, or sales proposal? Skip the calendar cross-referencing and automate group scheduling by sending out a Calendly Meeting Poll.

Invitees vote on their preferred meeting times so you can easily accommodate busy schedules and different time zones. Once everyone votes, you choose the best time. Calendly schedules the new meeting for you and automatically sends calendar invites, meeting details, and meeting links to everyone who voted.

Co-host a meeting at a time that works for everyone

When you need multiple team members to co-host a meeting, Calendly’s Collective meetings pool the availability of every co-host. Invitees can only select meeting times that are open on every host’s calendar.

For example, at Calendly, account executives (AEs) and sales engineers (SEs) co-host demos. Calendly’s Collective events pool the availability of both hosts on one booking page. Enterprise AEs share the collective scheduling link in their email convo with prospects, and invitees can only select meeting times that are open on both the AE and SE’s calendars.

“Calendly has also been a game changer for coordinating meetings with my AEs. Before having a tool like this, I would be booked over, not given notice, or booked after hours. It’s made for a much better experience for us and the customers!”

Dave Evatt

Senior Solutions Engineer at Calendly

Book one-to-many meetings like onboarding sessions and webinars

Calendly's Group Event Types let multiple people sign up to meet with you at once. They give you the flexibility to offer multiple meeting time options, so people can get the information they need at a time that fits their schedule.

Use Group events to schedule:

• Onboarding training sessions hosted by account execs

• Webinars hosted by marketing teams 

• Q&As hosted by customer success teams

• Virtual job fairs hosted by recruiting teams

You can limit the number of people who can sign up for each time slot, so everyone has a chance to interact with the host for more effective, engaging meetings.

Easier group scheduling, better meetings

Whether you're hosting sales calls, panel interviews, or customer success trainings, a group scheduling app like Calendly makes booking meetings easier and faster for everyone involved. That efficiency means spending less time on admin tasks — and more time connecting, collaborating, and hitting your goals.

See why over 100,000 companies trust Calendly for scheduling group meetings. Sign up for free.