I recently tried using an online utility to find a suitable date for all students in my programme to meet. Normally, this is a hugely time consuming affaire. This time around, I tried an online utility called MeetingWizard.com and it turned out to be fantastic. It’s a simple utility that works like a poll. The organizer can choose an initial list of times and send invitations to chosen people. The invitees just have to click a link and choose merely click on the times that suit them.

The site offers a lot of other useful features too. For example, apart from choosing timings, people can send a small message. One of my invitees for example wrote “I cannot make it at 12 on Friday but will reach at 12.30”. Another invitee chose to send me an e-mail instead of following the link. The site allows the organizer to respond for him. It also allows a discussion of venue.

On the whole it’s a very well designed utility to organize meetings. The basic version is free of charge with limitations on the number of alternate timings as the main limitation. This did not pose a problem for the group of less than 20 that I invited. The basic version may also contain advertisements and allows little customization.

Another utility I found online is Doodle. This is disarmingly simple and functional. But it allows anyone to edit, which may be a little bit of a problem in some cases.