Calendly revamps its browser extension to do more than schedule meetings

Appointment scheduling service Calendly has redesigned its browser extension to improve schedule management capabilities and speed up scheduling.

This new extension, available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Outlook, has a “Meetings” tab that houses your meetings, allowing you to join, cancel, and reschedule them. However, you will only see meetings booked through Calendly. The company said it will consider expanding the extension based on customer feedback.

You can also see upcoming meetings with a participant and their meeting history with the new Contacts tab.

This extension also allows you to share links to different types of meetings (such as long or short meetings) and instantly schedule follow-up calls with current meeting participants. can.

Image credit: Calendly

Calendly has also expanded its overall feature set. The service now allows users to book multiple meetings in one time slot or prioritize one meeting over another. Meeting priorities will still need to be set manually, but the company said it is considering adding some type of intelligence to provide suggestions to help prioritize.

Calendly is also introducing features for teams that allow sales and marketing team members to book calls on behalf of their teammates. For this, teammates must give the group permission to edit their calendar.

Image credit: Calendly

The company said the extension and its integration with tools like Gmail and LinkedIn aim to reduce the time people spend switching between websites and applications.

Looking beyond the schedule

Stephen Hsu, chief product officer at Calendly, told TechCrunch in an interview that Calendly aims to evolve beyond scheduling and become a product that helps throughout the meeting lifecycle. Specifically, the company said it wants to focus on helping people prepare for meetings and providing insights during and after the meeting.

Su said the company also wants to move into the field of meeting transcription. “We have customers who use tools like Otter and Zoom Assistant, but they don't always integrate easily. [are] They were managed separately,” he said.

Hsu said the company hopes to provide users with more information about participants and meeting topics by capturing knowledge through integration with platforms such as Salesforce and LinkedIn. Additionally, Calendly can also capture knowledge from historic meetings and action items, he added.

Currently, you need to open the web app to take notes in Calendly. Su said the company wants to move this functionality to an easily accessible place, like an extension.

Tools like Notion Calendar, Vimcal, Akiflow, and Amie have made it easy for users to provide availability across time zones. Calendly said it aims to revamp the inviter experience and make it easier to book meetings across time zones.

Utilizing AI to make meeting tools smarter

There are plenty of meeting-related tools out there, from large companies like Zoom to startups like Limitless (formerly Rewind AI), which aims to leverage AI to better understand the information generated during meetings. .

Calendly also wants to leverage AI to improve its products. He said the company wanted to leverage meeting data and knowledge from systems such as his CRM platform to create a model that could provide a holistic view of meetings.

“If we had a world where we could create a model where users could access all kinds of information from anywhere throughout the meeting lifecycle, whether it was Slack or Calendly's new conversational interface, that would be very powerful.” Sue said.

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