Here is how to use when to meet tools, the free availability grids of which When2meet is the best known. You create an event with a set of dates and a range of hours, share its link, and each person paints the times they are free. The page then shades a second grid by how many people can make each slot. The steps below follow When2meet's flow, and they apply to any tool built on the same idea.
The six steps
- Create the event. Give it a name people will recognize.
- Choose the dates and the hours. Pick the days you are considering, then the earliest and latest time a meeting could start and end. Check the time zone setting before you continue.
- Share the link. Creating the event gives you a URL. Send it to the group with a deadline. How to make and share a when to meet link has a message you can copy.
- Sign in with a name. Each person types a name to identify their answer. No account is needed.
- Paint your free time. Click and drag across the grid to mark the slots you can make. Drag again over marked slots to clear them.
- Read the group grid. A second grid shows everyone's answers together, darker where more people are free. Pick the darkest slot that is long enough for the meeting.
The site can change, so treat the labels above as a guide to the flow and not as exact button names. The sections below go through the steps where people most often get stuck.
Setting up the event as the organizer
The organizer makes three choices, and each one shapes how much work the group has to do.
The name. The name is the first thing people see when they open the link. "Design review, 45 min" tells them what they are answering for and how long a gap they need. "Meeting" tells them nothing.
Specific dates or days of the week. A grid of this kind can usually ask about calendar dates, such as the 12th to the 16th, or about weekdays with no dates, such as Monday to Friday. Use calendar dates for a single meeting. Use weekdays when you are looking for a recurring slot, such as a weekly check-in or a study group that meets all term.
The hours. Set the earliest and latest time to the hours a meeting could really happen. Every extra hour adds a row of cells to every day, and each person has to look at all of them. If you are not sure how wide to go, when to meet survey: what to ask and how to set it up works through the choice with examples.
Before you share the link, open it yourself and paint your own availability. This does two things. It checks that the dates and hours came out as you meant them. It also means the first person to arrive sees a grid with an answer already on it, which shows them what to do.
Filling in the grid as a participant
If someone sent you a link, your part takes a minute or two.
- Open the link and find the name box. Type the name the group knows you by. If the page offers a password, it is optional. It only stops someone else from editing your answer.
- Check the time zone. Look for the zone the page is showing and make sure it is yours. If it is wrong, change it before you paint.
- Have your calendar open beside the grid. The grid knows nothing about your calendar. You are the one who knows what is on it.
- Paint. Press on the first free slot and drag to the last one. A drag across several days marks a whole block at once. A drag that starts on a marked slot clears what it covers.
- Check the edges. A meeting needs the whole slot. If you are free from 10:15, do not mark the 10:00 cell.
- Leave the page. A grid of this kind saves as you paint. There is usually no submit button to find.
Mark every time you could attend, not only the times you would choose. The grid finds overlap, and overlap needs honest, wide answers. If a time is possible but poor for you, mark it and tell the organizer in a message.
To change your answer later, open the same link and sign in with the same name. Your earlier painting comes back and you can edit it.
Reading the group grid
The group grid is the result. It has the same days and hours as your own grid, with each cell shaded by how many people marked it.
- The darkest cells are the slots most people can make. A legend near the grid usually shows the scale, from nobody to everybody.
- Hover over a cell to see who is free in it and who is not. On a phone there is no hover, so check how the page shows names there.
- Look for a run, not a cell. If cells are 15 minutes long and the meeting is an hour, you need four dark cells in a row on the same day.
- Count the answers. The grid shows a count out of the people who have answered so far, not out of the people you invited. Five out of five means little if eight people were asked.
When the darkest slot is missing one person, check who that person is before you choose. A slot with everyone but the person who has to present is worse than a slot with one optional attendee missing. When to meet: find a time that works for everyone covers how to count the overlap and what to do when no slot suits everyone.
A worked example
Maya needs a 60-minute project kickoff with five people next week.
She creates an event named "Project kickoff, 60 min". She picks Monday to Friday of next week and sets the hours to 9:00 to 17:00. She paints her own free time, then posts the link in the group's email thread on Monday morning with a deadline of Wednesday at noon.
By Tuesday evening three people have answered. The group grid shows a dark block on Thursday from 10:00 to 11:30 and another on Friday from 14:00 to 15:00. Maya does not choose yet, because two people are missing. She sends one reminder that names them.
By Wednesday noon all five have answered. The Friday block has faded, because one of the late answers is away on Friday. Thursday from 10:00 to 11:00 still shows five out of five. Maya picks it, replies to the thread with the day and time, and sends a calendar invite the same afternoon.
Two things made this quick. The range was one week of working hours, so each person had a small grid to fill in. And Maya waited for the count to match the number of people she asked.
Problems you may run into, and fixes
- "My answer is gone." You probably signed in with a different name, such as "Sam" the first time and "Sam P" the second. Sign in again with the first name, exactly as you typed it.
- "I appear twice." The same cause. Ask the organizer to ignore one entry, or clear the painting under the name you no longer use.
- "The times look wrong." Check the time zone shown on the page. If the organizer set the event in another zone, the hours shift for you.
- "Nothing is dark." Either few people have answered, or people marked only their favorite times. Ask the group to mark every time they could make.
- "The grid is too long to fill in on my phone." Turn the phone sideways, or answer from a laptop. If you are the organizer, this is a sign the range is too wide.
- "Someone answered after I chose." The link stays open. Announce the decision in the place you shared the link, so a late answer does not reopen the question.
Tips that save a round of messages
- Keep the range short. One or two weeks of dates and only working hours.
- Say what "free" means. Tell people whether to mark times they prefer or every time they could manage.
- Use the same name each time. If you come back to edit, sign in with the name you used before so you update your answer and do not add a second one.
- Mind the time zone. If your group spans zones, ask each person to confirm the zone shown on the page before painting.
- Set a deadline and close the loop. The grid does not announce a result. Someone has to read it, choose and tell the group.
Questions people ask about When2meet
Do I need an account?
No. The organizer creates an event without signing up, and each participant types a name. That is the main reason these grids are quick to use.
Is it free?
When2meet is known as a free tool. Check the site itself for its current terms.
Can I use it on a phone?
Yes, the page opens in a phone browser. A large grid is tedious on a small screen, so a short range matters even more when you expect people to answer on phones.
Can someone else see or change my answer?
Anyone with the link can see the group grid, including who is free in each slot. Someone who signs in with your name can edit your answer, unless you set a password when you first signed in. Treat the grid as visible to everyone you sent the link to.
What if I want people to vote on a few times instead?
Then a grid is the wrong tool. A poll of fixed options suits that question better. When 2 Meet vs Doodle explains the choice between a grid and a vote.
What the grid does not do
An availability grid of this kind stops at the picture. It does not pick the time, tell the group, or create the calendar event. Plan to do those three things yourself once the answers are in.
It also asks everyone to leave the conversation, open a page and remember to come back. For a group spread over several organizations that is a fair price. For a team that already shares a chat channel, it is a step you can remove.
The same flow inside Slack
Meeting Mouse follows the same flow with two steps removed. Nobody shares a link and nobody types a name, because the poll is a channel message and people answer as their Slack user. Run /meet with a title in a channel and choose the dates, the daily window and the slot length. Each person clicks Add my availability and clicks the times that work in a form, in their own time zone, and each click saves. The form links to a page for dragging across a grid, with the group's availability beside your own. The message updates with the best times, the organizer picks one, and a thread reply carries an Add to Google Calendar link.
It reaches only the people in the Slack channel. For a group that includes people outside your workspace, a web grid with a link is still the right tool. See how Meeting Mouse works.