When 2 Meet vs Doodle: grid or poll for your group?

When 2 Meet vs Doodle is a choice between two questions. When2meet asks each person to paint all of their free time on a grid, then shows where the group overlaps. Doodle is built around a poll, where the organizer proposes specific times and each person votes on them. Use the grid when you do not know which times are realistic. Use the poll when you already have a short list.

The two models side by side

Both are shared as a link, and both show the organizer a count per time. The difference is who does the thinking. With a grid, the participants do it, one cell at a time. With a poll, the organizer does it once, before anyone answers.

When the grid wins

Pick the grid when the group is small or medium, the week is open and you have no idea when people are free. Nobody has to guess good options, and the best slot is often one that nobody would have proposed. How to use When to Meet walks through the steps.

The grid also wins in these cases.

• The meeting repeats. A weekly slot has to fit everyone's standing commitments. You need the whole picture of a typical week, not a vote on three guesses.
• The length is flexible. A grid shows a 30-minute gap and a two-hour gap in the same view. You can decide the length after you see the overlap.
• You do not know the group well. With students, volunteers or a new team, you cannot predict who works mornings. Guessing options for strangers is how a poll fails.
• You may need a second meeting. One grid can supply the time for the kickoff and the time for the follow-up. A poll answers only the question it asked.

When the poll wins

Pick the poll when the options are limited before you start. A venue is free on three evenings. A speaker can do two dates. A large group is more likely to tick one of four boxes than to paint a grid.

A poll of a few options is also easier to answer on a phone.

The poll wins in these cases too.

• One person's calendar decides. If the director can do Tuesday at 10 or Thursday at 3, those are the only options. Asking forty people to paint a week wastes their time.
• The event is a whole day or an evening. "Which of these four dates?" is a list, and a list is what a poll is for.
• The group is large. The more people you ask, the more answers you lose to effort. A short list keeps the effort low.
• You want a clear vote. A poll gives a count per option that anyone can read at a glance, and the losing options are visible too.

The same meeting, run both ways

Take a project team of six that needs a 60-minute kickoff next week.

With a grid. The organizer creates an event for Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00, and shares the link. That takes two minutes. Each person paints their free hours, which takes a minute or two with a calendar open beside it. When five have answered, the group view shows one dark block on Wednesday from 11:00 to 12:00 and a second on Friday afternoon. The organizer picks Wednesday at 11:00. Nobody had suggested it.

With a poll. The organizer first looks at the week and guesses four options: Monday at 10:00, Tuesday at 14:00, Thursday at 11:00 and Friday at 15:00. That takes longer, because good options need thought. Each person ticks boxes in a few seconds. The result comes back with Friday at 15:00 on five votes and nothing on six. Wednesday at 11:00, the one slot all six could make, was never on the list.

The poll was faster for each participant. The grid found the better answer. If the organizer had known that Wednesday morning was clear, the poll would have won on both counts. That is the whole trade. A poll is only as good as its option list.

How to decide in five questions

Answer these in order and stop at the first one that settles it.

1. Are the possible times already fixed by a room, a speaker or one busy person? If yes, use a poll of those times.
2. Is the question about whole days and not hours? If yes, use a poll of dates. How to find a date when everyone is available covers the counting and the tie-break.
3. Is the group larger than a team? For a department or a club, use a poll with a short list. Expect that not everyone can make the winner.
4. Can you name four times you are confident about? If you cannot, use a grid. Guessed options are a common cause of a second round.
5. Will most people answer on a phone? A short poll is kinder on a small screen. If you still need a grid, shorten the date range and the hours.

If none of these settles it, default to the grid for groups of up to about ten and the poll above that. That is a rule of thumb, not a measured threshold.

Mistakes that cause a second round

Both tools fail in predictable ways. Most of them are set up by the organizer before anyone answers.

With a grid

• Offering too much. Two weeks of twelve-hour days is a wall of cells. Offer one week and the hours a meeting could really happen. When to meet survey: what to ask and how to set it up goes through each setting.
• Not saying what "free" means. Some people mark only the times they like. Others mark every time they could manage. Tell the group which one you want.
• Ignoring time zones. Check the time zone setting before you share the link, and ask people in other zones to check what the page shows them.
• Leaving the result on the page. A grid does not announce anything. Read it, choose and tell the group.

With a poll

• Too few options. Two options often produce a split and no winner.
• Options that suit the organizer. If all four are in your own free time, you have polled your calendar and not the group.
• Too many options. Past eight or so, a poll becomes a slow grid without the overlap view.
• No deadline. Votes trickle in for days. Say when you will close it and what you will do then.

What to check on each site

Features and prices change, so check both sites before you commit. These are the questions worth asking.

• Does a participant need an account to answer?
• Are times converted to each person's time zone?
• Is there a limit on polls or participants on the free plan? Doodle free plan or a free Slack poll lists what to look for on a pricing page.
• Can a person change their answer after they submit it?
• Can people see each other's answers, and do you want them to?
• Does it connect to a calendar, and do you want it to? Doodle calendar polls: do you need calendar access? covers that trade.

For a wider list that applies to any tool, see what to look for in a when to meet app.

Common questions

Can a Doodle poll work like a grid?

Up to a point. An organizer can list many options, and each person can tick all that work. But the organizer still has to create every option, and a long list is slower to read than a grid of days and hours. If you find yourself adding the twentieth option, you wanted a grid.

Can a grid work like a poll?

Yes, by narrowing it. Offer only the two or three days in question and a short window of hours. People then paint a small area, and the result reads almost like a vote.

Which one is better across time zones?

Neither model has an edge. What matters is whether the tool shows each person the times in their own zone, and whether people check that it has their zone right. A grid makes a zone mistake easier to spot, because a whole column of 3:00 slots looks wrong at once.

What if nobody can make any option?

In a poll, you run a second poll with new options. In a grid, you extend the date range and ask people to add to their answer. This is the strongest case for starting with a grid when you are unsure.

Do I have to announce the result myself?

Plan to. In both models the organizer makes the final call. Say the chosen time once, in the place the group reads, and send the calendar invite the same day.

A third option when the group is in Slack

Both tools send people to another site. If everyone in the group shares a Slack channel, the poll can stay in the channel.

Meeting Mouse uses the grid model. /meet with a title posts one message, each person marks every slot they are free in their own time zone, and the message shows who is free when with the three best times on top. The organizer picks the final time from a menu on the message, and a thread reply announces it with an Add to Google Calendar link. It needs no account and no calendar access.

It only reaches people in the Slack channel. For a group that includes people who are not in your Slack, use one of the two web tools. See how Meeting Mouse works, or read Doodle scheduling in Slack for a step-by-step comparison of a linked poll and a channel poll.