Scheduling conference calls, meetings or even a meal with a work contact really shouldn’t take an endless email thread of suggestions and counter-suggestions. Doodle is a platform that has been offering an alternative for almost a decade. Founded in 2007 with a premium-service launch in 2009, a redesign in 2011 and a buyout by the Swiss company Tamedia in 2014, it now comes in the form of a web platform and mobile app for Android and iOS.
Its strength is its reliability and simplicity.
Without even signing up as a user, you can create a multiple-choice poll with dates and times, and email the link to whoever you’re trying to meet up with. The default setting limits responses to “yes” and “no”, although you can add another option for “if-needs-be”, and you can hide the results so that only administrators can see others’ availability. If you’re communicating with someone in a different time zone, time slots will automatically be adjusted, depending on the time where they are.
There’s not much integration yet with other communication and task-management platforms, but what Doodle does, it does well.
If you do decide to register for a free account, you can connect your calendar (if it’s provided by Apple, Google, Office, Outlook or an ICS feed) so that you can check when you’re free and respond to meeting requests from the same page. You can also download a mobile app – ideal for setting up and responding to polls quicker if you’re not at your desk – and create a MeetMe page, which signposts your availability to anyone who might want to schedule a meeting.
There are a couple of premium options at US$39 a year for individuals or $69 for companies. This will get you an ad-free experience, the ability to customise your pages with company branding and a few other add-ons, like automatic reminders to chase people up if they haven’t responded to your suggestions for appointment times. For most users, though, the free version will give them all the functionality they need.
Q&A: Gabriele Ottino, the acting chief executive of Doodle
What features have recently been added?
We have supported Apple’s newest iOS 10 features from day one. You can set up a poll without ever leaving your chat with our new iMessage app for iPhone. And at the end of June we acquired Meekan, a scheduling chatbot for the business-messaging platform Slack. The bot allows you to schedule meetings with a simple sentence like “Meekan, please schedule a meeting with Jessica”. Powered by artificial intelligence, it will find the best available slots automatically, book them into your calendar and send out an invitation.
Can you share any metrics on the platform’s success?
In the past year it’s been used by over 180 million unique users from 175 countries and is available in 22 languages: a truly global success story.
Do you have any updates planned in the near future?
We are working on our biggest redesign of the last five years. The web and mobile web product will have a completely new design and an even simpler process of setting up a poll. The beta version is being tested and we are planning to open it to the public later this fall, with full roll-out early next year.
How about long-term goals?
Doodle should be helping you with your scheduling anywhere you communicate and should be able to tie in additional services like easily booking a table, a flight or other. We have a lot of work left to do.
business@thenational.ae
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Hili 2: Unesco World Heritage site
The site is part of the Hili archaeological park in Al Ain. Excavations there have proved the existence of the earliest known agricultural communities in modern-day UAE. Some date to the Bronze Age but Hili 2 is an Iron Age site. The Iron Age witnessed the development of the falaj, a network of channels that funnelled water from natural springs in the area. Wells allowed settlements to be established, but falaj meant they could grow and thrive. Unesco, the UN's cultural body, awarded Al Ain's sites - including Hili 2 - world heritage status in 2011. Now the most recent dig at the site has revealed even more about the skilled people that lived and worked there.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
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Chatham House Rule
A mark of Chatham House’s influence 100 years on since its founding, was Moscow’s formal declaration last month that it was an “undesirable
organisation”.
The depth of knowledge and academics that it drew on
following the Ukraine invasion had broadcast Mr Putin’s chicanery.
The institute is more used to accommodating world leaders,
with Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher among those helping it provide
authoritative commentary on world events.
Chatham House was formally founded as the Royal Institute of
International Affairs following the peace conferences of World War One. Its
founder, Lionel Curtis, wanted a more scientific examination of international affairs
with a transparent exchange of information and ideas.
That arena of debate and analysis was enhanced by the “Chatham
House Rule” states that the contents of any meeting can be discussed outside Chatham
House but no mention can be made identifying individuals who commented.
This has enabled some candid exchanges on difficult subjects
allowing a greater degree of free speech from high-ranking figures.
These meetings are highly valued, so much so that
ambassadors reported them in secret diplomatic cables that – when they were
revealed in the Wikileaks reporting – were thus found to have broken the rule. However,
most speeches are held on the record.
Its research and debate has offered fresh ideas to
policymakers enabling them to more coherently address troubling issues from climate
change to health and food security.
SCHEDULE
December 8: UAE v USA (Sharjah Cricket Stadium)
December 9: USA v Scotland (Sharjah Cricket Stadium)
December 11: UAE v Scotland (Sharjah Cricket Stadium)
December 12: UAE v USA (ICC Academy Oval 1)
December 14: USA v Scotland (ICC Academy Oval 1)
December 15: UAE v Scotland (ICC Academy Oval 1)
All matches start at 10am