The four methods compared
| Method | Good enough when | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Group chat | Three or four people with regular hours | Replies scatter, someone never answers, and the thread ends with "let's sort it nearer the time" |
| A poll of dates | Any size of group, if the right date is likely to be among those proposed | It only tests the dates offered, and answers go stale when a rota changes |
| Shared calendars | A household or a team already on the same calendar system | Everyone needs compatible calendars kept up to date, and a rota is often not in a calendar at all |
| Free and busy overlay | Big groups, groups with a rota in them, and any group the first three have failed | Everyone has to put their diary in, by one route or another |
When the group chat is enough
For a few people with predictable weeks, nothing beats a message. Offer specific dates ("the 14th or the 21st?") in place of an open question ("when's everyone free?"), and have one person who decides when two replies are in and the third has gone quiet.
When a poll is the right tool
A poll turns twenty messages into one grid. Doodle is a well-known example. Its introduction to group polls describes the steps: the organiser proposes dates and times, shares a link, people vote, and the organiser books the winner. People do not need an account to vote, though they are asked for a name and email. A vote can be a plain yes or "if need be", which is a useful middle answer. Doodle's comparison of its plans shows group polls on the free plan.
Polls are quick, familiar and work whatever calendar each person uses. If your group is mostly nine-to-five and you are choosing between a handful of Saturdays, use one and stop reading.
Their limit is built in: a poll can only test the dates the organiser thought of.
When shared calendars work
If everyone already keeps a calendar on the same system, you can look at each other's. Google Calendar lets you share a calendar with the setting "See only free/busy (hide details)", and Outlook has "Can view when I'm busy". It suits a household or a team well.
For a group of friends it tends to stall. One person is on Google, one on iCloud and one on a work Outlook account whose administrator controls sharing. And the person whose time is hardest to pin down often has no calendar, just a rota on a wall.
The overlay, by hand
You can do this with paper or a shared spreadsheet, and for one decision it is worth it.
- Draw a grid with dates down the side and names across the top. Cover at least six weeks.
- If half-days matter, split each date into three rows: morning, afternoon and evening.
- Each person crosses out every slot they cannot do. Shift workers cross out the sleep after a night as well as the night.
- Read across. A row with no crosses is a free window. A row with one cross is a near miss, and the name at the top of that column is the person to ask.
- Pick, tell everyone the same day, and get it into calendars before a rota changes.
The method is sound. The trouble is the labour: six people, six weeks and three slots a day is 756 cells, most of them filled in by copying from a calendar or a rota.
If someone in the group is on shifts
Chats and polls break in their own ways for anyone on a rota.
- The rota may not exist yet. A poll for a date ten weeks off asks a nurse about a roster that has not been written.
- Answers go stale. A swap or an overtime shift changes the answer, and nobody goes back to a poll.
- "Free" hides the morning after nights. A tick does not say "but I will have been awake for 20 hours".
- The shared window is at an odd time. With two rotas in a group, the gap is as likely to be Wednesday daytime as Saturday night, and nobody proposes Wednesday daytime.
- Nobody sees the near miss. A poll shows that the 14th failed. It does not show that it failed by one person on a shift that could be swapped.
The pages for people on shifts go into this job by job.
Where Vennado saves the work
Vennado is the overlay without the copying. Each person adds their own diary from one shared link: a calendar link or file, a rota, or busy days tapped in by hand. It then shows every window when the whole group is free and the near misses where one person is not.
Rotas read by Vennado are listed for their owner to check before they count, because rota reading can misread. The plan can allow for sleep after nights and treat on call as busy or not. Nobody needs an account. The group sees when you are busy and what kind of busy it is (work, on call, personal or rest), never what, where or who with.
It has the same weakness as any overlay: it knows only what people put in. It does not sync with calendars or rota systems, so a diary is as current as the last time its owner added or refreshed it. And it will not chase the friend who has not opened the link.
Once you have the date, the next question is what to do with it and what it costs. Ideas by type and budget and the guide to planning a group trip on a budget pick up from there.
Questions people ask
What is the easiest way to find a date that works for a group?
For three or four people with regular hours, ask in the group chat and offer two dates. For a bigger group, run a poll with five or six proposed dates. If people work shifts or the obvious dates keep failing, overlay everyone's busy times so you can see every free window, not just the ones somebody proposed.
Why do polls not work well for shift workers?
A poll asks about dates the organiser picked, usually evenings and weekends. Someone on a rota may not have shifts for those dates yet, cannot say that 'free' means asleep after a night, and has to remember to change their answer after a swap. The group's only shared window may be a Tuesday that was never on the poll.
Do I have to share my whole calendar to compare diaries?
No. Google Calendar and Outlook can share only busy and free times, and a free and busy overlay needs nothing more than that. The guide to sharing free and busy times without sharing your diary has the steps. In Vennado nobody shares a calendar at all: the group sees blocks of busy time and their kind, never the events.
How many dates should a poll offer?
Enough to give a real choice and few enough that people answer: five or six for an evening, more if you are trying to find a weekend months away. Include at least one option that is not a Friday or Saturday night. Set a deadline for answers, and say in advance that the date with most votes wins.
What if there is no date when everyone is free?
Then decide what you would rather give up. Look for the date that only one person cannot do and ask whether they can swap a shift or move something. Or shorten the plan to fit a smaller window. Or go ahead with one person missing and plan the next one around them. Vennado shows these as near misses.