Doodle’s Group Poll is the easiest way to bring a group of people together at the right time with no back-and-forth. But if you dig deeper, you can find a wealth of features that will make your next group poll better than ever.
Create hybrid meetings
When you create a group poll, you are asked to provide a location for your event. But did you know you can select a physical location and a web conferencing app for the same event? This feature will help organizers provide flexibility for their upcoming event, and encourage greater poll participation as a result.
To create a hybrid meeting:
Indicate the name or address of the physical location in the ‘Location’ text field
Toggle ‘Video Conferencing’ so that the switch is green
Select your preferred video conferencing app
Create custom time durations
The default duration for group poll events is 60 minutes. You can select from an array of other pre-defined values, or you can select a custom event duration. With custom event duration, you can be sure that the times you propose are exactly what you want them to be.
To offer a custom duration:
Click ‘Custom’
Select the unit of time (minutes/hours)
Indicate the meeting duration in the adjacent text field
Leverage your calendar subscriptions
When you connect your calendar to your Doodle account, you get time-saving features for you and your event participants. In addition to sending your poll participant a calendar event and adding the event automatically to your own calendar, you can also access your calendar subscriptions directly from your Doodle account. That way you can coordinate times for meetings that you know are free for you and your team.
To see your calendar subscriptions:
Connect your calendar to your Doodle account
From the Group Poll creation page, click the ‘1 calendar shown’ menu
Select the calendar subscriptions you wish to see
The calendar events for the selected calendars will now overlay your own calendar in the ‘Week’ view of the group poll. This way you can easily choose times that you know will work for everyone.
Use the timezone selector
Sometimes meetings need to be coordinated for participants across multiple timezones. With the timezone selector, you can easily see what times your proposed time slots will be for anyone in any timezone.
To use the timezone selector:
On the top right of the ‘Week’ view, click where it indicates your local timezone
Enter the country, city, or timezone you wish to review
The ‘Week’ view table will now show the proposed meeting times in the new timezone.
Preview your group poll
Have you ever wondered what your group poll will look like for your poll participants? Now you can see what the participant experience looks like with Doodle’s Preview feature.
To preview your group poll before you send it, click ‘Preview’ from the group poll summary screen. A new screen will load to reveal the participant experience. Use this to review your poll for accuracy and to better advise your poll participants should they ask you questions about the poll. Once you are satisfied with the preview, close it and send the group poll link to your poll participants.
Export your poll response data
Sometimes it is helpful to be able to review your poll responses in a spreadsheet - particularly if you have a large poll with many available options and/or many poll participants. Doodle Professional users can export their poll response data as a document that is easily opened in Excel and Google Sheets.
There are two ways to export your group poll data.
From the Doodle dashboard:
Click the three dots on the event tile
Click ‘Export’
From the event summary screen:
Click ‘More’
Click ‘Export’
Edit your availability
Sometimes an individual responsible for organizing an event is not required to be in attendance of the event. In these cases, it can be helpful to edit your availability to indicate the days and times that work - and the ones that don’t. Doodle Professional users have this option with our organizer availability editing feature.
To edit your availability:
Click ‘Edit’ next to your name on the group poll summary screen
Modify your availability by clicking the boxes beneath each proposed date and time
Click ‘Save’
Now your participants will be able to see your specific availability for each proposed time.
Join the Doodle Community
At Doodle, we strive to make scheduling solutions that put people first, and there is no better way to make sure that what we build and what we do works as best it can than to bring the Doodle user community together.
If you use Doodle as your scheduling solution, please join our Doodle Community! Doodle Community is a Slack channel meant to bring likeminded Doodle users together to share ideas and get on the inside track for the latest news happening at Doodle.
Members of the Doodle Community will enjoy the following benefits:
First access to test new features
First access for invitations to product and feature betas
Moderated conversations to help you get the most out of your Doodle Plan
Provide feedback that will shape the Doodle product