This document summarizes a white paper about how the ScheduleOnce solution addresses scheduling challenges for mid-sized meetings of 2-6 attendees. It explains that while calendaring servers can support scheduling for some meeting types, they do not fully address scheduling mid-sized meetings, especially those involving external attendees. The ScheduleOnce Private Edition is designed specifically for scheduling mid-sized meetings by collecting availability from all attendees, integrating with calendars, and allowing transparent scheduling in 15 minute increments. The scheduling process in ScheduleOnce takes only a few minutes and identifies optimal meeting times based on real-time availability comparisons.

1. Enhancing Productivity and
Accelerating the Pace of Business with
a Private ScheduleOnce Edition
In this white paper we explain why calendaring servers such as Microsoft
Exchange, Lotus Notes and others cannot address the complete
scheduling needs of an organization. We then show how the portion of
scheduling which cannot be addressed by these calendaring servers is
supported by the Private ScheduleOnce Edition. We conclude with a
description of the key features and benefits of the ScheduleOnce solution.
Introduction
Meetings are the lifeblood of business activity. Hundreds of millions of meetings are scheduled
each day both face‐to‐face and virtually, via audio, video and web conferencing. However, not
all meetings place a scheduling burden of the same level on the organization ‐ some are easy to
schedule and some are not. To gain a better understanding of the scheduling pain, we will start
by analyzing the type of meetings that originate from within an organization: be it a corporation,
an educational institution, or a non‐profit or government organization. We will analyze these
meetings from a number of perspectives:
A. Number of Attendees
One‐on‐One Meetings: These are the most common meetings. These meetings are typically
easy to schedule by email or phone and their scheduling doesn’t take more than 2‐3 minutes.
These meetings do not place a significant scheduling burden on the organization.
Mid‐sized Meetings (2‐6 attendees): These meetings are not as common as the one‐on‐one
meetings, but they occur often, and usually involve between 2‐6 attendees. These meetings are
typically difficult to schedule and place a heavy scheduling burden on the organization.
Large Meetings (more than six attendees): These meetings are large gatherings that usually
happen only once in a while, such as monthly and quarterly business reviews, company
announcements, guest lectures, etc. These meetings are typically scheduled far in advance,
often by announcing a single time. These meetings do not place a significant scheduling burden
on the organization. However, in some cases, such meetings require that specific individuals
participate, making them resemble mid‐sized meetings.
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2. B. Organization Membership
Members of the Organization: Attendees who are members of the organization typically share
their free/busy information, allowing other members to see when they are available. For this
reason, scheduling with members of the same organization does not place a heavy scheduling
burden on the organization.
Non‐members: Attendees who are not members of the organization cannot easily share their
free/busy information, making it very difficult for someone within the organization to know
their real‐time availability. For this reason, scheduling with non‐members places a heavy
scheduling burden on the organization.
C. Working Relationship
Close Working Relationship: People who work together on an ongoing basis have developed
formal and informal codes of conduct between them. This usually implies that they have each
other’s permission to schedule meetings in their available time slots. This type of scheduling
does not place a significant burden on the organization.
Distant Working Relationship: When people do not have an ongoing working relationship, even
though they may work in the same organization, it is less acceptable to book a meeting in an
attendee’s free time without first verifying availability and asking for permission. This type of
scheduling places a moderate burden on the organization.
Mid­Sized Meetings Create Most of the Scheduling Burden
From the above analysis we can conclude that most of the scheduling burden is centered on
mid‐sized meetings with 2‐6 attendees, especially when at least some of the attendees are not
members of the organization, or are members with which the meeting organizer has a distant
working relationship.
The following table analyzes how scheduling for these meetings is supported by the
organizational calendaring server based on the organization membership and working
relationship dimensions:
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3.
Calendaring Server Support for Mid‐Sized Meetings
Complete Support: Partial Support:
Yes Identify a free time and Identify a free time,
create the meeting but manually ask for
permission
Organization
Membership
No Support: Cannot No Support: Cannot
see free/busy data and see free/busy data and
No need to manually ask need to manually ask for
for availability availability
Yes No
Working Relationship
The calendaring server’s inability to support a large portion of the mid‐sized meeting scheduling
scenarios creates a void that is filled with manual scheduling (via email, phone, or SMS).
Manual scheduling increases costs and reduces productivity in the organization ‐ but this is not
the only problem. During the time span between the time of scheduling and the proposed
meeting time, there is no visibility into attendee availability, making it difficult to respond to
schedule changes which create opportunities to advance the meeting time. As a result,
meetings scheduled manually are on average scheduled farther in the future, slowing the
overall pace of business.
The ScheduleOnce Private Edition – Support for the Organization’s Core
Scheduling Activity
The ScheduleOnce solution is inherently designed to support the organization’s core scheduling
activity – mid‐sized meetings with 2‐6 attendees. This is not to say that it cannot be used for
one‐on‐one meetings or large meetings with dozens of attendees ‐ it can. However, mid‐sized
meetings have their unique characteristics and these have been consciously taken into account
when the SceduleOnce solution was originally designed.
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4. Following are the key characteristics of mid‐sized meetings:
• High importance: These meetings are typically at the core of the organization’s activity
and take place in order to advance business issues and make critical decisions.
• Short scheduling timeframe: Since these meetings are important to the business, there
is pressure to have them sooner, rather than later.
• All attendees are important: In these meetings almost all attendees have critical roles.
In many cases it is impossible to have the meeting if not all attendees are present.
• Mixed audience: These meetings typically involve stakeholders and subject matter
experts from other parts of the organization or from outside the organization.
• Virtual and face to face: These meetings are often completely virtual, or involve at least
some level of participation via conference call, and attendees may be located in
different time zones.
• Importance of the scheduling experience: Since these meetings are important and
often involve important attendees, it is critical that the scheduling experience leading to
the meeting is satisfying and does not create unnecessary delay, hassle and discontent.
In order to address the above needs, ScheduleOnce is based on the following principles:
• Organization agnostic: ScheduleOnce works across organizations. For each meeting,
ScheduleOnce collects the availability of all attendees, regardless of their organizational
membership.
• Connection to attendee calendars: Busy times from attendee calendars update their
availability for the meeting, ensuring its accuracy at any point in time.
• Integration into the meeting organizer’s calendar: The entire scheduling process can be
easily managed from the organizer’s calendar without having to go to an external
website.
• Time zone and Daylight Saving Time support: To avoid confusion and embarrassment
for the organization, a scheduling solution must always be accurate, regardless of the
time in the year and time zones involved. For this to happen, the solution must make all
necessary adjustments to properly account for Daylight Saving Time changes around the
world.
• Integrated into the organization’s application environment: The solution is under the
organization’s domain and features the organization’s brand.
• Visibility and transparency: Attendees see each other’s availability during the process,
facilitating convergence towards a common time.
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5. • Based on availability: ScheduleOnce is based on availability rather than discrete time
suggestions. With availability, a one hour meeting can take place from 9:00‐10:00, 9:15‐
10:15 and so forth, providing maximum scheduling flexibility.
• Based on 15 minute increments: Rather than using 30 minute increments, the
ScheduleOnce solution allows 15 minute increments, which maximizes utilization of
attendee availability.
The Scheduling Process with the ScheduleOnce Private Edition
The scheduling process with ScheduleOnce is a three‐step process and only takes a few minutes
to complete. The following steps describe the process in detail:
1. The meeting organizer sets tentative availability for the meeting:
⇒ Marks tentative availability for the meeting (green)
⇒ If the organizer’s calendar is connected, tentative availability overlapping busy times
(blue) is not displayed to the invitees
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6.
2. The meeting organizer sends a link to all invitees. Invitees click on the link and reply with
their tentative availability:
⇒ Invitees see each others’ replies, helping them identify common meeting times
⇒ They mark tentative availability (green) within the organizer’s timeframe
⇒ If the invitee’s calendar is connected, tentative availability overlapping busy times
(blue) will not be displayed to the organizer
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7.
3. The optimal meeting time is automatically identified by comparing real‐time availability:
⇒ Best times are automatically identified by the system
⇒ If the organizer’s calendar is connected, once scheduled, the meeting is
automatically created in all attendee calendars
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8. The Benefits of the ScheduleOnce Private Edition
With the ScheduleOnce Private Edition you get complete technological support for your
organization’s core scheduling activity, resulting in:
• Meetings are scheduled earlier, accelerating the pace of business: In contrast to
manual scheduling, which takes a snapshot of attendee calendars at a single point in
time, ScheduleOnce is constantly updated by attendee calendars, taking advantage of
changing schedules and free time slots. In addition, the transparency and visibility of the
scheduling process allows invitees to see each others’ availability for the specific
meeting, facilitating convergence towards a common time.
• Meetings are scheduled faster, enhancing productivity: While the manual scheduling
process can sometimes take longer than the meeting itself, the entire process with
ScheduleOnce only takes a few minutes to complete. For example, a complex scheduling
scenario with three external attendees in different time zones only takes two minutes to
schedule in ScheduleOnce. This saves time and money, and frees employees to do the
more strategic aspects of their job.
• Professional organizational image: Scheduling is often the first point of contact for an
external invitee with your organization. With ScheduleOnce, all invitees are engaged
with a professional system and a transparent process under the organization’s domain
and brand, conveying an image of an efficient and sophisticated organization.
Summary
We have seen that mid‐sized meetings are responsible for most of the scheduling burden in the
organization. Existing calendaring servers such as Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and others
are not designed to support scheduling of mid‐sized meetings. The scheduling of these meetings
is currently done manually, resulting in much inefficiency for the organization.
A Private ScheduleOnce Edition implemented at the organizational level can put an end to
manual scheduling, accelerating the pace of business, increasing productivity and conveying a
professional organizational image.
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