I’ve been using Tungle for years to share my calendar with colleagues and clients. It allowed them to view my availability online and propose meetings as if we were all on the same calendaring system. Unfortunately, RIM bought Tungle in 2011 and it started to decline. Appointments would no longer sync reliably with Outlook, I’d get strange error messages from the connector plug-in, and the company stopped providing tech support. Now they’ve announced that Tungle will be shut down on December 3rd. Hence I’ve been looking for alternatives.
I found this article listing possible replacements for Tungle (ScheduleOnce, TimeBridge, Meetifyr, Bookeo, Acuity Scheduling, TimeTrade, and Book’d). TimeBridge looked promising since it integrates with both Outlook and Google. But I found several articles saying that, like Tungle, TimeBridge had been acquired, service had degraded, and its future was uncertain. I don’t know if that’s true, but rather than take a chance I kept looking. I signed up for TimeTrade, but it looks like it’s closer in functionality to Doodle and MeetingWizard. I love those tools, but they don’t allow someone to browse my calendar for availability. Some of the others on the list mystified me. I couldn’t tell what they’d cost, or I couldn’t tell whether they’d integrate with Outlook or Google, or I couldn’t tell whether they’d provide a web page where people could browse my schedule and propose meetings, or all of the above.
For now I’ve settled on the free version of ScheduleOnce. It looks like it has more features than Tungle and offers the same ability for me to share my calendar with others (not the details, just the available times).
Any Tungle users out there with other alternatives to suggest?
Emily Eldridge says
Hi Robert,
Thank you for writing about your experience trying to find a good replacement for Tungle.me. I am the CEO of Book’d, one of the options you mentioned, which is just now launching in beta. This is the reason you probably found minimal information about our pricing (we won’t be setting it until we get beta user feedback) and other features. Tungle’s announcement was a surprise to us, too, so we’ve been working as fast and as hard as we can to prepare the platform to which Tungle users to easily transition.
To answer a couple of questions you posed in your post, Book’d will allow people to create an account and list personal availability by service (outlining appointment type, description, locations, availability), as well as join groups (i.e. business, volunteer organization). We plan to always offer a free version, but paid models will be introduced after this initial beta period. Users can accept payment during the booking process, as desired, and we have Google Calendar two-way integration. We plan to integrate other calendars as we progress through beta and refine features based on feedback from users.
I wish you the best of luck in finding a solution that best fits your needs. If ScheduleOnce has done that for you, stick with it! Otherwise, we’d love to have you beta test Book’d and provide feedback to us so that we can build the best possible platform that solves all your scheduling headaches.
If we can answer anymore questions about Book’d for you, please feel free to reach out over Twitter (@Bookd), on our Facebook page or email me personally. You can also find more information about us on our blog: http://schedulingsoftware.tumblr.com/
Cheers,
Emily Eldridge
CEO
Robert says
Thanks Emily. I signed up for an invitation before I wrote this post and look forward to trying Book’d out.
Lori says
I’m also looking for a replacement (how I landed on your site). I just signed up for an invitation to book’d but was a bit put off by the very large picture on their site that looks like someone whose jeans are un-zipped. 🙂
Now that it’s been two weeks, do you have an update?
Thanks
Robert says
Lori — I’m very happy with ScheduleOnce so far. I was initially put off because you could only open an account by using your Google or Facebook accounts, but they’ve done away with that requirement. It has a friendly user interface, the set up process is pretty intuitive, and the meeting reservation pages it creates are easy to navigate (better than Tungle’s).
I received an invitation to beta test Book’d last week but haven’t been able to figure it out and there’s no online help.
Lori says
Thanks
I’m giving schedule once a whirl. I do prefer the calendar view of tungle.me but now I see why a few people emailed me lately to say they weren’t sure if the appt got created. Guess t.me wasn’t working lately.
doodlemyke says
Hi Robert
Thanks for mentioning Doodle: “I love those tools, but they don’t allow someone to browse my calendar for availability.” Please let me add that — in addition to our default group scheduling use case — we also have the functionality you might be looking for: We call it MeetMe and it is available here: http://doodle.com/meetme
Best
myke.
Robert says
Thanks, Myke. I signed up for a Doodle MeetMe page. It looks like a decent replacement for Tungle. Setup was easy and the interface for requesting meetings looks pretty straightforward. But so far I prefer ScheduleOnce. As far as I can tell, Doodle doesn’t let me set default days and times when I’m available (e.g., only allow meetings during weekdays from 9 – 5). I also like the checkbox interface that ScheduleOnce uses.
Angie says
Same issue – thanks for checking this out and making recommendations.
Bridget Harris says
Hi Robert – a really interesting flow of comments here. We’d love to hear what you thought of YouCanBook.Me – a service we’ve been building up over the last few years, largely on the back of a steadily growing community of enthusiastic users. As an incentive to try we’re throwing in a special offer to all former ‘tunglers’ 🙂 http://youcanbook.me/tungle
any questions please don’t hesitate to ask, cheers Bridget
Trish TungleMe Alter 2 says
Due to TungleMe about to close down (like now!),I have spent the afternoon researching online booking calendars…
1. Doodle: Looks great however, easy to use however Doodle doesn’t let me set default days and times when I’m available – sometime I enjoyed with TungleMe.
2. Appointy: Doesn’t look as good however you can set up a ‘billing’ app allowing payments. Was excited until I realised it did not sync automatically to Google calendars in BOTH directions. (only from Appointy to Google not the other direction) .
3. Book’d: Sounded great & promising however waiting for ‘invitation’. Need it now. I can’t wait for a beta invite. Sorry 🙁
4. Found this great article worth a look: http://nicolasgremion.com/11-web-tools-effectively-manage-business-calendar
However, thanks to this blog post, will now give Schedule Once a crack.
So thank you Robert. Very interesting post…
Oh – and if that’s not working for me… YouCanBook.Me sounds promising also. 🙂
Ray says
Hi, I’ve tried most of the proposed alternatives. The problem is that for my work PC we do not have admin rights and all the solutions appear to require something installed on my PC.
Anyone have any solutions?
Cheers,
Ray
Ray says
Have you stuck with ScheduleOnce? Has it been working as well as Tungle.me?
Thanks!
Robert says
Ray,
It depends on which calendar you’re syncing with. ScheduleOnce doesn’t require any PC software to sync with my Google calendar. (I think that’s true of the other alternatives that have been mentioned so far.) If that’s all you need to do, you’re set. But if you need to sync with Outlook you’re going to need to install something on your PC. You’ll have to make a case to your IT department. (Note that if you have a smartphone that syncs your calendar with your PC you can sync the phone with a Google calendar.)
Robert
Robert says
Yes, I have stuck with ScheduleOnce. I haven’t explored further since I have a working solution. I like the way ScheduleOnce shows my availability (checkboxes for openings), the options it provides, the sync with Google, and the notifications. Plus, it’s free.
Robert
Chris says
Hey Robert,
I’m glad you had a chance to look at TimeTrade. I’m surprised you had trouble finding our pricing or features list. We connect to Google, iCal and Outlook and our Professional package is $49 a year.
Not trying to sound too promotional but we are offering a free year subscription to Tungle users who are losing their account.
You create “Activities” for the different types of meetings you’re having and you get a direct link to each activity to share out. You can also embed our calendars on your site with an iFrame or lightbox using our button builder: http://www.timetrade.com/button-builder
I think you’ll like it.
-Chris
Dotan, vCita Team says
Hi,
You can check out vCita
Just like Tungle.me, vCita helps businesses with scheduling appointments from any website, email signature, or a standalone contact-page.
vCita can also help businesses grow by engaging online visitors and turning them into clients.
Proactive contact form, phone conferencing, video meetings, credit-card payments, and even email campaigns, are all part of vCita.
As Tungle.me users, you also benefit from 3 months of our Business Subscription at no cost. You can register at http://www.vcita.com/meeting-scheduler/tungle_me
Dotan
vCita Team
Jennifer says
I have used timetrade for a couple of years and really liked it. My use case is booking multiple types of appointments: 15 min, 30min phone interviews as well as in person interviews with about 200 people over 6 weeks. I also book parent meetings as a psychologist. When I am at my office I can do phone interviews and in-person interviews but when I am home I can only do phone interviews, it makes for a complicated mess. I typically just label the in-person schedule as in-person or phone. Time trade is much less expensive than ScheduleOnce for this type of activity however the ScheduleOnce interface has been a bit more user friendly from the back-end. I am curious to see how ScheduleOnce works and if it is worth the price for the few months I need the more advanced booking options.
Shayne says
After reviewing this blog and everyone’s comments and to preface my comment I’ll give you our setup. We self host Exchange (as a good IT integrator should) and run Office 2010 64bit. I decided to start with ScheduleOnce and quickly learned that it’s not for me. There is no plug in that will directly talk to ScheduleOnce. You have to use an app that will sync to a Google calendar, and then hook the Google calendar to the ScheduleOnce calendar. Too many hops and I need Google into my stuff (weird hang up for me). So I moved over to TimeTrade. They have an installer that hooks into Outlook and sends data to TimeTrade directly. First thing is finding the installer is not obvious. They should put a link right on the main account page after you login. Also, the response times on the pages were noticeably slower than I was expecting. So, I watched a video to find the installer download. Installed the plugin and launched Outlook. No toolbar showed up in Outlook. Did some quick research and found that they had a note back in 2011 that they were in beta for Outlook 2010 64bit. So almost 2 years later they do not appear to have a functioning plugin for the version of Outlook we are running. So I will continue to look around for a solution. Still bummed that tungle pulled the plug, even with the occasional sync issue, it just worked.
Comments?
Shayne says
edit
*do -not- need Google into my stuff.
Shayne says
Went to look up YouCanBookMe and it’s the same scenario with Google. I do not need Google to be the gate keeper on this solution. Blarg.
Shayne says
So far Doodle is doing what I want it to do. Much like Tungle, although I’d like a softer / customizable interface for outside people. The sync took a little while to figure out. I had the checkbox for the “Only sync free/busy info” which to me is a logical choice, but it didn’t sync. So I removed that checkbox and now the calendar syncs. So, we’ll see how it goes. So far, Doodle is the closest in Tungle functionality.
Robert says
Hi Shayne — Thank you for the updates! I was already using Google Calendar to keep my computer, phone, and tablet in sync so adding ScheduleOnce to the mix wasn’t a problem. But it’s great to know that Doodle bypasses that step.
Robert
Ethan Waldman says
Hi Robert- I too was happily using ScheduleOnce as an alternative and then they took away the ability to sync with multiple calendars from the free account! It also always bugged me that when someone else with schedule once sent me an invitation, there was no way to view my own availability even if I was logged in. I’m wondering if you’re still with ScheduleOnce, and if not, have you found anything else?
Thanks,
Ethan
Robert says
Ethan – I’m still using ScheduleOnce and haven’t needed to sync with multiple channels. But the reports folks have provided on other options sound worth checking out. Do let us know what you settle on.
Danesh Butt says
Does anybody know any free sites ?
Registered to Schedule once but it only gives a 14 day free trial.
Please help !
Robert says
Danesh: ScheduleOnce does have a basic free option, which is what I’m using. I think Doodle’s personal scheduling (MeetMe) is free but their business scheduling (BookMe) isn’t.
Sarah C. Albritton says
I just checked into ScheduleOnce and it appears they have somehow merged with Doodle’s MeetMe and BookMe. There seems to still be a free option but the free 14 day trial is for the “professional” which is $19/month. I’m a Mac person and it’s not seamless getting things to synch.
Thanks for the great discussion on this blog! Much appreciated. I miss Tungle (the early days!)
Robert says
Thanks, Sarah. I haven’t head that ScheduleOnce (SO) has merged with Doodle or BookMe, and don’t see that on their web site. I hope that’s not true — I’d like to have more choices than SO just in case. As I recall, when I signed up with SO they started me with a trial of the Pro version. At the end of the trial period I was able to downgrade to the free version, which has been working fine for my needs. (I do miss Tungle, though.)
Sandra Clark says
ScheduleOnce doesn’t seem to sync with my Google calendar so I’m going to try youcanbook.me which seems to sync properly.
Robert says
Sandra — I’m syncing ScheduleOnce with my Google calendar so I’m surprised it’s not working for you.
Steve McConnell says
I’ve got a somewhat different use case involving a group instead of an individual — roughly a dozen team members (university student services staff) trying to track a variety of meetings and events and deadlines. Different subsets of the team are needed at different events, which may be held at various times in various locations across campus, or may simply be tasks without a specific time and/or location. So far they’ve been trying to manage this via an XLS spreadsheet (30+ pages and growing), which is obviously unwieldy and unsustainable. Clearly they need something database-powered, but don’t require the many bells and whistles of the various scheduling apps I’ve looked into (including those in or referenced from this post). Any suggestions? Being a public university, free is obviously our preferred price point, but we could probably scare up some limited funds for the right tool.
Robert says
Steve – do you just need to share calendars internally, among staff, or do you need to allow outsiders, like students to book appointments?
I’m assuming it’s the latter, in which case ScheduleOnce and TimeTrade look promising. Both say they can handle workgroups. Doodle/BookMe and vCita might also work, but it’s not clear that they can manage workgroup calendars.
Steve McConnell says
Robert: For this instance, I don’t think there’s a need to enable external booking of appointments. It would be relatively simple to use a shared Google calendar our needs, except that our campus is so integrated into the Google apps world that it’s actually harder to do a one-off independent project like that using the same tool — problems with account limitations, locked-down permissions for room/resource scheduling, needing to note the involvement of others in a meeting/event without ACTUALLY scheduling it on their main Google calendar, etc. In effect, what I’m looking for is a simple workgroup scheduling calendar that works a lot like Google calendar, but isn’t.
Robert says
Steve — I wonder whether you could set up a master Google calendar and overlay all of the individual calendars. If you search for phrases like “combine multiple google calendars” you’ll find info on how to do that. But if that’s not viable, it seems like the products I mentioned earlier are your best bets. Many of the can integrate with a Google calendar, but I’m not sure whether they can integrate with multiple calendars.
Tope says
For those still looking for a free alternative to Tungle.me, check out calendly.com. The highlights:
-100% free
-great looking, modern and user friendly interface
-2 way Google calendar sync
-full control over your availability – define minimum scheduling notices, buffers and more
-automated reminders
-outlook/exchange integration coming soon
Feel free to make a test appointment at calendly.com/testdrive to get a feel for how it works. And if you like it, go ahead and sign up – it’s free!! And it only take 1 or 2 minutes to set it up.
Jonathan Woolf says
Robert, you may want to check out Betty. Betty is a free personal scheduling assistant for Gmail that allows you insert your availability directly into the body of an email. All your recipient has to do is click on a desired time and instantly the meeting is scheduled (no need to signup or fill out forms). Betty takes care of monitoring your calendar, creating the calendar invites, and handling reschedule requests.
Give Betty a try here: http://trybetty.com
Disclosure: I’m the CEO/Founder of Betty. If you have any questions or product requests, please just let me know. Thanks!
River Judd says
Hello all, and thanks for the preceding brain full.
I have a crowd of people, say 10 to 60, unrelated by business, or GCalendar, or OS, or hardware or computer literacy who want to pick a time next month to meet.
I want to invite them all by their email addresses (which they have given me) and to present no further hurdle for participation since some will be reluctant (age/spam paranoia/time/etc.), to navigate yet another sign up.
Need I say freeware ;-> …but something inexpensive I could contribute to the (recurring) project would be fine.
Any ideas from this fountain of knowledge?
Thank you,
River
Robert Weiner says
Hi River,
I’d try Doodle or MeetingWizard if you can propose some times or days for them to agree to. (I have no suggestions if you want to mesh their separate calendars and look for free times, though.) They do need to be computer literate enough to open an email, click on a link, and check the times when they’re free.
Good luck, and let me know what you wind up doing.
Robert
River Judd says
Thank you Robert.
An update.
Do you know any systems that show all the participants names/IDs so that one can see at a glance who has responded so far?
River
Robert Weiner says
As I recall, if you have the software send out the meeting invitation it will show you who has and hasn’t responded. If you send out the link yourself, participants will need to fill in their names and you won’t see who’s missing.
Dan Nielsen says
I’m so happy I found this conversation.
We’re a small team developing: http://www.timebird.co/
Timebird solves the scheduling problem in a slightly different way than you usually see.
Most current services are either:
– Focussed on making your calendar available for clients to book time in – Appointment focus.
– Scheduling through selecting and voting on dates and times – Doodle style.
We make the process more automatic by connecting all participants calendars to the service, and suggesting times for meeting up based on availability across all calendars.
We are developing the product as we speak, but the core functionality is in place.
We’ll start inviting people to our private beta before long.
I would love any feedback or questions – and of course hope some of you will join the beta list at http://www.timebird.co/
Omer says
Hi Robert,
We recently launched a new product called ScheduleHopper (http://www.schedulehopper.com) which we built specifically for consultants and coaches. From talking to many consultants, I kept hearing “we just want something simple & integrated” and most of the offerings out there are too complicated. So that’s what we tried to do with ScheduleHopper. The basic plan is “free forever” and the most expensive plan right now is just $10/month. I’d love for you to take a look and let me know your thoughts. Feel free to mail me if you have any questions.
– Omer