Scheduling group meetings can be a source of frustration. A team booking tool makes it easy to schedule large meetings.
Scheduling a meeting with several team members often requires an exchange of emails. First, you send out a notification informing the members of the date and time. Next, you’ll receive several reply emails asking for a different date or a different time. It is hard to keep track of all that information, reschedule the meeting, and reinform all the guests.
Team booking tools eliminate that stressful process. They display availability, decrease the chances of double booking, and eliminate email exchanges.
The Team Booking plugin is a very popular booking tool for WordPress. The distinctive feature of the Team Booking plugin is that it reserves appointments on Google Calendar.
Why would you use something else? Well, for reviews like this one that the plugin received on CodeCanyon:
If the Team Booking plugin is not meeting all your expectations, there are many alternatives.
This article will discuss scheduling tools that offer many features to organize your time. It will list the features expected of a booking tool and the features that set each team booking plugin apart.
Team Booking alternatives
Amelia
Amelia is a powerful WordPress booking plugin that works flawlessly with WordPress sites of all kinds. It has a minimal, yet powerful appointment booking interface designed to ease your workflow, automate repetitive tasks, avoid double booking, and make appointment booking a breeze for your customers.
You can even have email notifications and SMS notifications so that nobody forgets about their appointment bookings.
In order to book an appointment, the complete user interaction takes a few clicks with this WordPress plugin. Moreover, with it you can accept payments via PayPal and Stripe, perfect for those who want to pay in advance to book appointments.
As a business owner, you can monitor KPIs in the WordPress dashboard and analyze other important data to keep a pulse on your business. Amelia is a straightforward, no-nonsense booking calendar plugin and an amazing option for those who want an around-the-clock solution for their WordPress site.
Amelia also has an Events Calendar module integrated within its features.
You can now automate your event bookings as well. To be more precise, it means that you will be able to schedule a single day, a multi-day, and also recurring events with Amelia.
Did we mention that you can manage multiple locations and that you have Google Calendar integration?
All of these and much more are under only one license, no add-ons are needed.
To test things for yourself, I’d suggest checking out the demos and seeing how things look on the front end as well as in the back end.
Medical/Health online booking page demo
A website of a demo private clinic, where a visitor can read about provided medical procedures and services, and schedule an appointment.
Barbershop booking page demo
A dummy WordPress website for Barbershops with online booking – a nice and easy implementation with the Bridge theme and the Amelia WordPress booking plugin.
Fitness Gym / Yoga booking page demo
A pseudo Yoga/Gym online booking page where you can browse through possible Yoga classes, schedule individual or group training, and book a package of appointments.
Spa/salon booking page demo
A dummy cosmetology website – look through different cosmetic procedures and treatments, pick an employee and schedule appointments.
Consultant booking page demo
A pseudo Business Consultant / Coach / Lawyer website, where a customer can browse through provided consultancy and lawyer services and book an appointment.
Hands down, this is the one you should pick from this list. Yet, you can check out the other options as well to see for yourselves why Amelia is #1.
Calendly
Expected features:
- SMS notifications
- Time-zone detection
- Integrates with Office 365, Outlook, iCloud, and Google Calendar
- Allows customers to book from your website
- Shows availability
- Limits the number of meetings each day
- Avoid last-minute meetings with a minimum scheduling notice
- Gives metric and report insights
What makes it different:
- Offers several meeting types like one-on-one, collective, and group
- Lets users customize their profile to deliver a personalized branding experience
- Features buffer times before and after meetings
Setmore
Expected features:
- Includes a booking calendar
- SMS and email notifications
- Recurring appointments
- Online payments with Stripe or Square
- Group scheduling
- Allows employees to schedule clients from several locations
Features that make it different:
- Free for up to four staff members
- Allows customers to book on your website, Facebook page, or Instagram profile
- Customers can leave reviews
10to8
Common features:
- One-on-one booking
- Team booking
- SMS, email, or voice call notifications
- Keeps messages branded
- Clients can respond to messages
- Users can send personal SMS messages from their online booking calendar
- Online payments with Paypal or Stripe
- Set booking restrictions
- Two-way sync calendar
- Integrates with Office 365, Exchange, Outlook, iCal, and Google Calendar
- Integrates with CRMs like Pipedrive
Distinctive features:
- Provides powerful reports
- Has great security and performs tests on a regular basis
- Designed for large teams
SimplyBook.me
This booking plugin offers basic features and allows users to pick custom advanced features to suit their needs.
Basic features:
- Limited monthly bookings
- Offers a mobile-optimized booking website or integrates with your own website
- Recurring appointments
- Event bookings
- Email notifications
Advanced features:
- Promotions
- Group bookings
- Classes
- Memberships
- Social media integration
- API to build custom integrations
- Video conferencing
- Metrics
- Online payments with Paypal, Stripe, or through the POS system
- SMS notifications
- Multiple locations
- Website customization
Calendar
Usual features:
- Ingrates with Apple, Outlook, and Google Calendar
- Compatible with mobile devices
- Event analytics to help you be more productive
- Shows the schedules of all invitees to an event
- Reschedule events with one click
Features that set it apart:
- This plugin connects all your calendars from Google, Apple, and Outlook to manage all your appointments in one place
- The calendar uses artificial intelligence. The more you use it, the better it gets. The calendar learns and tailors to your scheduling needs.
Doodle
Common features:
- Compatible with multiple calendars
- Integrates with many platforms to extend the functionality
- Offers one on one meetings and team bookings
- Provides security
- Auto-identifies time zones
- Reminders
- Customized brand
Distinctive features:
- Doodle has a simple and efficient interface. Users can schedule individual bookings or team bookings in two steps. It shares availability and makes picking a date and time effortless. Whether for an important business meeting or a family dinner, Doodle makes the scheduling process simple.
Rallly
Rallly is unlike all the other team booking plugins on this list because it is very simple.
What makes it unique?
- Free
- Simple
- Polling
Users can create a polling page for their guests to vote on when the best time for the meeting or event would be.
- Comment boxes
On the polling page, visitors can comment and discuss meeting and agenda details for the most efficient meeting schedule.
CalendarHero
Formerly known as Zoom.ai.
Common features:
- Connect any calendar to the plugin. (Apple, Microsoft, Google Calendar)
- Gmail, Outlook, and Slack integration allow users to book meetings within and outside their organization
- Integrates with the software you use every day to provide a seamless workflow
- Individual booking
- Team booking that helps find the best time for the whole group in an instant
- Time zone detection
- Lead option so someone does not schedule a meeting with you at the last minute
- Travel time to and from meetings
- Sends reminders
- Stripe payments
- Embed on your website
What features set it apart:
- Pre-configured meeting types, artificial intelligence, or custom options speed up scheduling
- Users can include a video conferencing link in the meeting invite for online meetings
Acuity Scheduling
Expected features:
- Displays real-time availability
- Multiple locations
- Multiple service providers
- Automatic time zone adjustments
- Automatic reminder notifications
- Online payments
- Sync calendars
- Offer packages, memberships, or group classes
- Share your calendar on Facebook, Instagram, your website, and your email
- Recurring appointments
- Customize according to your brand
What distinguishes it from other team booking plugins:
- Reservation form that asks for the details of the client so you know all the information you need before the meeting
- Integrates with software to perform meetings through video conferencing. Send the link in the invitation
NeedToMeet
Features of the free version:
- Visual booking calendar interface
- Deliver invites through NeedToMeet or your email
- Receive notifications when someone responds to your invite
- Create a unique meeting URL
- Polling to schedule a meeting
- Multi-platform like web, mobile, or Microsoft plug-in
- View comments from the attendees in one place
- Ad-free
Premium features:
- View all meetings in one dashboard
- Customize settings
- Set attendee responses as private
- Sync contacts
- Integrate with Outlook
- Share your personal calendar so people can see your availability
- Unlimited time slots on the meeting polls
- Group meetings
- Unlimited attendees
Sprintful
Expected features:
- Several meeting types like one on one or group meetings
- Customize with your brand
- Sync with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Office 365
- Customizable reservation form
- Customizable theme
- Integrates with video conferencing tools
- Integrates with other software to extend the functionality
- Create multiple calendars
- Time zone detection
- Block busy time slots
- Notifications for booking, rescheduling, canceling, and reminders
What makes it different:
- Sprintful gives users options to completely manage their schedule. They can set buffer times between meetings so their schedule does not get too full. Configure meeting types, durations, and recurring appointments so it can find the best time for a client to meet with you. Assign prices or attendee capacity to your meetings. Blackout hours or days off. Set rules on how soon or how far ahead a meeting can be booked.
x.ai
Common features:
- Integrates with your calendar
- Give invitees specific time options to pick from
- Set meeting duration limits
- Set maximum amount of meetings per day
- Buffer times between meetings
- Set vacation days
Distinguishing factors:
- Uses artificial intelligence for more efficient team booking
- Offers URLs so you can send them to clients or social media followers. Provides unique URLs for one on one meetings, group meetings, team meetings, and more. The link sends invitees to a reservation form. You can customize each form with different meeting times and questions so you can prepare for the specific meeting.
Appointy
Expected features:
- Send automated reminders and notifications before appointments
- Customizable forms
- Customize the look and feel of the plugin to suit your brand
- Recurring booking
- Multiple service providers and individual staff login so each staff member can manage their own schedules
- Control working hours and booking rules
- Manage maximum capacity of appointments
- Integrates with your website or Facebook page
- Provides business analytics
- Allows clients to prepay in part or in full for the appointment
Things that set it apart:
- Appointy is an all-in-one solution for scheduling bookings and handling administrative work. It provides a booking calendar and CRM tools
- Provides a booking page for those who do not have a website
If you enjoyed reading this article on team booking, you should check out this one about the best group scheduling apps.
We also wrote about a few related subjects like important features that an appointment booking apps, photography booking apps, best appointment scheduling software, and top appointment reminder apps.