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Meeting scheduler

Nutshell's customers were looking for a tool similar to Calendly that fully integrated with their existing CRM workflows. I designed a scheduling tool that boosted productivity and eliminated the need to pay for a separate tool.

An SVG illustration of a calendar with several dates highlighted in purple and one in orange, indicating a selection. To the right, a cursor points to an orange button among a stack of buttons, representing user interaction for selecting a time.

Timeline:

Jun ‘23 - Sep ‘23

The challenge

We sought to create a solution that alleviated common pain points about scheduling meetings and that smoothly fit into existing CRM workflows.

The tool also needed to provide sufficient functionality to completely eliminate the need for Nutshell customers to pay for another tool, such as Calendly.

Gathering requirements

I embarked on a journey to gather all essential requirements. Through a series of collaborative sessions captured in FigJam, we dove into understanding the core features and their significance. This phase was crucial, as it set the foundation for the tool to be built, ensuring that every feature was aligned with user needs and expectations.

A chart categorizing scheduling feature requirements by priority and feature area: essential features include creating and booking meetings, syncing calendars, and sending confirmation emails; desirable features include customizable controls and embedding meetings; out-of-scope features involve integrating multiple calendars and customizing appearance.

Each requirement is mapped along two axes: priority level and feature area. Higher-priority requirements are positioned at the top, while lower-priority ones are placed further down on the chart.

Learning from the market

Plenty of scheduling tools exist already in the market, and analyzing their strengths and weaknesses provided valuable insights.

I conducted a comprehensive competitor analysis, focusing on the primary user flows for each tool from the perspectives of two major user groups:

  1. The calendar owner scheduling the meeting
  2. The invitee booking the event

By comparing and contrasting these flows, we gained insights into what was effective and what could be improved. This user-centric approach was crucial in shaping our design strategy, enabling us to innovate while ensuring our solution met the needs of both types of users.

A chart displaying high-level user flows for scheduling meetings across three competitors: Calendly, Pipedrive, and HubSpot. The flows are divided into two sections: CRM user and person scheduling meeting, highlighting the steps involved in each platform's process to identify patterns and gaps in the user experience.

High-level user flows from each competitor, viewed together, revealed patterns and gaps in the standard user experience.

Brainstorming & early designs

Our brainstorming phase was filled with vibrant discussions about the tool's information architecture and the technical intricacies of syncing with existing calendars. These brainstorming sessions were about more than just generating ideas. They also challenged assumptions and pushed boundaries to create a product that would stand out.

Early wireframes for the Nutshell scheduling tool created in FigJam. The interface shows the process of creating new meetings, including meeting name, availability, location, duration, activity type, and related entities (person, company, lead). It also features the availability settings, with options to connect a calendar and define general and exclusive schedules.

Early wireframes created in FigJam facilitated discussions with engineers about technical feasibility and constraints.

Time zone handling

To support customers from any geographical location, we focused on designing a system that showed your current time alongside the time zone we detected. This gave people reassurance when scheduling meetings that they were booking slots at the right time.

A scheduling interface for a discovery call with, showing a calendar to select a date and a list of available times on the right. The interface indicates the call duration (30 minutes), includes a Zoom link, and displays the current time zone detected (Eastern Daylight Time).

A useful UX pattern for conveying the detected time zone is to display the current time according to the time zone the system has detected.

Multi-host meetings

Introducing multi-host meetings presented a user interface challenge and a significant engineering hurdle. The system had to facilitate collaborative scheduling among two or more hosts, where even minor inaccuracies could disrupt multiple participants’ schedules.

A co-host configuration screen for a meeting shows three hosts: Kelli Corkery (Central Daylight Time, primary host), Beverly Kemmer (Eastern Daylight Time), and Lance Cole (Pacific Daylight Time). Each host's time zone and current local time are displayed. An option to add more co-hosts is available.

Each host's time zone and current local time is shown when configuring a meeting.

QA and post-implementation

As the project approached completion, we shifted our focus to quality assurance (QA) and post-implementation planning, where I excel. With every project, I consistently maintain detailed notes that catalog everything from minor design adjustments to major launch-blocking bugs. This ensures we meticulously track and address various issues and guarantee things aren’t missed.

A FigJam board displays sticky notes outlining various visual design fixes for the Nutshell scheduling tool. Issues include inconsistent icon sizes, incorrect component heights, header updates, padding unification, button borders, sidebar visibility, form column width, and background color changes.

In FigJam, I organized the primarily visual design fixes using sticky notes. The notes labeled with my initials indicated the issues I could address directly in the codebase.

Impact & lessons learned

Scheduler was a valuable addition to Nutshell's product line, boosting overall profitability and contributing to monthly recurring revenue. Beyond improving customer productivity, the tool emerged as a central element in Nutshell's marketing strategies. It became a vital asset for sales and customer success teams to promote product growth and address customer challenges.