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Part 5: Calendaring

This is part 5 of the Getting Started as a CSM course, where we show you how to use Calendar Enhancements and Calendars in Mixmax.

Updated over a week ago

Scheduling events has never been easier! With Mixmax, you can schedule important meetings or group events directly from your email - no more switching between multiple apps!

Calendar enhancements

The Calendar enhancements are available directly in your Gmail compose window - you can access them using keyboard shortcuts or the Meetings icon. You can share your meeting availability, send invites, or share single meeting links - all while composing your message.

Share Availability

The Share Availability Mixmax enhancement lets you quickly schedule meetings without sending multiple emails back & forth to confirm the time and date. You simply share available times with your recipient, and they confirm the preferred time directly in the email. Your response rate will increase dramatically!

To suggest multiple time options for a meeting, click the Meetings menu as displayed below and select Share availability. You can also use the keyboard shortcut: type /cal to launch the calendar and share your availability.

Sharing availability

First, in the popup window, fill in the event details (title, location, description, and time zone).

Click the Meeting Title field to select one of the preconfigured Calendars. If you don't have any yet, don't worry—you will learn how to create a Calendar a bit later in this lesson!

The Mixmax autocomplete feature will suggest common meeting titles and locations. You can also click the down arrow to see the recently used options.

If Mixmax is connected to an online conferencing tool, you can add a meeting link or select No conferencing.

Mixmax is integrated with Google Meet and Zoom.

Under the Time zone, select the recipient's time zone.

Once your recipient chooses a time, you can include additional guests who will receive an invitation to this event. Mixmax also prevents double booking by default.

Next, choose your available times on the calendar. If you want to select multiple options, click and hold, then drag down or across the calendar. When you add the invitation to your email, the available times will appear in your time zone and automatically convert to your recipient's time zone.

Selecting available times

Use the Default length drop-down at the top right of the calendar popup to change the length of the default time slot.

Time slot length

You can also manually adjust an individual time slot by clicking and dragging the bottom of the box on the calendar.

Once you select the available times, click Insert Times at the bottom left of the popup.

Inserting times

The screenshot below shows how the invitation might look in the message. Your recipient will see exactly what you see in the compose window in their email.

Meeting times

To confirm the meeting, your recipient must click their preferred time.

If you enabled double-booking protection for the meeting, and your recipient clicks on a timeslot when you have a different meeting, they'll be prompted to reschedule for another time:

Time no longer available

Once the recipient chooses an available time, they'll see the landing page below. (On the Growth or Enterprise plan, you can customize this landing page with your own colors and logo.)

Meeting scheduled

You and your recipient will see the meeting added to both your Google calendars and receive an email confirmation of the meeting.

Meeting details

For more details, check out the Share Availability help article.


Calendar Invite

As a CSM, you often invite people to various meetings. With the Calendar Invite enhancement, your recipients can respond to the invitation by clicking a button, and the event will be added to their Google calendar automatically.

To create a new calendar invite, click the Meetings menu as displayed below and select Send calendar invite. You can also use the keyboard shortcut: type /invite and launch the calendar window.

Sending a calendar invite

Next, fill in the event details just like when sharing your availability.

When you are done, click the Insert button at the bottom left.

Inserting an invite

In the screenshot below, you can see how the invitation might look in the message. Your recipient will see exactly what you can see in the compose window. When you send the email with the invite, a new event will be automatically added to your recipients' calendars.

Invite in an email

To RSVP, your recipients simply have to click the Yes button in the email. After that, they'll be redirected to a confirmation page, which you can modify with custom branding. Once the recipients respond, you will receive a confirmation email.

Invite confirmation

Plans can change, and your recipients can change their answers by clicking a different button in the email with the invite or in Google Calendar. You can also update the event in your Google Calendar.

To learn more, check out the help article about the Calendar Invite enhancement.


Group scheduling

Mixmax enhancements also make it easier to invite multiple guests to an event. The Group Event Poll enhancement lets you check the availability of multiple prospects, customers, or colleagues directly via email. When you receive their answers, you can instantly see which time will work best for everyone and schedule your event directly on recipients' Google Calendars.

To create a new Group Event Poll, click the Meetings menu as displayed below and select Plan group event. You can also use the keyboard shortcut: type /group and launch the event poll window.

Planning a group event

Next, fill in the event details (title, location, description, and time zone). Then, add date and time options for your recipients to choose from. When you're done, click Insert Event Poll at the bottom left to add the poll directly to your email.

Creating an event poll

You will see something like this in your email:

Group event poll

You'll receive an email notification once each recipient picks their preferred option. To see the aggregate responses, click See full results & schedule event in any of the email notifications, or check the email in your Sent folder. The email notification will look like this:

Poll email notification

To schedule your group event, follow these steps:

  1. Click See full results & schedule event in one of the email notifications with responses you received.

  2. Click the Schedule button next to the time slot you'd like everyone to confirm.

Latest poll results

3. Confirm the event details and add more recipients (optional).

Confirming details and guests

4. Click Send Invites.

After that, each recipient will receive a confirmation email, and the new event will be automatically added to their Google Calendars. You can edit the event in Google Calendar at any time.

Invitation sent


Calendars

Scheduling any event, from product demos to meeting for coffee, is a breeze with Mixmax custom Calendars. Each unique Calendar contains the event duration, availability, title, and location.

You can select a Calendar when sharing availability or creating a calendar invite. Simply click the Meeting Title field to see a drop-down list with all existing Calendars.

You can also use the /meeting shortcut to open the list of Calendars in the compose window and select the Calendar you wish to use in the email.

Creating a Calendar

To create a new Calendar, go to the Calendars page in the dashboard and click New calendar on the left. A blank Calendar will open. Click the pencil icon next to the placeholder in the top bar to give your Calendar a unique name.

Default event details

Next, fill in the default event details. These details will be displayed in the event confirmation window and the invitation emails sent to you and your recipient. The details will also automatically populate your GCal event.

You can specify the Calendar's title, location, description, one or several calendars on which the event should be scheduled (see more details on scheduling on shared calendars below), and a link to a video conference call if you have a conferencing tool connected to your Mixmax.


Scheduling on shared calendars

The Schedule on field allows Mixmax Calendars to schedule meetings on your colleagues' calendars as well, regardless of whether they are Mixmax users.

To select a different calendar, click the selected option under Schedule on. If you have access to more calendars, you can choose them from the drop-down menu.

To find a specific calendar, start typing, and you will see the autocomplete option matching your search.

Scheduling on a selected calendar

To learn how to share your Google calendar, check these steps. You can also subscribe to someone else's calendar.


Setting up a round robin

Mixmax Calendars also provide a convenient option for setting a round robin. A round robin is a meeting automatically scheduled on multiple calendars simultaneously. You might find a round robin useful when you need to ensure the calls for a product demo are evenly distributed across your entire team if prospective customers sign up for a demo on your website.

To set up a round-robin for a Calendar, simply add several Google or Outlook calendars at once to the Schedule on field. You can add any shared Google or Outlook calendars to which you have read/write access.

Round robin calendars

Mixmax rotates randomly through the round-robin calendars to automatically distribute scheduled meetings across different hosts. For more details, see setting up a round-robin.


Custom fields

Do you need to gather some info about your meeting guests before the meeting? Add some custom fields to your Calendar! You can ask for any details, e.g., phone numbers, website links, etc. The responses provided by the guests will be added to the Description field in the calendar invite.

Your guests will not see the custom fields directly in the email but will be prompted to fill them in once they click your calendar link.

To create a custom field, click +Add a field, enter the field label (this will be the prompt your guests can see), and then toggle the switch to Yes if the field should be required. Click the ( + ) circle to add new fields or the ( - ) circle to remove fields.

Your recipients will see the custom fields only if they go to your Calendar booking page (but not when booking directly from an email). Once guests visit the booking page, they'll see a calendar with your available times. After they select one of the time slots, they'll be asked to fill in their name, email address, and the custom fields you added! Here is an example of how that works:

Filling in the field

Calendar link and page title

The Calendar link allows you to invite guests to book a meeting directly on your calendar. You can edit the endpoint to make it easy to memorize the link.

Click View to check what your Calendar looks like.

To share the link, click Copy URL.

This calendar page is where guests will be prompted to fill in the custom fields you added (see above) after selecting a timeslot for the meeting.

By default, the Page title of your booking calendar is "Schedule a Meeting with <<calendar name>>," and that's what your recipients will see at the top of the page when they visit the booking URL. You can modify the page title as you wish.


Available Times

You can set different available times for each Calendar. Check the box next to the days of the week you wish to include in your availability. Click the ( + ) circle next to the day to add multiple time slots.

Available times

To learn more about setting up the Calendar availability, check out Calendar Availability settings.


Preventing double booking

When you need to coordinate a meeting with several people or even an entire team, you can enable your calendar's double-booking prevention.

The option to Prevent double booking is under the Calendar availability options.

Double booking prevents events from being scheduled on the specific Google or Outlook calendars you add in the Prevent double booking field. If the owner of the calendar you add uses several Google or Outlook calendars, you will need to add all of them in this field to prevent double booking.

Enter the email address or name of the Google or Outlook calendar where you want to prevent double booking, and Mixmax will display only available times that work for all of the added calendars.


Automatic reminders

To ensure your prospects, customers, and colleagues attend the meeting on time, you can automatically send reminder messages before an event starts if you're on the Mixmax Small Business plan or above. Mixmax automation is an excellent way to remind guests about the event and share any information they might need.

Meeting reminder

Scheduling messages

To set up an automatic meeting reminder for a Calendar, scroll down to Automation. You can customize the message and select the day/time when it should be sent before the meeting.

Make sure to toggle the switch in the top right corner of the message ON after editing it.

If your guest edits the meeting or you need to reschedule it, don't worry! Mixmax will automatically update your scheduled reminder so it will still be sent out at the right time. Also, the reminder won't be sent if your guest cancels the event.

The reminder will not be updated if these changes occur less than 30 minutes before it is scheduled to be sent. However, you can manually edit your reminders in the Outbox.

To enrich and personalize your reminder, you can use Calendar variables in the scheduled message subject or body text. We will learn more about the variables in the next lesson.


Creating a Call-To-Action button

A Call to Action (CTA) button is another great option for connecting your recipients to your Calendar booking page with one click.

Booking button

To create a Call to Action button, click the Enhance menu in your compose window and select Call to Action, or use the /button keyboard shortcut to quickly open the Call to Action menu.

Call to Action menu

You can select a premade button from the panel on the left or create your custom button using the options on the right, as described below. When you are done, click Insert Button.


Creating custom buttons

To create a custom button, first, add the text you want displayed on the button in the Button Text field. Specify the URL where the button should redirect users under Button URL.

The Text Color and Background Color fields allow you to customize the colors of the Call to Action button. You can enter a hex color code or click the color picker wheel to select a preset color.

If you are on the Growth plan and above, the button color will conveniently match your custom branding by default.

The button preview will be displayed at the top of the CTA creation window. In the screenshot below, you can see a CTA button that links to your Mixmax Public Calendar.

Public calendar button

Enjoy your enhanced event scheduling! Let's go on to the next lesson. Click Next to proceed.

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