TymFinder Help

Please remember that TymFinder is still a prototype release. We believe it works, but there's always the possibility you'll run across a bug! If you do find a bug (or have a new-feature idea), please let us know via the Contact Us page.

What is TymFinder?

TymFinder is a collaboration tool that helps a group of people compare their available time-slots to find a time to meet.

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How do I use it?

The meeting organizer fills out the form at the TymFinder home page. That creates a unique web page address (URL) for a "Find a Time" or "Find a Day" schedule sheet that the organizer copies and pastes into an email that goes out to all invitees.

Each invitee clicks the link to go to the "Find a Time" or "Find a Day" schedule sheet and then clicks boxes to show when they are available. When all attendees have marked-up the form, the organizer can easily see what times work for everyone (or at least which times work for almost everyone!) This can significantly shorten the amount of email and phone iterations to find a time. The larger the group, the more this helps!

If I use TymFinder, what will my invitees see?

Invitees will link to either a "Find a Time" schedule or a "Find a Day" schedule. A Find a Time schedule has the dates the organizer specified across the columns, and each row represents a time slot -- much like the calendar on your desktop.

If the organizer selects the "Find a Day" option then a simplified schedule is shown with each column being a date and each row representing an invitee. The latter approach works if you already know what time you want to meet (e.g., you known that you want to schedule a 7:3am breakfast meeting, so all you need is a Schedule Sheet that allows invitees to indicate which days they are available for breakfast).

How many people can I invite?

TymFinder supports up to 50 invitees -- but if you're inviting more than 5 or 10, you might want to use the "Find a Day" option as described above, because for a large group, that creates a much more compact, easier to view Schedule Sheet than "Find a Time".

What Steps does the meeting organizer go through to use TymFinder?

Here are the steps.

• The organizer goes to the TymFinder.com home page, chooses between Find a Time and Find a Day, and fills out the meeting form. Here is a summary of the fields:
• Your name: the Organizer's name
• Meeting Topic: Enter a short topic for the meeting that invitees will understand (remember you'll be sending them an email which can explain the need for the meeting in more detail)
• Next, you mark one radio button to select what approach you want to use to describe the possible meeting dates you want invitees to consider:
• In the next 5 days (you can change 5 to some different number)
• Between two dates that you enter (the range includes both of the dates you enter)
• Or you can type in a list of dates. Most popular U.S. formats work. Separate each date with a semicolon. An example of an acceptable list of dates is: May 4; June 4 2007; 7/4; 8/4/2007
• Days to Include: Select what days of the week you want included. For example, for a business meeting, you'll typically want to include week days only. So if you've entered a range of dates in a previous field, TymFinder will automatically exclude weekends from the schedule sheet if you have selected the "Week days only" option.
• If you selected "Find a Time", you can specify the earliest and latest times you want to meet, and specify how detailed you want the schedule to be (60 minutes, 30 minutes or 15 minutes)
• Names of invitees: Enter the names of the invitees, separated by commas or semicolons
• Allow Invitees to invite others: Click this box if you want to allow invitees to invite additional people to the meeting (they will be added to the Schedule Sheet)
• A summary of the schedule is shown for review; the organizer can press the "back" button of their browser if something needs to change.
• If all looks OK, the organizer presses the "Create Schedule Sheet" button. That creates and displays a unique web page for your meeting.
• The organizer marks-up the schedule sheet with his or her available times (see below).
• The organizer copies the web page link for the Schedule Sheet (by doing a "right click" and selecting "Copy" of the link as directed on the Schedule Sheet) and pastes that into an email that goes to all the invitees.

What do I do if I receive a link to a TymFinder Find a Time schedule sheet?

If you receive an email with a link to a TymFinder Schedule Sheet, here's what to do:

• Click the link in the email to go to the Schedule Sheet for that meeting.
• Click the boxes showing when you are available to meet, and then click the "Save Schedule" button to record their available times for others to view.
• Optionally, you can change the "Display option" check-boxes to view just a subset of the invitees