Whenly.software · find a time for the whole group · early access

Stop asking “what time works for everyone?” Find the one time that does — then lock it.

Getting a committee, a set of chaperones, or a staff PD session onto one afternoon is not a hard problem. It is a tedious one: a chain of “does Thursday work? no? what about Tuesday?” emails that ends with someone building a grid by hand. whenly.software is being built to collapse that into one link.

Propose a few candidate times. Everyone marks each one available, if need be, or no — no account, no install, and no sight of anyone else’s name or email. The overlap surfaces the time that works for the most people, and one tap turns it into a real booking held against capacity, so nobody grabs the room out from under you.

Said plainly, because it matters more than the pitch: there is no whenly.software product running today. The shared no-double-book floor the winning time is designed to lock onto is built — that is the family’s engine, not a whenly surface. The poll itself is what we are building. This is early access, labelled honestly throughout, with no committed price and no live checkout.

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How a find-a-time poll resolves

One link. Three answers. The overlap does the rest.

Step 1 — Propose a few candidate times

A coordinator picks a handful of times the meeting could happen and shares one link. No roster upload is required to start — a link is enough. This is the design; there is no live whenly.software poll to create one on yet.

Step 2 — Everyone marks each time: available, if need be, or no

A responder opens the link and marks each candidate time with one of three answers. No account, no install, and no sight of anyone else’s name or email — a responder is an opaque handle. Three answers, not two, because “I can if I have to” is the answer that actually breaks a tie.

Step 3 — The overlap surfaces the time that works for the most people

For each candidate time the design counts who is available, who is if-need-be, and who is out, and surfaces the winner with its honest runners-up. It is a plain count, not a model — there is no AI in it and none is claimed. The coordinator makes the call; the tool just does the arithmetic nobody wants to do by hand.

Step 4 — Lock the winning time as a real booking

One tap turns the winning column into an actual booking on the family’s shared no-double-book floor — held against capacity so a second group cannot double-book the room — and publishes a subscribable .ics feed with opaque labels, no names. Reminders are consent-gated and honest-off: queued against opt-in, and nothing is sent through this surface today. The lock and the feed are whenly’s own work and are planned; the floor is the shared engine.

The mechanism — what is built, what is being built, labelled honestly

One booking floor, built. The find-a-time poll on top of it, being built.

Every capability below is labelled honestly. Built appears exactly once — the shared no-double-book floor the winning time locks onto, which is the family’s engine, not a whenly.software surface. Planned is everything that makes whenly a find-a-time product: the poll, the three-answer marking, the overlap finder, the one-tap lock, the opaque handles, and the zero-PII feed. We do not blur the two, and nothing on whenly.software is serving a poll today.

The poll

One link, a handful of candidate times, no account to answer it

The design: a coordinator proposes a few candidate times and shares one link. Everyone who gets it marks each time without creating an account, without installing anything, and without seeing anyone else’s email. That is the whole front door — the thing the reply-all chain is standing in for today. It is being built; there is no whenly.software poll running yet, and this page does not pretend otherwise.

Planned · the find-a-time front door, being built

Three answers, not two

Available, if need be, or no — because “maybe” is real information

A yes/no poll throws away the most useful answer a person can give: “I can make it work if I have to.” The design carries three states per time — available, if-need-be, and no — so the overlap can prefer a slot everyone is genuinely free for, and fall back to one a couple of people can stretch to only when nothing clean exists. Designed, not built.

Planned · part of the unbuilt poll

The overlap, computed

The time that works for the most people, surfaced — not left for you to eyeball

Once responses are in, the design computes the overlap: for each candidate time, how many are available, how many only if-need-be, how many out — and it surfaces the winner and the honest runners-up. It is a plain count of who is free, not a model and not a prediction; there is no AI here and none is claimed. Designed, not built.

Planned · a deterministic count, no AI

The part a poll can’t do

Lock the winning time as a real booking, in one tap

This is the line between a poll and a scheduler. A group-poll tool ends at a coloured grid you then re-type into a real calendar by hand. The design here is that the winning time becomes an actual booking on the family’s shared no-double-book floor — held against capacity, so a second group cannot grab the same room out from under it. The lock wiring is whenly’s own work and is planned; the floor it locks onto is the shared engine below.

Planned · the poll-to-booking lock, being built

The floor it locks onto

The no-double-book floor is the family’s shared engine — and it is built

The winning time is designed to land on the same booking floor the schedule.software family is built on: no double-book and per-slot capacity enforced at the database, not in application code that can race. In the family’s own words, “no double-booking is possible: a partial-unique index” on the bookings table, with a transactional capacity count under a lock. To be exact about what that sentence claims: this is the shared engine, grounded in the sibling page’s copy, not a whenly.software surface — nothing on whenly serves a booking today. The floor is built; whenly’s use of it is planned.

Built · shared engine (not a whenly.software surface)

No names in it

A poll that carries opaque handles, not names or emails

The group-poll tools people know put every participant’s name, and often their email, in front of everyone who opens the poll. The design here is the opposite: a responder is an opaque handle, and the coordinator sees availability without the poll becoming a contact list. Designed to minimize minor data: if this planned surface touches a roster, identity fields will route through a consent chokepoint — the row still counts, only the identity is stripped. Designed, not built.

Planned · opaque identifiers and consent-gated identity fields

A feed with no names

The locked time, subscribable as a calendar feed that carries no names

Once a time is locked, the design is a subscribable .ics feed with opaque labels only: no participant name, no organizer name, no real email address in the SUMMARY or ORGANIZER fields — only a non-PII handle. So subscribing to a meeting you coordinated cannot quietly turn your calendar app into a directory of everyone who attended. Designed, not built.

Planned · zero-PII feed

No ads to your group

No ads shown to the people you invite — ever

The free tier of the poll category is paid for by showing ads to your invitees. That is a choice, not a law: the design commitment here is that whenly shows no ads to anyone who opens a poll, on any tier. It is a commitment about a product being built, not a feature running today.

Planned · a design commitment, not a live feature

One note on the category: the group-poll, poll-only, appointment-link and sign-up-sheet tools this page compares against are named as categories, never as companies. The comparison is our reading of how each category models the job, not a tested claim about any one product.

Different lanes for different needs

Ten front doors, one scheduling engine underneath.

These are separate products for separate jobs, each its own brand — not tiers of one app. They share a booking engine (no-double-book at the database, capacity under a lock, an honest waitlist), and nothing else. Naming them here is not a claim that any is live in production — each is its own brand with its own status, stated on its own page.

One link, one slot

slotly.software

The plainest single-link booking front door for a solo practitioner or a very small team.

Call dibs on a time

dibs.software

A first-come, claim-a-slot sign-up sheet with a consumer voice -- the first to grab a time gets it.

Pencil it in

penciled.software

Fixed-slot booking with a real soft-hold state: hold it provisionally, confirm with one tap.

More than one calendar

appointments.software

Appointment booking for a business with multiple staff, locations, or shared resources.

Classes & studios

classly.software

Recurring class, pack, and waitlist scheduling for studios.

Cohort courses

cohort.software

Session-based scheduling for cohort-run online courses.

Staff shift roster

shiftly.software

Post an open shift and match it to eligible, credentialed staff -- scheduling only.

Shifts + hours record

clockly.software

Shift scheduling with time-clock and hours-record capture for classified staff and shift-work teams.

Find a time

whenly.software

A native, ad-free poll for finding the time that works for a whole group.

You are here

The master timetable

schedule.software

Building the institution's whole schedule -- courses, sections, rooms, terms.

How find-a-time tools differ — and what we are building past them

Every tool wins one square. A group needs the whole flow.

A find-a-time poll is good at exactly one thing: collecting availability. It stops at a coloured grid. The tools around it each solve a different square — an appointment link books one host’s calendar, a sign-up sheet hands out fixed slots, an email thread keeps it private but makes you do the arithmetic by hand — and none of them carry a group poll through to a real, held booking with no names in it.

Where the categories structurally stop, whenly is being built to keep going. Every cell in our column below is a design commitment we are building in the open, not a shipped feature — the floor it locks onto is the one thing that is built today.

Structural product categories, not named vendors. Each cell states its verdict in words, so the table reads without color. Our column is honest about greenfield: every cell is a design commitment being built, not a shipped feature.
Product type	Finds a time across a group	No names in the poll	No ads to your people	Locks the time as a real booking	Planned consent-gated feed with opaque labels
Group-poll tools	Yes	Names shown	Ads on free	Poll only	No
Appointment-link tools	One host	Host only	Paid tiers	Books one host	No
Sign-up-sheet tools	Fixed slots	Open sheet	Ads on free	Grab a slot	Open sheet
Email + calendar back-and-forth	By hand	Private	No ads	Retype it	No
Whenly.software	By design (building)	By design (building)	By design (building)	Floor built, lock planned	By design (building)

This comparison reflects the structural category each product type occupies, not any single vendor. No competitor brands are named on this site.

Pricing — the plan, and honestly not a number yet

No committed price. We are not going to invent one.

The plan

The intent is a real, free way to find a time for a group — not a crippled trial — with a small paid tier for coordinators who want more. The exact tiers are not set, so there is no figure on this page to reserve against. When they are set, they will be the planned launch pricing, not a live checkout.

A free way to run a find-a-time poll for a group is the plan, not a promise you can buy today.
A small paid coordinator tier is planned; the price is not committed.
Custom domain and branding are planned to sit low, not behind an enterprise call — the family-wide pattern — but that too is the plan, not a live feature.

No card is charged on this site. Reserving early access does not create a payment, does not store a card, and does not commit you to anything — there is no pricing commitment and no signup here, just a conversation when the product is ready for you.

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Common questions

How is this different from a group-availability poll?

Three ways, and they are the whole reason whenly exists. First, the winning time locks into a real booking on a no-double-book floor — a poll tool ends at a coloured grid you re-type into a calendar by hand. Second, there are no names in the poll: a responder is an opaque handle, not a row in a contact list everyone can read. Third, there are no ads shown to your invitees. To be honest about status: all three are the design of a product being built, not features running today.

Do the people I invite have to make an account?

No — that is a design goal, not an afterthought: a responder should be able to mark a few times from one link with no account and no install. The coordinator side is where early access lives while the product is built. Nothing is self-serve yet, which is why the honest next step on this page is the waitlist rather than a sign-up form that cannot create an account.

Are there names in the poll?

No, by construction. A responder is an opaque handle; the coordinator sees availability without the poll turning into a roster of names and email addresses. Where any surface touches a school roster, identity fields route through a consent chokepoint — a suppressed person’s name is stripped at the server, the row still counts, and it is never a UI filter a client request could switch off.

What does “if need be” mean?

It is the third answer a responder can give a candidate time, alongside available and no. It means “I can make it work if I have to.” Carrying it lets the overlap prefer a time everyone is genuinely free for and fall back to a stretch time only when nothing clean exists — information a yes/no poll throws away.

Is any of this AI?

No. Finding the overlap is a plain count of who marked each time available — arithmetic, not a model, not a prediction. There is no AI-generated or AI-assist claim anywhere on this page, and no model is trained on your responses.

What does it cost?

There is no committed price yet, and this page will not invent one. The plan is a real free way to find a time for a group, with a small paid tier for coordinators who want more — but the exact tiers are not set, so no figure is published here. Whatever the tiers turn out to be, they will be the planned launch pricing, not a live checkout: no card is charged on this site.

Can I use whenly.software today?

Not yet. whenly.software is early access: this page describes the mechanism honestly, labels the shared booking floor as built and everything find-a-time as planned, and asks you to join the waitlist rather than claiming a live product that does not exist yet.

Is my group’s data private, and is it safe for a school?

The design is private by default: opaque handles in the poll, a zero-PII calendar feed, consent-gated reminders that send nothing today, no ads shown to your invitees, and no sale or sharing of anyone’s data. Minor scheduling data is consent-aware, access-controlled, and not displayed publicly. The planned opaque-handle surface will route roster identity through a consent chokepoint. These are specific controls, not a FERPA or COPPA certification or compliance guarantee.

Join the waitlist

There is no live checkout on this page and no card is charged here. If “find the one time that works for the whole group, then lock it” is a chain you run often — committees, chaperones, staff PD — the honest next step is to ask about early access, and we will tell you plainly what is built and what is still being built.

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