Comparison

An Outlook Scheduling Poll alternative for groups outside your company

If you work in Microsoft 365, Scheduling Poll (formerly FindTime) is the obvious tool for finding a meeting time. It's great inside your organization. It gets awkward for everything else you organize: the softball team, the PTA committee, a volunteer group, friends. Here's what Microsoft's own pages say, and when a no-account link works better.

whenfor.us · Updated October 26, 2026

What Outlook Scheduling Poll does well

Scheduling Poll is built into Outlook on the web, the new Outlook for Windows, classic Outlook for Microsoft 365 and Outlook for Mac. Inside your company it's genuinely clever:

• It reads your colleagues' calendars and suggests time options based on who is free.
• It places temporary holds on everyone's calendar for each option, so nothing gets booked over them. The holds disappear when the organizer picks the final time.
• Attendees vote Prefer, Yes or No on each option, from the email, their calendar or a voting page.
• It can schedule the meeting automatically once all required attendees agree on a time, and email you whenever someone votes.
• The meeting can include an online meeting link, a room and the agenda.

If everyone in the meeting is a coworker on the same Microsoft 365 setup, keep using it. It knows their calendars, and whenfor.us doesn't.

Where it gets awkward outside work

The organizer needs a Microsoft 365 work mailbox

Microsoft's support page says Scheduling Poll (in classic Outlook for Windows and Outlook for Mac) is available to users of Microsoft 365 Apps for business or enterprise plans that include Exchange Online, and the organizer needs a mailbox in Microsoft 365 Exchange Online. It isn't available with on-premises Exchange mailboxes, and it isn't supported with shared mailboxes or group calendars. So the club's shared inbox can't run the poll, and neither can your personal address.

Outsiders show up as "unknown"

People outside your organization can vote, using a secure link to the voting page. But Scheduling Poll can only check calendars that belong to a Microsoft 365 account; everyone else's availability shows as unknown when it suggests times. For a group of parents, teammates or friends, that's usually everyone, so the clever suggestions don't help much.

It starts from an email list

You add attendees by email address, and only the organizer can add or remove them; attendees can't forward the poll. That's tidy for a meeting. For a team that lives in a group chat, you first have to collect everyone's email address, and the person who joins next week has to ask you to be added.

Voting on up to 15 options

A poll can include up to 15 time options, and Microsoft recommends 3 to 5 so attendees don't get overwhelmed. That works when you already have a few good candidates. When you don't, the best time may simply not be one of the options.

Identity checks for voters

If the organizer turns on "Require attendees to verify their identity", voters sign in with a work or school account or enter a code sent by email. Sensible for business meetings, but a hurdle for the volunteer who just wants to tap a link.

Side by side

Checked October 2026 from Microsoft Support: Scheduling Poll overview and requirements, creating a poll, voting, where to find it. Microsoft notes some features roll out by region and Outlook version; check there for the latest.

How it works with whenfor.us

1. Make the link. Name the plan, pick the days ("Next week" or your own dates, up to 31 days) and the hours, for example 5 to 9 pm for a weeknight committee meeting.
2. Post it where the group already is. The team's group chat, the parents' email thread, a text. Anyone with the link can answer; nobody needs an email address or an account.
3. Everyone drags over their free times. On a phone or a computer, in about a minute. The heatmap fills in live, and one sentence tells you the best time, like "Tue 6–7 pm works for 9 of 11".
4. Pick the final time. Everyone sees it, can add it to their calendar (.ics or Google Calendar), and you get a ready message and picture to post back in the chat.

You can add a note with the details (the address, the agenda, a video call link, up to three links), and remove people who answered by mistake.

When to use which

Stick with Scheduling Poll when

• Everyone is in your organization's Microsoft 365, so their calendars inform the suggestions.
• You want holds on calendars and the meeting invite sent from Outlook.
• You need identity checks on who voted.

Use a link like whenfor.us when

• The group mixes work addresses, personal addresses and people you only know from a group chat.
• You're organizing as a private person, or from a shared club inbox.
• You don't have a short list of options yet and want to see when people are actually free.
• People are in different time zones and shouldn't convert anything.

Mixed groups are common: a client workshop with outside partners, a volunteer committee, a reunion of former colleagues. For those, see also our Doodle comparison and the overview of free group scheduling tools.