Juggling the demands of meeting and event planning is difficult, but new business technologies can make even the most hectic schedule easier to manage. Let’s go beyond the essential event planning tools to find organizational apps that you might not have considered.
Here are six apps to make your day easier.
1. Doodle (Free)
Great for: Scheduling
Finding a time for more than two people to meet can be a challenge. We all know the pain of the 20+ email threads trying to schedule a group meeting (or meal!). Doodle allows you to create a poll with dates, times and descriptions for people to vote on what suits them best. You can even sync doodle with your calendar.
2. SoapBox (Free)
Great for: Meeting agendas
Whether it’s an internal or external meeting, you’ll need an agenda and notes that don’t get lost in your inbox or notebook. The SoapBox app allows you to build a shared agenda, take notes and summarize next steps for your meetings. Hold teams, clients, vendors and yourself accountable by ensuring you have documentation for your most important conversations. Bonus! SoapBox integrates with Slack, so you can add agenda items as soon as they pop in your head by chatting with the SoapBox bot.
3. Flow (Free Trial)
Great for: Project management
There are a zillion project management tools out there, but Flow offers a fuss-free and intuitive interface that can accommodate a one-woman/man show, or an entire team. Using their kanban boards, you can separate each meeting or event into its own project, assign tasks and visually manage your timelines. Bonus! Flow also integrates with Slack, so you can create tasks by using the flow task command.
4. Google Keep (Free)
Great for: Lists
If you’re using G Suite, Google Keep needs to be in your meeting planning toolkit. Create and categorize lists for free, and access them seamlessly from Gmail. Coupled with a project management tool for the bigger tasks, this app is perfect for the minute details that go into managing day-to-day to-dos. Categorize lists by meeting or event, and share them with any G Suite users.
5. Hubspot CRM (Free)
Great for: Managing your contacts
Customer relationship management tools aren’t just for sales teams. As a meeting planner, you’re constantly interacting with different people throughout the day—think vendors, team members, coordinators… Hubspot’s CRM is a great relationship management tool for all of your contacts. It’s easily customizable for large teams or smaller scale operations and it becomes even more powerful if you’re pairing it with HubSpot’s marketing automation and content platforms.
6. Slack (Free)
Great for: Chatting
Slack offers a quick, easy-to-use way to communicate with your team and clients. Create channels and groups, or just use the bare basics for getting in touch with people fast. Use their free video calling functionality for impromptu chats. Bonus! Slack integrates with all of the above tools.
Whether you are part of a large team or flying solo, meeting planners would be lost without honed organizational skills. Luckily, there are plenty of apps for that. What are your go-to tools for keeping on top of your day-to-day?
Shannon Maloney is SoapBox’s Digital Marketing Manager. She loves yoga, reading and showing people how to have amazing meetings.
