Over the past few years our lives have been flipped upside down, leaving technology to be relied on more than ever. Case in point: our partners at Webex found that there was a 500% increase in search impressions for web and video conferencing software during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nowadays, it’s rare to go a day without hearing about or using video calls — this is what our new normal has become! Although the last couple of years presented new challenges in our day-to-day lives, Fantastical helps make things easier by simplifying the calls you have scheduled during your day.

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at how you can leverage Fantastical’s extensive video calling features to work for you. And by the time you finish this short article you’ll be a video call pro.

How call scheduling with Fantastical simplifies everyday life

I come from a big family, and each of us have complex schedules and long distances between us. At times, it seems almost impossible for us to all spend time together. However, since we started using Fantastical’s call scheduling features, we’ve grown closer as a family and look forward to our regular video gatherings. Fantastical has given us the ability to quickly make time for each other, and to fit regular video calls into our everyday lives!

Fantastical’s call scheduling features are useful in professional settings, too. Not only does call scheduling within Fantastical allows you to to create and join a call with your colleagues quickly, it also allows for seamless use throughout the work day. Prior to using Fantastical for all my video calls, every time I was about to join a meeting I recall having to hunt through my inbox for the specific email with the necessary Zoom meeting details. And with constant communication flowing through my work email, this specific message was often buried way down in my inbox! Thankfully, I no longer have to hunt through my inbox like this, as Fantastical simply shows me that I have an upcoming event with a call, and then gives me the option to join the call instantly. Super simple and hassle free!

Scheduling time for a call

Scheduling a call within Fantastical only takes a few brief steps. I first start by naming the event and then expanding the details for the event creation. This allows me to add my invitees and propose different times for our call.

With event proposals, you’re able to send out multiple options for the meeting’s date and time. Select Propose New Time to add and create a set of options for your invitees to choose from. I really enjoy this feature myself — in the past I’ve been invited to events with one specific time that I’m unable to make, and then feel guilty declining. By having multiple options presented initially, it allows invitees to provide input and accept an invite without double booking or overdoing their schedules.

Setting up your video calls directly from Fantastical

At this point, I can also select the video call service I want to use for the meeting. Directly adding a call to an event in Fantastical is currently compatible with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex (and for existing events that you’ve been invited to, Fantastical has the ability to detect calls from many more services).

From here, you can make many adjustments and customizations to video calls within the event details. For example, when setting up a Zoom call you can specify whether you want to enable join before host, mute invitees upon entry, or use a waiting room. This is helpful if you have large groups of people on your call, and can avoid participants from joining and then realizing they’re not muted after it’s too late!

You have lots of options here, such as customizing the meeting password and even deciding if you want to record the call. This can all be set up within Fantastical directly — give it a try! By scheduling and creating your call from Fantastical, there’s no need to leave the app to configure anything else, making setting up events with calls very easy to coordinate.

Last but not least, let’s discuss adding your invitees. Fantastical is super helpful here, because if you have a contact from your phone or directory, you can search and select the address instead of having to remember everyone’s individual email. You can even add an entire contact group in one go!

With the proposed invite and call finalized, an email will be sent to each invitee. Each person will then reply to let you know which times work best for them. Then, based on the answers from the meeting proposal, you can choose the time that fits best into everybody’s schedules. This is really useful, because Fantastical lets you see each person’s reply to the proposal, making it super easy to choose a finalized meeting time.

One of my favorite features of proposals in Fantastical is that all proposed times are visible when viewing your calendar. This way you can avoid double booking yourself while you’re waiting for responses to your proposal.

Once you receive the invitees’ responses to your proposal, you can pick which time you want to confirm. (Alternatively, you can even have Fantastical automatically schedule the event if your invitee replies are unanimous.) The event will then show on your Fantastical schedule as the sole event for your call, and your invitees will receive confirmation in their calendars.

Quickly joining a call from Fantastical

Not only does Fantastical allow you to schedule a call with ease, but joining a call is just as easy thanks to the one-click (or tap!) Join button. Visible in many different places, select the Join button and hop right into your call. My personal favorite way to use Join is directly from the notification menu (just tap and hold on the notification), as you can join the call without having to navigate through apps, widgets, or messages!

Other options include joining from inside the main Fantastical app, using the Join button within the event display on your device, the macOS Menu bar, or one of Fantastical’s many widgets.

Pro tips for call scheduling

Since I use call scheduling in Fantastical so often, I thought I’d share a couple of things that make life even easier for me. I hope they work out well for you too!

1. If you want your meeting proposal to be sent from a certain address each time (such as a work email address), be sure to change this by going to http://hub.flexibits.com.
2. If you forget to invite someone from your original invitation (or just don’t want to use email), Fantastical has the option to share a link containing your event details. This can be found at the bottom of the event details view while creating the event in Fantastical.

Learn more

Hopefully this blog post has given you an idea of how simple call scheduling can be with Fantastical. But, we’d also love to hear about the ways that you use call scheduling within Fantastical!

For additional information on how to use Fantastical’s calling features, feel free to check out our tutorial videos.

As always, if you have any questions of feedback, please reach out to our support team and we’ll be happy to help out and talk further.

That’s all for now. Looking forward to seeing you in the next post, where we’ll be discussing Cardhop’s business card scanning features. See you then!