Flexible Meetings

When you mark a meeting you organized as flexible, Clockwise will reschedule it to the best time as your calendar changes, creating Focus Time and resolving conflicts.

Key details about flexible meetings

• You opt into flexible meetings – Clockwise will never mark a meeting as flexible without your consent.
• Clockwise will only reschedule a meeting if every attendee on that meeting is available at the new time.
• Clockwise will only reschedule a meeting within your meeting hours, and the meeting hours that we infer for the meeting attendees.
• Clockwise will reschedule the selected event if a better time is found - there is no approval process for rescheduling a meeting.
• Clockwise reschedules flexible meetings (Mon - Fri) at 4:00 PM in your organization’s time zone. The only time Clockwise reschedules flexible meetings  outside of the 4:00 PM window is if your time zone is different from your organization’s time zone. If a meeting you organized is rescheduled, we will send the meeting attendees an email to notify them and we will let you know in Clockwise that the meeting was updated.
• You can only mark internal meetings as flexible.
• Availability for attendees marked as optional will still be considered when Clockwise reviews conflicts.
• Clockwise will not move a meeting that is scheduled within 20 hours of it happening: we want you to breathe easy that there will not be last-minute changes.

What meetings can you mark as flexible?

The best meetings to mark as flexible are recurring meetings that have to happen on a regular basis but you don't really care when.

Clockwise will only allow you to mark meetings as flexible if they meet the following criteria:

• Internal only - no attendees outside of your email domain.
• Organized by a Clockwise user in your organization. Both the event organizer and any guests allowed to make event modifications can mark a meeting as flexible.
• Are not all day events.

We recommend that you mark recurring meetings, like one-on-ones or team syncs, as flexible. These are typically not scheduled at an optimal time every week, so Clockwise can often find a better time. You can view all of your recurring one-on-one meetings from the one-on-ones dashboard to decide which you want to mark as flexible. 

When and how do flexible meetings move?

Clockwise reschedules flexible meetings every weekday (Mon - Fri) at 4pm in the time zone set for your organization. 

Clockwise takes into account a number of factors when finding the best time for your meetings:

• Focus Time cost: Clockwise calculates the total Focus Time cost for all attendees on the meeting, then compares that with the Focus Time cost of all the available alternative times. If there is a time that is free that meets all other criteria below and has a lower Focus Time cost, Clockwise will reschedule the meeting.
• Your meeting hours: Clockwise will only reschedule meetings within the meeting hours you set during onboarding.  You can review or change these at any time from Preferences.
• The other attendees' meeting hours: Clockwise assumes meeting hours of 10:00 am - 4:00 pm (3:30 pm on Fridays) for the other meeting attendees. The best way to ensure that we have accurate meeting hours for attendees is to invite them to Clockwise so they can customize them.
• Your time of day / time range settings for the meeting: Clockwise only looks for alternative times either within the day or within the week of the original meeting time, depending on how flexible you say the meeting is.
• Your lunch preferences:  Clockwise will attempt to preserve some time for you to take a break for lunch.  You can customize this preference in Settings.

How to make meetings flexible

Suggestions for flexible meetings

Clockwise intelligently suggests that you mark certain meetings as flexible. These meetings  will have a high impact on your team's Focus Time. You will see these suggestions in your Flexible Meeting tab.

You can mark a meeting as flexible while you're creating the event or after the event has been created.  Just look for the Flexible Meeting toggle – this will let Clockwise find the best time for this event. You can toggle this setting off at any time. After you've turned it on, select your level of time and meeting room flexibility.

Clockwise Slackbot

Any meeting listed in Slack is clickable. If you'd like to mark any of these meetings as flexible, click on them in your Clockwise Slackbot to access them on your calendar.

Setting your meeting's flexibility

Clockwise gives you control over how your flexible meetings are rescheduled. Adjust the flexibility settings of your meetings so that Clockwise only moves meetings within the time period you feel comfortable with. 

Setting a time range for your flexible meetings

Indicate whether the meeting is flexible to move within the scheduled day, or whether it can move within the week. For further granularity, choose specific days of the week (note that this option is only available for meetings set to recur once a week or less).

Setting time of day preferences for your flexible meetings

If you prefer to have your meetings at a certain time of day, click the Time of day flexibility drop down to customize the window that your meeting will move between.

Examples for when this can be useful:

• Adjust time of day flexibility to be anytime before 2pm for your coffee chats
• To schedule a break from your computer screen or schedule time for a walk, adjust the time of day flexibility to be anytime in the afternoon.
• To accommodate a teammate in a different time zone (e.g., in another country), adjust time of day flexibility to your overlapping availability.

Managing conference room booking with flexible meetings

If the meeting is in a conference room, Clockwise can either look for a time when the same room is available (Keep current room), or find a time when a similar conference room is free.

If a Flexible Meeting is set to allow Clockwise to move the room, the following guidelines are adhered to:

1. Must be in the same building, plus or minus one floor
2. Ignore preferred rooms settings (just used for scheduling)
3. Move to a room that is large enough for the number of attendees based on work calendar capacity settings

Your conference room "resources" in Google or Microsoft have to have data. If your domain's calendaring application doesn’t tell us anything about the room, then we won’t change the room. Entire organizations might not have this data inputted, so flexibility could be limited.

The more flexible you are with the event's time and conference room, the more likely it is that Clockwise can find the best time for the event.

Flexible Meeting History

Have you ever wondered what happened to your flexible meeting? Ever wondered who even marked an event as flexible and when it was moved? Clockwise makes it really simple to see a historical snapshot of your flexible meetings all in one place! 

To see the flexible meeting history for your event, simply click into the event and Clockwise will conveniently displace the historical timestamps in the browser extension or web app under the event details.