One of our users recently wrote in to tell us that he didn’t have an easy way to figure out which events still needed replies from guests.  We love reports like this because they tell us how to make the product better to everybody’s benefit.  And we’d like to be responsive to users as much as we can.

So we added an enhancement to the upcoming events page showing status next to each event whenever action is needed.

This status shows you when an event you have created is still in need of one or more replies from guests.  If you created an event and have not sent it out yet–perhaps because you are still figuring out details–Presdo also reminds you that invites still need to be sent out.  Of course, Presdo already reminds guests to reply to an event if they are still undecided on an event.

By the way, if you haven’t checked out the upcoming events page, it’s worth a closer look.  This page shows you all the, well, upcoming events you are a part of, whether created by you or invited to by someone else.  Whenever you have an upcoming event, go to this page by clicking the link in the header at the upper right.

To the user who gave us this feedback and enabled us to improve the product, thank you.  We’d love to hear more such suggestions.  To tell us about the gripe that will makes the most difference to you, tell us here.

You might have noticed that we have been adding many small enhancements to Presdo here and there to smooth the user experience.  The latest is the ability to save events to the calendar of Google Apps.

Any time you click the “Save to Calendar” button on an event, you’ll see a new fifth button, which allows you to save the event to Google Apps.  This function uses the same email address with which you signed up for Presdo to identify you to Google Apps. If you used another email address to sign up for Presdo, you can sign up for Presdo again or just let us know you want your email address on your Presdo account changed.

We received quite a lot of requests for this one, so we hope you find it useful!

Have you ever wanted to let a friend know that you were going to be late for a meeting, but you didn’t have their phone number handy?  How about calling your friend to get the best directions to their new place but realizing you didn’t have their number?  What if you planned an important meeting and somebody hasn’t arrived?

With Presdo’s new phone number feature, you can let friends know where to call you when there’s a problem during events.  You can easily find their phone numbers too.  Here’s how.

Go to your settings page and type in the phone number where you want to be reached.

Presdo takes care of the rest.  When you are invited to an event by someone and agree to attend, they see your phone number when hovering over your name on the event.

Your number is now shared with them anytime they plan another event with you.

Similarly, when you organize an event on Presdo, your phone number is automatically shared with all of your guests.

If you save Presdo events to your calendar, phone numbers are also included in the event details.

Easy enough?  Enter your phone number now.

The next time you organize an event with Presdo, encourage your friends to enter their phone number so you can reach them if needed.

If you want to save your own number into Presdo for future events and haven’t signed up for Presdo yet, it only takes a minute to sign up.

For many of us, a lot of time is spent on the phone talking to other people. Why not use Presdo to schedule these calls? Presdo isn’t just for face-to-face meetings. We’ve recently added an enhancement that makes it easy to schedule phone calls, and to remember where to call.

Take a look:

If you enter the above into Presdo, for example, Presdo will automatically save the phone number into the WHERE field of your event so you and your guest know where to call when the time comes (or who should call who!).

You don’t always have to enter the phone number when first creating the event. If you don’t know the number yet, just enter it later into the same WHERE field of your event.

So, the next time you need to schedule that call to touch base with an old friend or a conference call with a group, check out this feature!

One of the coolest features we don’t often get to talk about is the great way in which Presdo works with locations and events. Every time you create an event, you can save a location so everybody knows where to meet.

The Map link next to the address shows you on Google Maps where it is, and you can get directions too.

It’s very simple to enter a location when creating an event. If you already know it, you can just paste or type it in. Or better, you can also use Presdo’s location picker to recommend a place. When you’re creating or changing an event, just click Or, pick a location in the WHERE area.

You’ll see Presdo’s location picker.

We’d like to share some other tips with you for using it.

• You can change the type of places it shows by typing into the location picker’s Find box. For example, if you are looking for Japanese restaurants, try typing sushi to see nearby Japanese places. Of course, it’s not just limited to restaurants. Try typing AMC Theaters to find a nearby movie theater.

• You can also bookmark favorite areas to search. Click Near… and type a city like San Francisco or a zip code like 90210 to find places near these areas. The location picker will remember them so you can use them next time.

• When getting together with an out-of-touch friend or colleague who may have moved or changed jobs, how many times did you have to ask them, “where are you now”? Presdo makes finding a place near them easy. If your friends are already Presdo users, you can click on their names, like Near Cindy or Near Jake, to find locations near them. So, enter your own location into Presdo to be so invited, and encourage your friends to do so too!

• There’s even a convenient feature that finds locations about the same distance from everybody. Try clicking Near everyone to see what happens. Some people will ask, what happens if you’re in San Francisco and the other person is in New York? You’ll have to try it to see what happens!

–Eric

I want to thank the many, many users who wrote in providing feedback on Presdo over the last few days. It’s fair to say that the response to Presdo has greatly exceeded our expectations, and because of you, Presdo gets better and better.

We’ve already made several enhancements to Presdo, including:

• We made it easier for people from international locations to use Presdo’s cool location features. If you’re coming from Europe or Asia, Presdo’s location features are working much better.
• Based on your feedback, we added more phrases that Presdo can now recognize. For example, Presdo now recognizes “in 2 weeks” or “in a couple weeks”, and so on.
• We also improved the general stability of Presdo in several areas.

Keep the great feedback coming!

–Eric

Let’s kick things off and start talking about one of the most interesting aspects of Presdo.

A lot of people ask: why did we choose to have only a text field on the home page and nothing else? For a web app that deals with dates and times, why isn’t there a calendar picker anywhere in Presdo’s user interface?

We went a different way with good reason, and here’s why: when people want to organize a get together, they often don’t have all the details about when, where, who, and so on, of the event. In fact, it’s a collaborative activity. People might have a set of dates and times they’d be willing to get together, but very often, they might just know a time of day they’d like to meet someone. Or, they know which day they’d like to meet but they are flexible about the time.

By using the text-based interface, Presdo lets people say as much–or as little–about the event as they want when creating events. We wanted to use this kind of ambiguity to enable a group of people to work out the best times.

Here are some examples:

• You can enter Monday with Phil into the home page, and Presdo assumes you want to meet Phil anytime on Monday. It will let him find a good time to meet you by suggesting other times on Monday in case Phil can’t make your “best time”.

• If you enter afternoon with Phil, Presdo assumes you’d like to meet Phil anytime in the afternoon over the next few days. You and Phil can work out the details about which day will be good for both of you.

• You can also offer a choice of times to people. For example, you can enter Monday 2pm, Tuesday 2pm, or Fri 2pm. That’s a lot to type, isn’t it? So, just type mon, tue or fri at 2:30pm.

• Presdo also understands a few convenient words like lunch, breakfast, and dinner to make it very easy to plan these kinds of events. If you type in lunch with Phil, Presdo assumes you’d like to plan a lunch with Phil over the next few days.

Several calendar programs also have text-based inputs. Most famously, Google Calendar has a “Quick Add” feature that lets you create appointments. Don’t be fooled!

Presdo is much more than that because you don’t have to be specific about the time. It uses this ambiguity to guide suggestions for you and your guests to fine tune the details.

So we hope you’ll try being ambiguous with your friends!

–Eric