How the planner scores times
The planner checks every hour in the 7 days from the date you choose. It looks at the local time and day for each person:
- Optimal: it is 09:00–17:00 on a working day for everyone.
- Good compromise: everyone is within 08:00–19:00 on a working day, but someone is outside 09:00–17:00.
- Possible, but early or late for someone: someone would be joining between 07:00 and 08:00 or between 19:00 and 22:00.
Hours that fall on anyone's weekend, or between 22:00 and 07:00 for anyone, are never suggested. Weekends are local: most places use Saturday and Sunday, but for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Israel and Bangladesh the planner treats Friday and Saturday as the weekend. Clock changes are handled automatically, so a week that crosses a change date shows the right times on each side of it.
Tips for meetings across time zones
When there is no slot inside everyone's working day, as is common between Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific, rotate the inconvenient slot so the same people do not always join at night. Send invitations from a calendar that stores the time zone, rather than typing a time into the message. Avoid ambiguous labels such as "EST" in summer, when the US East Coast is actually on EDT. Our international meeting planning guide goes into more detail.