A couple of times a year we organise team workshops at work. Finding dates that work for everyone has always been a pain. Over the years we've tried everything.
First it was calendar placeholders and team chat. Someone throws out a few dates, replies start flying, half the team misses the message, the other half changes their mind. Forty messages later there's no consensus and the thread has moved on.
Then came Doodle polls. They work, but the ads are ugly, the upselling is relentless, and the UI isn't great for picking date ranges across weeks. For a simple "which four days work" question it was inadequate.
We also tried web office forms. Longer to set up, clunky to fill in, and the results end up in a spreadsheet that somone has to manually squint at to figure out the best date.
So I built estofit. Mostly as a note to future self: next time you need to schedule something, use this.
So what does it do
The core flow is dead simple:
- Create an event - pick a date range, set how many days the event spans, optionally define teams.
- Share the link - WhatsApp, Slack, email, carrier pigeon, whatever.
- People tap the dates they're free (yes or maybe). No sign-up, no app install, nothing.
- You get a heatmap showing when everyone can make it. Pick the winner.
That's it. No calendar integrations, no AI scheduling assistant, no "smart" suggestions. Just a calendar you can tap on and a heatmap that shows the answer.
Nerdy bits
Backend is Scala 3 with the Typelevel stack (Cats Effect, http4s, Tapir, Doobie). Frontend is vanilla TypeScript - no React, no other framework.
The whole thing is purely functional on the backend, which is more fun than it sounds.
Try it
estofit is free to use and doesn't require an account. There's a professional tier if you need private events or passcode protection, but the core scheduling works without any of that.
If you've got a group event to schedule, give it a go.