Board deck before Friday?
Could Alex and I find 45 minutes Thursday afternoon to go through the deck? Anytime after 2 works.
For executive assistants
Scheduling email, turned into calendar suggestions.
ZipSched reads your principal’s scheduling mail and proposes the calendar change, with the source email attached. You review it, approve it, and the calendar catches up.
- Microsoft 365 / Outlook
- Google Workspace
Illustration: a scheduling email asks for 45 minutes on Thursday afternoon. ZipSched turns it into a suggested hold for Thursday, 2:00 to 2:45 PM, with the email attached as its source. The suggestion is approved, and the hold appears on Thursday’s calendar.
The problem
The calendar is only as current as the inbox.
Most scheduling still happens over email. Keeping a principal’s calendar in step with it is careful, manual work.
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Requests hide in threads
A time proposed three replies deep. A forward that says “can you set this up?” A CC you only joined today.
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Each one becomes a hold by hand
Read it, check the calendar, create the event, and hope the context behind it survives.
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New meetings land on old ones
When two commitments collide, someone has to notice, decide what moves, and move it.
How it works
From scheduling email to calendar, in four steps.
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01
It reads the mail
ZipSched reads scheduling email and picks out who is asking, when, and for how long.
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02
It checks the calendar
The request is checked against your principal’s calendar, including any meeting it would collide with.
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03
It suggests the change
A new hold, a move, or a draft reply with times, with the source email attached.
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04
You approve it
Review the suggestion beside the email it came from, approve it, and the calendar updates.
What you review
Every suggestion arrives with its source.
- The email it came from
- Each suggestion is attached to the message that prompted it, so you can check the ask before you act on it.
- Collisions come with a proposed move
- When a new meeting lands on an existing one, the suggestion names the overlap and proposes where the other meeting could go.
- Find-times replies wait as drafts
- When someone asks for times, the reply is written as an unsent draft in your principal’s mailbox, waiting for your review.
Illustration of three suggestions. First, a new hold for a board deck review on Thursday at 2:00 PM, approved. Second, a new hold for a site visit on Thursday at 3:30 PM that collides with the weekly ops sync, with a proposed move of the ops sync to Friday at 9:30 AM, awaiting review. Third, a draft reply offering three times, saved unsent in the principal’s Outlook drafts.
Fits how you already work
Built around the tools you already use.
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Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
ZipSched works with Microsoft 365 / Outlook and with Google Workspace, whichever your principal’s organization runs.
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Text it to schedule
Send a text such as “find 30 minutes with Sam next week,” and the answer comes back by text.
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Replies wait as drafts
Answers to find-times requests are written as unsent drafts in the principal’s mailbox, ready for review.
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Tomorrow, at 5 pm
An evening email lays out the next day’s calendar, so tomorrow is settled the night before.
What it isn’t
- A replacement for you. It does the reading and the cross-checking. Knowing your principal is still your job.
- Every calendar system. Microsoft 365 / Outlook and Google Workspace only.
For principals and chiefs of staff
Why it’s worth it for the person whose calendar it is.
- Requests stop waiting in the inbox
- Scheduling email becomes a calendar suggestion your EA can act on, with the thread behind it one click away.
- Your EA’s time goes to judgment
- Less copying from email into the calendar. More time for the calls only they can make.
- Text a request between meetings
- Text ZipSched to schedule something without opening a laptop.
- Tomorrow, the evening before
- A 5 pm email with the next day’s calendar.
Founder
Jacob Cremers
Jacob Cremers studied computer science at Harvard and worked as a data analyst at Harvard Law School. He has built productivity tools for unicorn startups and top-10 lobbying firms.
ZipSched applies that work to one narrow problem: keeping a principal’s calendar in step with the scheduling email that changes it.
Running a principal’s calendar?
Send a short note about your principal’s calendar and how scheduling reaches you today.