If there’s one item about corporate life I could do without, it’s meetings. They’re the bane of a business career.
Generally speaking, meetings are difficult to organize, seldom productive, they don’t start on time, the right people don’t show up, they run too long, and I could go on. As a Mac user you could get some brownie points by using the Participants app to manage meetings or events.
Particpants, Calendar, Contacts, iCloud Sync
For anyone who organizes meetings and events then you know the drill. Getting everyone to show up on time is a challenge. Keeping track of who attends and does what is a challenge.
In short, meetings are a challenge. Participants is a Mac and iOS app that helps you schedule, organize, and manage meetings and events.
One of the benefits of using an app for a specialized purpose is to find out what features you really need.
Participants on the Mac isn’t expensive, and it’s even less so for the iPhone and iPad version, which will sync files between devices using iCloud.
Grab a list of names and details from Contacts on your Mac or iOS device. Create an event and assign participants. Set the date and time for the event or meeting.
Create Groups for specific events or meetings. Send an email reminder to each event participant.
Participants gives you options to pull names from Contacts, set names up as Groups, and print out a complete attendance or contact list.
Having full Contacts and Calendar integration is a big plus, but Participants is missing a few features most meeting or events organizers need.
Participants doesn’t track meeting attendees over a period of time. School teachers would love that option (my wife, Carol, is a teacher).
The app is easy to setup and use, there’s an option to record a summary within a group, but not notes or a summary of each meeting, and there’s no option for actionable items or assignments to attendees.
Still, Participants is better than a notepad, if anything, for the option to email participants with reminders.
