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BH TIG Week: Let’s Meet Up! by Elizabeth Oyer

Elizabeth Oyer

Hello! I am Elizabeth Oyer, President of EvalSolutions, Inc. where I provide program evaluation and business consulting services. In 2021, I re-organized my business with a concerted effort around modernizing my networking strategies to expand my business. Since 2001, I have provided evaluation consulting and I wanted to translate my skills into new service lines for data science and operations.

With this goal in mind, I started convening a lot of 1:1 meetings with peers, business owners, and expanding my professional network extensively. I quickly realized that many of the people I was meeting did not use meeting polls or annoying back-and-forth emails to set meetings. Rather, they had “open calendars” that they shared as part of their signature files and/or shared immediately upon our introduction.

Rad Resources

In my experience, two resources seem to be pervasive in my network: AppointletTM and Calendly.

I chose to use AppointletTM as my resource. I have shared my AppointletTM link broadly with new contacts as well as existing clients. When someone needs to set an appointment, they don’t even need to contact me! They have my link and can set a meeting directly that gets added to my GoogleTM calendar with the information they provided based on the custom prompt I created. A GoogleMeetTM link is automatically added – these tools work across several platforms.

Demo of the Appointlet interface, depicting three appointment options: 15, 30, and 60 minute meetings.

Lessons Learned

I block time on my GoogleTM calendar so that I have sufficient “focus time” during the week. These times are just unavailable to book. I have also learned that sometimes the AppointletTM links go directly to spam for my users. When the appointment time comes, if it’s a first appointment, I recommend sending the GoogleMeetTM reminder and prompt them to reach out if they have technical difficulties. For folks who don’t see the calendar invite, this usually prevents a “No-Show” event.

Using AppointletTM has made my time much more accessible in a way that is controlled, affordable, and easy to use. I definitely don’t miss those 10-email exchanges to get us booked!


The American Evaluation Association is hosting Behavioral Health (BH) TIG Week with our colleagues in Behavioral Health Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our BH TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

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