Clockwise, from the company of the same name in San Francisco, is calendar optimization software, which uses AI to create uninterrupted blocks of time, enhance Slack, take the stress out of complex scheduling, resolve double bookings, and balance appointments while allowing users to meet their Focus Time goals.
June 16, 2020 Bain Capital Ventures announced leading an $18M Series B funding round in Clockwise.
This is great for Operations people who need to parse through many calendars at once when scheduling meetings, even if the rest of the organization isn't using it. Clockwise does not allow you to put meetings on other people's calendars, though, or find times for meetings that you aren't in, so keep that in mind. It has still been a life-saver for me. Clockwise isn't great for scheduling client meetings due to the fact that it automatically places emojis in the names of the meetings, and there are other little branding things that are impossible to remove even on paid plans. I tended to just find time for the meetings in Clockwise and then move back to Google Calendar to schedule them
Fantastical is excellent for someone who appreciates the ease of data entry without having to tick boxes and use drop-down menus. Fantastical also provides a number of different view options based on how the user prefers to see their calendar and tasks.
It doesn't have a dark mode, which is not fun. There is no Month or Year view which isn't great, only day or week. It's hard to get used to and the flexible meetings aren't as intuitive as they claim to be/should be. This is great for scheduling, but in terms of functioning as a calendar, it's not my go-to choice. The JOIN button for the upcoming virtual meeting is nice, though. Clockwise would have gotten a nine if I could schedule meetings on other people's calendars or remove my availability from the equation when scheduling meetings that I won't be in
Clockwise has additional features/bells and whistles that the others do not. For example, the travel time feature if you are booking meetings that you need to drive to and from. Also booking across teams, rather than having to enter each individual manually
Fantastical provides a visual experience that I appreciate more than the simplified Apple iCal design. It also provides a lot of options that help with the more detailed events.