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What is round robin scheduling?

Round robin scheduling allocates appointments among hosts based on availability and priorities, ensuring each host gets equal opportunities and preventing any single host from being overloaded.

Tutorial video

Check out Gareth’s tutorial on Fillout’s round robin scheduling feature.

How to set up

1

Create the scheduling form

Click Scheduling under Fillout in the left sidebar of your dashboard, then + New scheduling form. Follow the steps here.
Each team member must link their calendar to Fillout in order to be added as a host.
Select Round robin and choose which hosts to add.Only organization admins can choose the hosts. When a member creates a scheduling form, they’re its host. If you’re a member and want to join a round robin, connect your calendar, then ask an admin to add you to the Round robin host pool under Participants.
2

Configure event details

On the left-hand panel, edit the details as you see fit. You can also customize avatars to maintain brand consistency by clicking Booking page on top.
Round robin scheduling form with the event type and booking calendar
3

Publish and share

Publish your form and share the link or embed it anywhere.

Manage Priority and Availability

Priority Settings On the left-hand panel, you can assign priority levels to participants to control the distribution of appointments. Higher priority members are more likely to receive bookings if multiple participants are available at the same time.
Round robin host pool with Matt Carter and Jamie Chen
Automatic Assignment Fillout’s round robin algorithm assigns appointments based on the last scheduled participant to ensure even distribution, provided all conditions of priority and availability are met. Adjusting Locations and Meeting Details Define one Meeting location or set different locations for each participant. Choose between Google Meet, Teams, Zoom, and more.
Meeting location set to Same for all with Google Meet

Working hours and buffer time for each host

Each host’s working days and hours come from their own default availability, not from the form. On a round robin form, the Availability section has no availability to pick. Instead, each host signs in to their own account and edits their Working hours in Scheduling settings. See Set your availability.
Scheduling Settings with the Availability tab open, showing the default Working hours, Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:00pm
Blocking time in their connected calendar works too, as long as the event shows as Busy. Events marked Free (or Working elsewhere in Outlook) don’t block any times, and neither do events the host declined. This means hosts can have different working days. For example, if one host doesn’t work on Wednesdays, round robin only assigns them bookings on the other days. Buffer Time works differently. It’s set in the form’s Availability section and applies to every host in the round robin. You can’t add a buffer for one host and not for another.

Who gets notified when someone books

When someone books, Fillout picks one host and adds the meeting to that host’s connected calendar. The invitee gets the meeting invite from that host’s Google or Outlook calendar. Fillout’s own booking email follows the form’s email notifications, the same as any other response. By default it goes to the form’s creator, not to the host who was picked. There’s no setting that sends it to whoever was assigned. To email the assigned host as well, add a workflow that sends an email when someone books:
  1. Open your form’s Integrate tab, then Workflows, and click Blank workflow.
  2. Choose the Form submitted trigger, then the Send email action.
  3. Open the Send to dropdown and choose Selected host email. It’s listed under Schedule, and you can type “host” to find it.
  4. Write the email, then click Publish at the top of the workflow.
To check it, book a test meeting and confirm the email reaches the host who was picked. This sends a real email and adds a real meeting to that host’s calendar, so cancel the meeting afterwards.

Set your availability

Specify your available hours and buffer times through forms.

Style scheduling form

Tweak your form’s design, link, and avatar to match your brand.

Collective scheduling

Set meetings with one invitee and multiple hosts.