Howbout: update your friends 12+

Awesome Social organisation!

Ok, so as a band member and de facto manager (we can’t afford a proper one), Howbout has been an absolute Godsend when it comes to sorting out the bands various rehearsal and gig dates. The whole band has signed up (which is free) and we have never been more organised! We sound better, we’re more creative and the whole band experience has become slicker (seriously, come see us play!) and that all started when a team of enthusiastic musicians FINALLY pinned themselves down and got organised - thanks to Howbout. It syncs with your other calendars (should you wish it to - totally optional), so you can see if you’re free right away. You can invite everyone in your group to a rehearsal, or just pick the vocalists if it’s time to work on the harmonies, and then rehearsal the rhythm section on another day. Each event has its own chat section, as well as you being able to create a more general chat space that isn’t linked to an event (say if the de facto manager just got two kittens and HAD to share them with his band mates).
Overall a 5 out of 5 experience. BUT - I would give them 6 if I was allowed to, because the one time I did have the slightest issue with the app (which was a super niche problem), I got in touch, they answered quickly and respectfully, updated the app and offered genuine thanks for the feedback. As our keyboard player said at the time “That’s customer service done right!”
In summary. A solid 6 out of 5 from Crown Of Feathers (band)

The all in one calendar and social app you need

I use Howbout for organising both my family life and friend meet ups. It’s a super easy to use and navigate the app - really intuitive. It allows me to view all my calendar events in month, week, day and agenda view. The icing on the cake and innovate features are things like smart scheduling, Howbout finds a time my family or friends are free without me having to, and event chat built into the app! I’ve not seen these features in similar apps before. I can overlay friends and family calendars onto mine as well which is a handy feature and as a parent I use this to plan things with my wife and kids. I highly recommend this app and it now has its own spot on my home screen!

Bit confusing

Overall it does what it says, but there should be a way of time blockers not showing up on the first page.
I don’t want to be reminded when I first go into the app that my next 3 events are work. I would like it so it only show plans on the first page not time blockers.

Also, it is not possible for me to ‘request feature’ or ‘get help’ as it expects you to have the default Mail app and I can’t see another way to find the email address on the app.
Finally, my friends work schedule can change so much it would be easier for her to be able to put on when she is free rather than when she is unavailable.

Overall it’s quite confusing. In my group only 3 of us have continued to understand this app-but I’m now really only using the app as a count down to holidays. If the time blockers were updated to be just that, then it would look cleaner and be more user friendly.
(Also, I have my work schedule on my default calendar app, at one point how about duplicated each event so I had 10+ on each day. Thankfully most were weekly recurring activities only to the end of the year so I could delete from my default calendar app. Still not sure how it happened)

Developer Response ,

Hi there 👋 Thanks for the 4* review! Just to quickly let you know, you can now hide Time Blockers from the home page – just head to the settings page (button in the top right corner) and toggle them off 😊 We’re working on changing our ‘request feature’ and ‘get help’ sections to open this up more, so thanks for that feedback! Additionally, we’ve made some improvements to our calendar integration so your duplication problems should now be fixed. If you’re still having trouble with that, please shoot us an email at feedback@howbout.app and we’ll help you out 🙌