Creating a Roundtable
You build a roundtable on the Roundtables page. It starts as a draft — nothing is sent and nobody can vote until you publish — so you can set it up at your own pace.
Start a new roundtable
- On the Roundtables page, click + New Roundtable.
- Give it a name (what voters and you will see, e.g. "Q3 planning sync") and pick the event type it's based on. The event type's duration, location, reminders and workflows are used as-is — you're not redefining the meeting, just finding a time for it.
- Click Continue to open the setup screen.
Note
Nothing is saved to your account until you click Create roundtable on the setup screen — if you leave before then, no empty draft is left behind.
The setup screen
Setup is a calendar on the left and a settings rail on the right.
Pick candidate times on the calendar
The calendar shows your real open times for the next 10 days, drawn from the same availability the event type uses — your schedule, minus calendar conflicts, buffers, and minimum notice. Greyed cells aren't available.
Click and drag to paint the times you want to propose; drag back over selected cells to clear them. Each cell is one candidate slot, the length of the event type's duration. You can propose anywhere from one slot up to 128.
Tip
Offer a spread — a few options across different days and times of day. The more genuinely different choices people have, the likelier one clears everyone's calendar. If the calendar is empty, you have no open availability in the next 10 days; check your availability schedule first.
Basics
- Name — rename it anytime before it's booked.
- Voting deadline — the date and time voting closes. Defaults to 72 hours out. When the deadline passes, voting stops; what happens next depends on auto-book (below). You can also leave it open-ended, or change it later while voting is live.
- Language — the language voters see and that invite/reminder emails are written in. Defaults to your account language.
Audience — who can vote
- Anyone with the link (default) — 42min creates one shareable link; anyone who opens it enters their name and email and votes. No account needed.
- Specific people — add invitees by email (type them in, or paste a whole list at once) and 42min emails each a personal voting link. Mark anyone Required with the ★ toggle: a time can't be booked until every required person has responded. This mode is also the only one that sends reminders.
Warning
The audience mode is locked once you publish — switching it would break the links already sent. Pick it before you publish.
Voting rules
- Vote visibility — Open (default) lets voters see how many people picked each time; Blind keeps the tally private to you. You always see the full results either way.
- Allow "Maybe" votes — off by default. Turn it on to let people mark a time as a tentative Maybe in addition to Yes.
Automation
- Auto-book best time — off by default. When on, 42min books the winning time automatically as soon as enough people have voted, without waiting for you. Turning it on requires a quorum — the minimum number of voters before a time can be locked in (it seeds a default of 5). The winning time is the one with the most Yes votes (earliest wins a tie); 42min never auto-books a time nobody said Yes to. With auto-book off, you book the time yourself from the Results tab.
- Send reminders (specific-people mode only) — on by default. 42min nudges people who haven't voted: if there's a deadline, around the halfway point and ~24 hours before it; if there's no deadline, once about 48 hours after publishing.
Publish
Click Create roundtable to save the draft, then Publish to go live. Publishing:
- mints the shareable link (link mode) or emails personal voting links to your invitees (specific-people mode),
- places the tentative "42min Round Table Hold" events on your calendar for each candidate time, and
- schedules the deadline check and any reminders.
You need at least one candidate time to publish (and, in specific-people mode, at least one invitee).
After publishing you can still add or remove candidate times and invitees, edit the deadline, and adjust voting/automation options — but not the audience mode. Share the link from the Share tab, and watch responses arrive on the Results tab.
Common pitfalls
- No times to paint. The calendar only shows times you're actually free, in the next 10 days. If it's empty, fix your availability or connect a calendar first.
- Published with no invitees (specific-people mode). Publishing is blocked until you add at least one person.
- Picked the wrong audience mode. You can't change it after publishing. If you must switch, cancel and duplicate the roundtable, then publish the copy with the right mode.
- Forgot the quorum for auto-book. Auto-book can't save (or publish) without a quorum number — it needs to know when "enough" people have voted.
Last updated May 26, 2026.