Group scheduling guides from Frae
Practical planning methods, transparent product explanations and first-party engineering case studies. Start with the Frae FAQ or browse every published article below.
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When not to use a group scheduling poll
A scheduling poll is useful when several people can attend several possible dates. Outside that shape, it can add work, expose information or delay a decision that should be made directly.
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How to find a date for a birthday party
Birthday scheduling is not a pure majority vote. The person celebrating must be able to attend, bookings expire, and a surprise can be spoiled by the wrong notification.
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How to make a date poll in WhatsApp without losing the answer
WhatsApp is where many plans begin, but a fast-moving chat is a poor place to store changing availability. Use the chat for attention and one stable poll for the answer.
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How to run a group scheduling poll without sign-up friction
A scheduling poll only works if people answer it. Removing compulsory guest accounts is not a cosmetic improvement; it removes the point where many social plans lose half the group.
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The boring pattern that means you actually get your invites
If you are invited to something on Frae, you find out. Not usually, not when the network is having a good day. You find out. The unglamorous machinery that makes that promise keepable is called the transactional outbox.
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How we renamed a live app without breaking a single link
We renamed Happening to Frae and promised users that not a single link would break. This is the engineering behind that promise, including the twenty minutes where I broke it myself.
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Happening is now Frae: same app, new name
The app you know as Happening is now called Frae. Your account is the same account, your events are the same events, and every link you have ever shared still works. Here is why we changed the name.
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Frae comes to iPhone - and Sign in with Apple lands everywhere
Frae is available on iPhone, Android and the web, with Apple and Google sign-in across platforms, push notifications in the mobile apps, and invite links that work in a browser.
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How to plan a group trip when no one's calendar agrees
Group trips don't die because people stop wanting to go. They die at the dates stage, months before anyone argues about Airbnbs. Here's the method that actually works.
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The best Doodle alternatives for friend groups in 2026
People keep asking us "so it's like Doodle?" and the honest answer is: sort of, for about a third of what Doodle does, and hopefully much better for that third. Here's a fair comparison of the tools people actually use to pick a date.
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What we learned shipping Frae v1
Frae v1 shipped last month. This post is the retrospective I wish more product teams would publish: the bits that worked, the bits that didn't, and the things I'd do differently if I were starting again tomorrow.
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Privacy by design: how Frae handles your event data
The fastest way to lose trust is to be vague about data. This guide explains what Frae needs to coordinate a plan, what stays on your device, who sees availability, and how deletion works.
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How Frae ranks group availability
On the surface, Frae looks simple. Friends tap the dates they can make, the app surfaces the best date, the host picks. But the moment you start writing the algorithm down, you realise it isn't simple at all.
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Group dinners shouldn't take 73 messages
I went back through my messages last week and counted. Organising one Saturday dinner with six friends had taken 73 messages over four days. Nothing was booked at the end of it.
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Why we built Frae: the story behind the app
A few years ago I sat in a group chat with my oldest friends, all of us doctors, trying to pick a date for a party. After 45 minutes of back and forth we gave up. Not one date worked for everyone in the next four months. That was the evening I started thinking about Frae.