Miriam Aylward is the Director of People and Operations at HELM Construction Solutions, a fully remote firm providing business consulting and project management services to small and medium-sized construction, architecture, and engineering companies across the U.S.
With 20 full-time employees and about 15 more independent contractors, HELM’s work depends on tight coordination between team members and clients. Scheduling—often across time zones and multiple calendars—is central to Miriam’s role. But it hadn’t always been seamless.
The Struggle: Scheduling Friction Across Calendars and Clients
Miriam’s work intersects service delivery, HR, and internal systems. She often coordinates meetings involving multiple internal team members and clients, which makes efficient scheduling critical.
“We’re representing and working with 5 to 20 different clients at a time,” she explains. “Scheduling is the crux of our operational work.”
Tools like Calendly and Google Calendar fell short: they couldn’t support the complexity of her use cases. “Most will allow you to either check for conflicts on one calendar or choose where to book the event—but not both,” she says.
This limitation led to unnecessary back-and-forth, miscommunication, and friction with both clients and colleagues.
The Solution: Boomerang’s Bookable Schedule
Everything changed when Miriam started using Boomerang’s Bookable Schedule feature. It gave her the flexibility she couldn’t find anywhere else.
“With Boomerang, I can check for conflicts on multiple calendars and select which calendar I want the event to be booked to,” she says. “Other platforms will not allow you to do both.”
This functionality proved vital when HELM launched a six-meeting client onboarding series. Miriam needed to coordinate her availability and that of her colleague for two-hour sessions with new clients.
“I was able to send a link that showed both our calendars and said: check these two calendars, but then book it here,” she explains.
The benefit extended to HELM’s 1099 contractors as well. Many of them run coaching businesses and manage multiple email addresses and multiple calendar accounts (five or more). With Boomerang, they can integrate their availability on all their calendars from one tool and still maintain control over where meetings are booked.
The Benefits: Time Saved, Smoother Workflows, Happier Clients
For Miriam, the value of Bookable Schedule is both operational and relational: it saves time and builds trust.
“I have a permanent link in my email signature—one for 30-minute meetings and one for 60. Clients don’t have to wonder when I’m free. They just click the link and book.”
The benefits for clients are just as clear. The team at HELM has noticed a big difference in relationships as they’ve shared their availability using Bookable Schedule.
“It really affects client satisfaction,” Miriam says. “Even if there are only two or three slots open in the next month, they can see them on their own time and feel like they have consistent access to us as consultants. We don’t have to email back and forth and say, ‘nope, sorry, my kid’s in soccer. Nope, sorry I’m on vacation. Or I’m in another meeting’, that back and forth. That perception of availability makes a big difference.”
The feature also reduces internal friction. “We’ve created a culture where availability is visible. If you’re going to be unavailable for more than 30 minutes, you mark it as out of office. Everyone sets their working hours. And because we all follow that protocol, we can confidently rely on Boomerang’s scheduling links.”
Even onboarding new users is easy. Miriam often sets up Bookable Schedules on behalf of her teammates. “It’s not difficult to set up, but I work with people with a huge range of comfort in using technology. As long as they’ve shared editing privileges on their calendar, I can do it for them. Then I just say, ‘Put it in your signature and you’re good.’ That would be much harder with Calendly, where you need their specific login.”
Boomerang also works well with HELM’s broader remote work systems. “We don’t track keystrokes. We track milestones. People need flexibility, but also transparency. Boomerang helps us do both.”
The Outcome: A Streamlined Scheduling Culture
HELM’s operations now run more smoothly, thanks to the integration of Boomerang into their remote team’s calendar culture. The team has aligned around shared expectations:
- Working hours must be in Google Calendar
- Any unavailability over 30 minutes must be marked as out-of-office
- Meeting participants can always modify events
This has eliminated the back-and-forth “propose a new time” dance and cut down significantly on coordination overhead.
Internally, team members can simply move meetings instead of asking if it’s okay. Externally, clients experience a level of transparency and reliability that supports stronger working relationships.
“We work directly with owners on everything related to their business management. It’s not necessarily that we work in urgent or emergency situations, but it’s important to them to be able to have access to us for things that matter.”
A Flexible Calendly Alternative Perfect for Remote Teams
As teams grow more distributed and schedules more complex, flexible tools like Bookable Schedule become essential. Whether you’re coordinating across time zones, managing multiple calendars, or simply trying to eliminate the scheduling back-and-forth, Boomerang helps simplify the process—and lets you focus on what matters most. See how Boomerang stacks up as the best Calendly alternative.
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