Guide

Run a Meeting Time Poll from the CLI

A meeting time poll proposes a few options, lets people vote, and books the winner. This guide runs that loop from the terminal: propose slots, screen each one against participants' calendars so dead options never reach the vote, email a shortlist, then create the event for the winner.

Written by Nick Barraclough Product Manager

Reviewed by Qasim Muhammad

Verified — CLI 3.1.17 · Google, Outlook · last tested June 9, 2026

How do I propose the time options for a meeting poll?

A meeting poll starts with a small set of candidate slots — usually 4 or 5 options, since response rates fall once a poll runs past about 6 choices. You define each option as a start and end timestamp in a plain list, then iterate over it. No external service holds the options; the terminal does.

The list below is the input every later step reads from. Each entry is a start/end pair the script will screen for conflicts and then offer for a vote. Keeping options in one array means a single edit changes every downstream command, and 4 options keep the eventual email short enough to scan on a phone.

# Four proposed slots for a 30-minute meeting
OPTIONS=(
  "2026-06-15 10:00|2026-06-15 10:30"
  "2026-06-15 14:00|2026-06-15 14:30"
  "2026-06-16 11:00|2026-06-16 11:30"
  "2026-06-17 15:00|2026-06-17 15:30"
)

Why screen each option against participants before voting?

Screening each option against participants' calendars removes the most common failure of a Doodle-style poll: the winning slot turns out to be one a key person was never free for. The nylas calendar availability check command reads free/busy for a list of emails over a time range, so a slot with any conflict drops before it ever reaches the vote.

The command takes --emails as a comma-separated list and --start and --end for the window. With --json it returns busy intervals you can test against. Run it once per option, and a slot that returns any busy interval overlapping its window is disqualified — checking 4 options across a team takes well under 2 seconds.

# Check one proposed slot against three participants
nylas calendar availability check \
  --emails alice@company.com,bob@company.com,carol@company.com \
  --start "2026-06-15 10:00" --end "2026-06-15 10:30" \
  --json

How do I email the shortlist so people can vote?

You email the surviving slots with nylas email send, listing each option with a reply instruction so recipients vote by replying with a number. The send goes out across providers without SMTP config, and adding --track-opens tells you who has seen the poll before the deadline.

The command takes --to once per recipient, --subject, and --body. Passing --yes skips the confirmation prompt so the step runs unattended. Replies land in the organizer's inbox, where nylas email list surfaces the votes — a 3-person poll usually settles within an hour.

nylas email send \
  --to alice@company.com --to bob@company.com --to carol@company.com \
  --subject "Vote: pick a time for the planning sync" \
  --body "Reply with the number that works:
1) Mon Jun 15, 10:00
2) Tue Jun 16, 11:00
3) Wed Jun 17, 15:00" \
  --track-opens --yes

How do I count the votes that come back?

You count votes by listing the replies that match the poll subject and reading the chosen number from each. The nylas email search command filters by subject and time, and --json gives a parseable result so a tally is one pipeline. The organizer breaks ties, since equal counts happen often with 3 or 4 options.

Use nylas email search with --subject to pull the reply thread and --after to bound it to since the poll went out. The example reads the first digit of each reply body to total votes per option, so a poll that drew 12 replies resolves in one command instead of manual inbox triage.

# Pull poll replies and tally the first digit of each reply
nylas email search "*" --subject "Vote: pick a time" --after "2026-06-12" --json \
  | jq -r '.[].snippet' \
  | grep -oE '^[1-4]' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn

How do I book the winning slot for everyone?

You book the winner with nylas calendar events create, repeating --participant once per voter. Every participant gets a real calendar invite they can accept, and the event lands on the organizer's primary calendar by default. One command closes the poll — no copy-paste into a separate invite.

nylas calendar events create \
  --title "Planning sync" \
  --start "2026-06-16 11:00" --end "2026-06-16 11:30" \
  --location "Google Meet" \
  --participant alice@company.com \
  --participant bob@company.com \
  --participant carol@company.com

The full poll chains every step: build the option list, screen each one with availability check, email the survivors, then book the winner after the vote. The script below runs the screen-and-email half and exits cleanly if every proposed slot has a conflict — the one case worth handling, since a busy team can rule out all 4 options in a tight week.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
EMAILS="alice@company.com,bob@company.com,carol@company.com"
OPTIONS=(
  "2026-06-15 10:00|2026-06-15 10:30"
  "2026-06-16 11:00|2026-06-16 11:30"
  "2026-06-17 15:00|2026-06-17 15:30"
)

BODY="Reply with the number that works:"
N=0
for OPT in "${OPTIONS[@]}"; do
  START="${OPT%|*}"; END="${OPT#*|}"
  FREE=$(nylas calendar availability find --participants "$EMAILS" \
    --duration 30 --start "$START" --end "$END" --json | jq 'length')
  [ "$FREE" -gt 0 ] || continue
  N=$((N + 1))
  BODY="$BODY
$N) $START"
done

[ "$N" -eq 0 ] && { echo "every proposed slot has a conflict"; exit 0; }

nylas email send --to alice@company.com \
  --subject "Vote: pick a time for the planning sync" \
  --body "$BODY" --track-opens --yes

Next steps