Meeting Scheduling and Management Solutions: Riva Bookings and Calendly* 

Is your enterprise in a regulated industry? Do you have lots of friction in your meeting scheduling process? Do you have data governance requirements that require the protection of Material Nonpublic Information (MNPI)? If your answer is yes, then this comparison between Calendly and Riva Bookings is for you.  

While Calendly was initially designed to solve individual end-user frictions in a B2C model, Riva Bookings tool was designed specifically to solve the unique challenges posed by enterprises. Read on—and learn where Calendly falls short, and Riva excels.

Enterprise-Grade Data Privacy and Security Practices 

Riva Bookings is part of the Riva revenue data operations engine and is integrated into Riva sync, unification, and flow automation. This means that meeting and activity information is consistently captured in both the system of record and the system of action.  

The passthrough architecture of Riva Bookings does not store meeting data such as subject, description, attachment, date, or time. The only detail stored is the meeting ID. In contrast, Calendly stores meeting information about the event and every one part of it. Users must manually delete personally identifiable information (PII) from Calendly.

Riva Bookings also offers meeting approval – either manual or automatic. Approvals by the meeting organizer add another layer of increased security. Whereas Calendly only has an automated approval workflow. Furthermore, Calendly does not validate any email addresses when rescheduling or canceling, which poses potential fraud and security concerns, and Riva checks email matches before taking further actions.  

Riva Bookings has different deployment options, whereas Calendly can only be deployed in its own cloud. With Riva, it can be deployed directly on your cloud AWS environment—giving you complete control over your infrastructure and sensitive data. 

Intuitive Setup and Smooth Admin Experience 

Riva Bookings is developed as a Microsoft Enterprise application and has built-in single sign-on (SSO), resulting in a seamless setup and user management experience. This is not the case with Calendly. 

Riva Bookings allows admins to add multiple users simultaneously by adding a group. With Calendly, the administrators must add users one at a time.  

Calendly does not offer global settings, where that kind of flexibility is a hallmark of all of Riva tools. With Riva Bookings, you can set all booking users’ preferences, such as default availability, to free up your time for more important revenue operations details.  

Accommodating the Complex Needs of Regulated Industries 

Business leaders within FinServ often request meeting delegations to ease their workload and support the unique workflow, and Riva Bookings does just that. With the meeting host delegation function, end users such as executive assistants are empowered to create meeting links on behalf of non-users or anyone who needs to stay focused on business and revenue goals.

Riva Bookings separates optional attendees from those who are required internal attendees. Optional attendees are invited to meetings to stay informed, but their calendar availability doesn’t determine meeting times.  

Riva Bookings also provides highly flexible brand customization in color, logo, and privacy or security disclaimer.  

Instead of adding Calendly, another software to your already-crowded tech stack, Riva Bookings is built in the Riva ecosystem, providing you with a one-stop solution for different revenue data operations needs.  

Comparing Capabilities

 

Security

Security

• Proven enterprise-level security, privacy, and scalability mandated by regulated industries 
• Increased security controls with a combined manual and automatic approval process. Approval by the meeting organizer increases security. 
• Meeting details are not stored. No such meeting information as subject, description, attachment, date, and time is stored. The only detail stored is the meeting ID. 
• Hybrid Deployment with AWS

• Originally designed for the B2C and C2C customers and only recently got into enterprises 
• Automatic approval only 
• No email address validation when rescheduling or canceling a meeting: potential fraud and security concerns 
• Stores meeting information about the event and every one part of it. Users have to delete personally identifiable information from Calendly manually.  

Enterprise Set-up

Enterprise Set-up

• Specifically built for Microsoft 
• Built-in SSO: no complicated setup process 
• Streamlined enterprise user management  

• Extensive setup process for Enterprise customers 
• Lengthy SSO process 

Meeting Host Delegation 

Meeting Host Delegation 

• Assistants able to book meetings on behalf of others like the CEO and choose to be part of the meeting as a required or an optional attendee 

• Not available based on our research  

Signature Links  

Signature Links  

• Dedicated signature link available  

• Not designated for email signatures 

Global Setting 

Global Setting 

• Available  
• Able to pull all booking users’ default availability for multiple stakeholders

• Not available: need to set all custom settings from scratch for each link you create 

Distinction of required and optional attendees 

Distinction of required and optional attendees 

• Option for “required attendees” and “optional attendees” 

• Everyone is required to attend 

Custom Branding 

Custom Branding 

• Customizable branding to meet enterprise needs 

• Very limited: color options for website integration only 

Deployment Method 

Deployment Method 

• Can be deployed to a single tenant cloud, customer’s cloud (AWS), or Riva’s cloud.  

• Calendly’s cloud only 

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