JoseFitani
🕐 Time Zones

Meeting Planner

Plan meetings across multiple time zones by visualizing working hours for all attendees.

This page explains how the meeting planner works, the data and formulas behind it, and how to interpret the result. The IANA database is the global source of truth for civil time. It records the political boundaries and DST rules for every region on Earth, and is embedded in every major operating system, programming language and calendar app. The tool is one of 329 free, open tools on JoseFitani for maps and geography. It runs in your browser with no sign-up needed. Use the search field or click the map to drop a pin - the tool uses the IANA time zone database via the browser's Intl.DateTimeFormat API and returns the result in seconds. Below you'll find a step-by-step guide, real use cases, the methodology, FAQs, and data sources.

Offset lookup: type an IANA time zone identifier (e.g. Asia/Kolkata, America/New_York) to see its current local time, UTC offset and DST status. This tool does not use a map.

Current local time
Friday, October 9, 2026 at 01:34:27 PM GMT+2

How to use this tool

1
Enter your input

Type your query, paste coordinates, or click on the map. The tool uses the IANA time zone database via the browser's Intl.DateTimeFormat API to process your input locally in the browser.

2
View the result

The result appears instantly with the map showing your location. You can adjust by clicking elsewhere or searching a new place.

3
Copy or share

Click Copy to save to clipboard, or Share to send a direct link with the exact inputs.

What people use this tool for

Startup standup scheduling

Founders with engineers in three time zones need a daily slot that nobody dreads. The planner shades each attendee's working hours so the overlap jumps out visually. A slot inside everyone's 9-to-5 keeps the standup short and well attended.

Example: A startup with staff in New York, London, and Singapore settles on 8 am New York time after the planner shows it is the only hour all three share.
Client demo coordination

Sales teams book demos that suit the prospect, not just the rep. Entering both cities' working hours reveals the afternoon window that works for each side. Sending the invite with the prospect's local time spelled out avoids the classic 6 am surprise.

Example: A SaaS rep in Austin plans a demo for a prospect in Berlin and picks 4 pm Berlin time, which the planner confirms is a civilised 9 am in Texas.
Global webinar timing

Hosts choose a broadcast hour that captures the largest share of a scattered audience. Plotting the main audience cities shows where the bulk of viewers sit in daylight. The chosen slot maximises live attendance and replay value alike.

Example: A course creator with students in Sydney, Dubai, and Chicago picks 7 pm Dubai time after the planner shows it catches evening viewers in two of the three cities.
Support shift handoffs

Support leads overlap two regional teams so open tickets transfer in a live handoff, not a cold queue. The planner finds the hour where Manila's evening meets Dublin's morning. That shared hour becomes the daily sync where tricky cases change hands.

Example: A support manager overlaps the Manila and Dublin shifts at 4 pm Manila time so escalations get a proper verbal handoff every day.

How it's calculated

Displays a grid of local times for each participant so you can find an overlap.

The calculation runs in your browser - no data is sent to our servers. Map tiles come from OpenStreetMap (ODbL license), geocoding uses Nominatim (1 request/second limit), and elevation uses the Open-Elevation API backed by SRTM data. All are free, open services.

All calculations use the WGS84 datum (EPSG:4326), the same as GPS. For other datums (NAD27, NAD83, ETRS89), a separate conversion is needed. The difference is typically under 1 metre - negligible for most uses but important for survey-grade work.

The formulas match those in professional GIS software (QGIS, ArcGIS, Global Mapper), just in a browser-friendly form. For sub-metre accuracy, use professional software with ellipsoidal calculations. Results are shown in multiple units: km and miles for distance, km²/m²/hectares/acres for area, metres and feet for elevation. Conversion factors are exact (1 mile = 1.609344 km), so the only error source is input precision.

Related tools and resources

For more tools in this category, explore the related tools listed below. Each tool includes full documentation, examples and FAQs. Explore related tools in our Timezones category for complementary functionality. See the Tools index for all 329 tools, or read our blog for in-depth articles on geography and maps.

Frequently asked questions

Does this handle DST?

Yes - DST transitions are computed from the IANA database.

How does the planner find overlapping hours?

You enter each attendee's city and working hours, and the tool converts every schedule into a common timeline. Hours where all timelines show 'working' are highlighted as the overlap. The result respects each city's current daylight saving offset, so the overlap stays correct through the year.

What if there is no overlap at all?

Then the planner shows it plainly instead of suggesting a bad slot: you see exactly whose hours clash. The usual fixes are widening someone's working window, splitting into two meetings, or rotating the inconvenience across weeks. Seeing the gap makes the trade-off explicit rather than accidental.

Does it account for weekends?

The planner focuses on the hours of a working day; it does not know any country's weekend pattern. Friday-to-Sunday weekends in the Gulf, for example, need manual attention when you pick the day. Use the hour overlap for timing and confirm the weekday separately with each attendee.

How do half-hour zones affect the overlap?

They shift the overlap by 30 or 45 minutes relative to whole-hour zones, which the planner handles exactly. A 9-to-5 day in Adelaide at UTC+10:30 overlaps Mumbai's day differently than a +10:00 zone would. Rounding these offsets in your head is where most scheduling mistakes happen.

Can I add more than two attendees?

Yes, add each attendee's city and the overlap recalculates across all of them. Every extra time zone narrows the shared window, sometimes to nothing. The planner makes that narrowing visible so you can decide who truly needs to be live and who can catch the recording.

Why did my usual slot break this week?

Daylight saving transitions are the usual culprit: one attendee's city changed its offset while the others did not. The transatlantic gap, for instance, shifts by an hour for the weeks when the US and Europe change clocks on different dates. Re-run the planner after each transition to catch the drift.

Does the tool send calendar invites?

No, it only finds the slot; you create the invite in your own calendar app. Copy the agreed time with each attendee's local hour from the results. Keeping invite creation in your calendar avoids duplicate or conflicting events.

Does the meeting planner need the internet?

Only to load the page. The overlap computation is time-zone arithmetic that runs entirely in your browser. Once loaded, you can reshuffle attendees and hours with no connection.

Data sources & methodology