Managing Calendars, Scheduling, and Moderators for 1:1 Studies

Managing your calendar effectively is one of the most important parts of running a smooth live project. In User Interviews, you have flexible tools to adjust availability, coordinate multiple moderators, run simultaneous sessions, and stay in touch with confirmed participants—all without disrupting recruitment. 

This lesson of Managing Live Projects will guide you through each of these workflows so you can keep your project on track and create a great experience for participants. You’ll learn:

• How to edit your availability after launch
• How to manage multiple moderators and in-tandem interview slots
• How to reschedule, remove, or message confirmed participants

📹 Prefer watching to reading? This content is available as both an article and a video. Watch our Customer Success Manager, Kaylynn Knollmaier, take you through the content in the video below or keep reading to dive in!

How to edit your availability after launch

Even after your project goes live, you can update when you're available to run sessions. This is especially helpful if you need to add more interview times to boost scheduling speed, or remove times that become unavailable due to internal conflicts.

• Open your project and go to Research Design > Research Activity > Edit availability, attendees, and location. 
• Add new time slots or remove existing ones directly from the calendar interface.
• Changes update instantly, and participants will only see your most up-to-date availability when booking.

Best practices for scheduling

• Add availability early and often: The more options you offer, the faster your schedule fills.
• Avoid last-minute deletions: Removing slots close to the session start time can cause participant frustration.
• Use buffers in between sessions: If interviews tend to run long, build in 10–15 minutes between sessions.

If you are scheduling same-day sessions, keep in mind that there is a default minimum scheduling notice on all projects. The minimum scheduling notice is the minimum lead time you would like between a session and when a participant can book themselves for that session. The default buffer for all new researcher accounts is set to 4 hours.

How to manage multiple moderators

Many teams run research collaboratively, and UI makes it easy to assign different moderators to different sessions.

You can assign moderators globally or per session:

• To set a default moderator: Go to Research Design → Research Activity → Scheduling, Session Attendance & Location → Edit. Set a default moderator for all sessions unless otherwise changed.
• To set session-specific moderators: Open any individual time slot and assign a different moderator. This is ideal for teams splitting interview loads across time zones or areas of expertise.

When you assign a moderator, those moderators will receive invitations, reminders, and calendar holds for the sessions they own. Participants receive communication using the correct moderator’s details, and teams can scale research more efficiently without overloading one person.

How to add multiple interview slots at the same time

If your team needs to run multiple interviews simultaneously—each with a different moderator or meeting link—you can set this up by adding overlapping time slots.

How to create overlapping sessions

• Navigate to Research Design → Research Activity → Scheduling.
• When selecting a time slot, click near the right edge of the slot to add an additional session at the same time.

Each overlapping slot can have:

• A different moderator
• A unique meeting location (Zoom link, Google Meet, etc.)
• Independent session management

This way, it’s easy to scale research sprints with multiple researchers, run high-volume studies with short debrief sessions, and quickly fill many interviews when recruitment is strong.

How to reschedule or remove participants

Managing changes is a normal part of live research. UI gives you straightforward ways to adjust calendar bookings while keeping participants informed.

How to reschedule a participant

• Go to Participants → Scheduled.
• Open the participant’s session details.
• Select Reschedule and choose a new time.
• The participant receives an automatic notification prompting them to confirm or choose another slot.

It’s always best to reschedule participants instead of canceling when possible—this helps preserve participant goodwill. 

How to remove (cancel) a participant

• From the same session view, select Remove from study.
• You can optionally include a cancellation note.
• The participant is removed from the schedule and returned to an appropriate status, depending on your settings.

Contact your PC if you need help filling newly opened slots after cancellations.

How to message confirmed participants

Communication is critical for reducing no-shows and keeping participants engaged. User Interviews provides an in-app messaging tool that protects your privacy and keeps all communication centralized.

• Navigate to the Messages tab of the Participant management section.
• Start a conversation with any scheduled participant.
• Messages are delivered via SMS.
• Confirmed participants can reply directly from their phone.

When to message participants

• To confirm logistics (e.g., “Please have Figma installed before we meet”).
• To request additional information or clarify screener answers.
• To coordinate rescheduling or accommodate accessibility needs.
• To send follow-up reminders close to the session.

Keeping in contact with participants throughout the study lifecycle helps participants feel supported and confident and reduces preventable no-shows.