PLANNING get-togethers and shindigs in WhatsApp groups can be a pretty painful task when there's lots of members and schedules to juggle.
Fortunately, the Meta-owned messenger has heard your prayers and is finally making it easier to corral your friends and family into one place.
In an announcement on his WhatsApp Channel, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg said, “If you’re in a WhatsApp Community, you can now create events in your groups and reply to admin announcements.
"Over the next few months more groups will be able to create events.”
That sounds incredibly useful! Being able to schedule events in WhatsApp Communities will definitely make organising and planning much easier.
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The events feature will first arrive for groups belonging to a Community.
But, eventually, all your old group chats will receive the feature.
NO EXCUSES
Communities, which rolled out in 2022, are basically big groups that contain WhatsApp group chats within them.
Now, community members will be able to create events with an organised 'respond' button - so all the yes' and no's don't get lost in the group chat.
This way the whole group knows who is coming.
Guests can find the event in the group's information page - and all attendees will receive an automatic notification as the even approaches.
So, there'll be no more 'Sorry, I forgot' excuses.
Anyone can create an event, according to Meta, not just community admins.
"That sounds incredibly useful!," one onlooker wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
"Being able to schedule events in WhatsApp Communities will definitely make organising and planning much easier. Great update!"
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Another tweeted: "Nice, that's a great update on their feature!"
SPEAK UP
Alongside the events feature, Meta is also introducing replies to Announcement Groups.
This means admins can hear from their members without cluttering the chatbox with reams of comments, or receiving a bombardment of notifications.
Replies will be grouped together and minimised - similar to an X thread - so you can see what others have said.