I have been DMing a campaign for over a year now for some of my close friends (some of which are more experienced than I am). Arguably the most difficult part of the campaign is figuring out when we can all get together to do a session. The difficulty mostly comes from everyone being in different areas in life (some of us are still students, while others are working full time jobs). 

The main purpose of this thread is I would like some feedback on tools/strategies other DMs have used to help make scheduling easier on themselves and their parties. 

There are three approaches that I have tried, but do not seem to be working:

1. Scheduling over group message. This is my least favorite by far, as it always feels like I am pulling teeth to get all the members to respond and for the chat not to get interrupted/sidetracked by another string of messages. 
2. Predetermining a regular day. My group only plays about once per month, so it seems like setting a particular day ahead of time would be a wise choice (such as the first Monday, or third Tuesday or whatever). This seemed like it would work at first, as the group was able to decide at least on a weekday that would generally work well. After about two months of trying this though, it fell through and we went back to playing when we could. 
3. Scheduling using a calendar in Google Doc. This is the most recent way I have been trying. I created a google calendar that everyone can view and edit, allowing them to mark which days work well / might work / definitely wont work in a particular month. This calendar could be updated as the month progressed in case anything comes up. Even then, some of my players won't get around to filling out the calendar, and it feels like we are still deciding when to play on a whim over group message. Some of my players have told me that the reason is simply that they don't know immediately know their schedule for a full month, which I understand. I see that asking for a monthly schedule from everyone could be a bit much for people who are generally busy with an array of other commitments, but I am not sure what would work better. 

Are there any other strategies that you have tried that seemed to work well. I want to try and find a middle ground that helps my players to easily keep me updated on what they are doing and when they want to play without expecting them to layout everything they have to do at once. 

My DM sends out google invitation to a game on the days he’s available(usually a month worth at a time). People respond to which one(s) they can attend. Date with the best attendance is the date we play. 

Side note it gets increasingly harder to get everyone able to play on the same day as you get older. If you don’t already, you might want to just agree that some number of people is a quorum and you’ll play, even if everyone can’t make it. Just let everyone level at the same rate even if they’re not there and it should work out alright. 

I've run once a month campaigns for years, all with working adults. Here's what I've found works:

• Play on a fixed day every month. Don't do Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays as that's time for people to be with their families. The fixed date is critical so that your players' family knows that that day is off limits every month. Mondays aren't the best either due to people taking long weekends. So try Tues, Wed, or Thurs.
• Play 7-10, as that gives people time to eat and make their way to the hosting venue and doesn't keep them out too late. I personally prefer 7-11, but find not everyone can do that.
• Be flexible. As soon as someone finds out they can't make the next session, coordinate by email to see if an alternate day can be found for that month; if not they miss out that session. Use https://doodle.com/en/ if the options are complicated.
• Summer and Winter holidays are difficult. In the April or May session tell everyone to figure out when they're going to be away and coordinate by email to have June, July, August locked down well in advance. Same with December, and any other holiday periods. Always end a session making sure everyone thinks they're ok for the next one.
• See if you can delegate the responsibility to a player who's interested so you can concentrate on DM prep.
• Decide how many are too few people to run the session and if you fall below quorum tell everyone to bring some boardgames they'd like play so everyone else still has a fun time out and your family doesn't learn that the date isn't as fixed as they thought it was.

With these rules in place, I usually get 10-11 monthly sessions per year.

Edit: Also your players have to sometimes face the reality that their life doesn't have room for 3 hours once a month on a week night and bow out.

Is it the same player or two that are impossible to pin down, or is it a lack of cohesion overall? And is this the only time this group of friends can all hang out? Maybe splitting into a campaign (or even another game/system) that people can drop into or out of would work for most people, and you could get the more-dedicated group to meet on a regular night. 

I use a google calendar and have invited everyone to join it. That seams to help.

When we decided to start back up after all being students together (well most), we set an arbitrary Friday or Saturday every other week.  At the end of a session we'd plan the next and then touch base over the 2 weeks.  That led us to a pretty regular Friday night game.  We start late enough that dinners or children's sporting events are usually over, and play for a few hours.  Midweek someone sends an email (usually the DM) to make sure everyone is good.  If we have a week were we don't have enough the others either play something else, or the DM has time to craft a side-story.  We've been able to keep it up for well over 2 years now.

Over the years my friends and I, at least for in-person games, found it was much easier when we had fixed schedules. Knowing it is every other Friday or something, people could make plans around it.

None of us was married at the time though so... what that'd be like with spouses and kiddos, I dunno. Probably wouldn't work.

Quote from BioWizard >>

Over the years my friends and I, at least for in-person games, found it was much easier when we had fixed schedules. Knowing it is every other Friday or something, people could make plans around it.

None of us was married at the time though so... what that'd be like with spouses and kiddos, I dunno. Probably wouldn't work.

 You’d be surprised. The campaign I DM has a set schedule of 2nd and 4th Saturday of every month. We have a group ranging in ages from 16-40. It works better than you might think in conjunction with a google calendar that people can RSVP to at their convenience. Then everyone can see who can/can’t make it and gets notified if I decide to cancel the session because too many people can’t make it. (There are 6 players, I don’t run the game if at least 4 of them can make it.)

Hi, I found this thread in a google search and thank you for posting about https://xoyondo.com !!

Since doodle.com recently updated their doodle polls making them MUCH more difficult to manage in the way we need to find multiple days to meet for sessions, I have been looking for an alternative. xoyondo.com seems to fit that bill.