Doodle

Overview

Doodle is an online scheduling and meeting coordination service founded in 2007 and headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. It enables groups to coordinate meeting times through availability polls and provides 1:1 booking pages similar to Calendly. Doodle's embeddable widgets allow website owners to surface scheduling polls and appointment booking interfaces directly within their pages, letting visitors participate in meeting polls or book appointments without leaving the host site. The service is widely used by consultants, recruitment teams, educational institutions, and event organisers.

What This Script Does

Doodle scripts load from doodle.com and render either an iframe-based scheduling poll or a JavaScript-embedded booking widget. The specific implementation depends on whether the site owner is using Doodle's classic poll embed or the newer Booking Page embed.

Cookies and identifiers set:

• doodle_session — Session cookie managing the scheduling poll or booking state across page loads; prevents duplicate submissions and maintains participant progress through a multi-step availability selection; expires at session end.
• doodle_uid — Persistent visitor identifier set within the doodle.com iframe context; used to recognise returning participants and pre-populate their name and availability in repeat polls; expiry 1 year.
• doodle_prefs — Preference cookie storing the visitor's timezone preference detected during the scheduling flow; expiry 30 days.
• DCLID / doodle_src — Attribution cookies tracking the referral source of a booking (set when visitor arrives via a Doodle campaign link); expiry 30 days.

Script filenames and CDN: Booking embed script loaded from doodle.com/api/v3/bookingpages/<id>/widget.js. Poll iframes served from doodle.com/poll/<id>. API calls route to doodle.com/api/v2/ for availability data and to analytics.doodle.com for engagement event reporting.

Per-session data collected:

• Participant name and email address (entered during poll or booking confirmation)
• Availability slot selections with timezone normalisation
• Time zone identifier (auto-detected from browser)
• Device type and browser metadata
• Page URL of the embedding page (referrer sent to Doodle's analytics pipeline)
• Booking confirmation events and calendar integration requests (Google Calendar, Outlook)

Automatic functionality: Doodle scripts perform time zone detection on page load regardless of user interaction. If the widget is configured to auto-display, the doodle_session cookie may be set before the visitor actively engages with the scheduling interface.

Consent & Compliance

Doodle's embedded scheduling widgets fall under the functional consent category. Under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, cookies and scripts that are strictly necessary for a service explicitly requested by the user — such as completing a scheduling poll — may qualify for exemption from prior consent requirements. Session cookies that maintain poll state fit this functional exemption. However, the persistent doodle_uid cross-session visitor identifier and the referral attribution cookies go beyond strict necessity and require consent consideration. Under CCPA/CPRA, participant data (name, email, availability) collected through the booking flow constitutes personal information that must be disclosed in the host site's privacy notice. Doodle as a Swiss company is subject to the nFADP (new Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection) and provides GDPR-compliant DPAs for EU deployments.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Conditional. If the Doodle widget activates only when a visitor explicitly clicks a "Schedule Meeting" or "Book Appointment" button, it qualifies as functional and can load without prior consent. If it loads automatically on page render and sets persistent cookies before user engagement, block it until functional consent is granted.