WhatsApp's new free feature will make your life less messy

WhatApp is rolling out an important feature upgrade that should make life less messy for home and business users alike. You can now co-ordinate catch-ups with the entire family or plan a meeting with colleagues or clients through the app's new Schedule Call feature.

The feature does exactly what it sounds like. If you go to Calls > Schedule Call you can then select the people or groups you want to invite to the call, and set the time and predicted duration of the call.

That will then be sent to everyone you've invited, and they'll be notified when it's nearly time for the call to start. The person who creates the scheduled call will be notified whenever any of the invitees joins the call.

How the Schedule Call feature works

Once you've set up the scheduled call it'll appear in your Calls tab under "Upcoming", and if you tap on More it'll give you the list of invited attendees as well as call links you can stick in your own calendar or share with others.

This isn't the only new feature rolling out to WhatsApp. There's also a new Raise Hand option as well as in-call emoji reactions, so you can tap a heart or sadface or a thumbs-up while taking part in a group conversation.

The Raise Hand feature is something we've seen in other communication platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom, enabling you to notify the group that you'd like to continue without interrupting the person currently speaking.

These new features appear immediately below the video windows – emojis are first, followed by Raise Hand and then the Share Screen and Send Message buttons.

As ever, the update is free and should reach your phone, tablet or desktop app automatically if you have automatic updates enabled.