Web-based scheduling firm Doodle has announced new features designed to improve its integration with popular calendaring applications, and a new paid-for and fully customisable version of the service for small firms.

Doodle works by enabling corporate users or consumers to schedule meetings or events by creating a 'poll', a tabular display of possible time and date slots, and then inviting participants to select the most suitable time for them.

The firm today announced a new Outlook plug-in which will automatically fill in Doodle polls based on free slots in a user's Outlook calendar, and book tentative and final slots in the calendar.

An ICS Calendar feed will create a similar integration with other calendars, including Google Calendar and Mozilla's Sunbird, according to Doodle chief executive Michael Näf.

The firm also announced Branded Doodle, three new products hosted by Doodle which are fully customisable with a user's own logo and name. The service is available as a free option supported by adverts, an advert-free option at £15 and a secure SSL version at £30.

In addition, Doodle has unveiled a Rest-based API (PDF) which it hopes will stimulate new and complementary applications for the tool. The showcase application is the Doodle Mail Init Agent, according to Näf.

"This is a way to create Doodle polls via email," he explained. "It's a feature more for power users who prefer command line-based interfaces."