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The meeting Management Blog

Book the room, the coffee and the guests without leaving Outlook

AskCody for employees

You just want your meeting to work. AskCody puts the room, the catering and the guest registration inside the Outlook invite you are already writing, and when your meeting moves, everything you ordered moves with it.

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The challenge

Why does one meeting take five places to book?

You know the routine. Find a free room that fits eight, email the kitchen about coffee, tell reception two guests are coming, and hope the screen works. Then the meeting moves to the afternoon, and you have to remember everyone you told the first time.

Every step outside Outlook is one more place to forget. This is what one move looks like.

A project kickoff on Tuesday at 10:00 with eight people, two guests, coffee and a screen. At 09:15 it moves to 13:00. The to-do list: find a free room, email the kitchen, tell reception, move the invite and check the screen. The kitchen and reception are forgotten, so at 10:00 coffee for eight arrives with nobody there, and at 13:00 the guests wait at reception. One meeting, five places to go, and two of them forgotten.

The five challenges behind it

01

Which room is free?

Finding a room that fits the meeting means guessing, or walking the floor.

02

Email for everything

Coffee, a setup and the guest list each need their own message to their own team.

03

Changes you must pass on

Move the meeting, and it is up to you to tell everyone you told the first time.

04

Guests left waiting

Forget to tell reception, and your guests start the visit standing at the desk.

05

Rooms that do not work

The screen or the camera fails, and the first ten minutes are gone.

One invite

Everything your meeting needs, in one Outlook invite

The AskCody add-ins sit inside Outlook. Find and book the room, order catering and services, and register your guests in the same invite you send to the attendees, so everything your meeting needs is booked in one place, by you, in a minute.

A real Outlook invite for a meeting called Leadership Evaluation, with the AskCody add-ins in the Outlook toolbar. With the AskCody Bookings add-in the organizer adds Meeting Room A, with 8 seats, a screen and a whiteboard. With the AskCody Services add-in they add coffee, fruit and water from Catering for 12:30. With the AskCody Visitors add-in they register two guests, Alex Weber and Lidia Holloway. When the invite is sent, the room is booked, the order goes to Catering and the guest list goes to reception, and Microsoft Exchange shows Meeting Room A accepted, booked in the room calendar from 12:30 to 15:00.

Bookings add-in: Meeting Room A is found in Outlook and booked in Microsoft Exchange
Rooms

Find the right room, right in the invite

In the AskCody Bookings add-in, pick the location, the purpose of the meeting and the equipment and services you need. Your invitees set the headcount, so you only see rooms that fit, each with its capacity, and the booking lands in the room's Exchange calendar like any Outlook room booking.

See meeting room booking

Catering

Order the coffee where you book the room

Order catering, room setups and AV in the AskCody Services add-in, inside the same invite. The kitchen gets your order with the room, time and number of people, and you are emailed when it is accepted.

See how meeting catering works

Services add-in: coffee and a fruit basket ordered in the invite and accepted by Catering
Visitors add-in: two guests added to the invite, expected by reception and sent arrival details
Guests

Your guests, expected at reception

Add your guests with the AskCody Visitors add-in, next to the room and the catering. Reception expects them, they can receive directions and WiFi details before they arrive, and you get an email and an SMS when they check in.

See how visitor management works

When plans change

Move the meeting, and everything follows

Your room, catering and guests are tied to the same Outlook invite. Move the meeting, and the room booking, the catering request and the guest registrations move with it. Cancel it, and the room is released and the orders are canceled. You change the meeting once, in Outlook, and nobody needs an email.

Follow-the-Meeting Intelligence. An Outlook invite called Leadership Evaluation holds Meeting Room A, an order of coffee, fruit and water from Catering, and two guests, Alex Weber and Lidia Holloway. On Thursday at 12:30 the room is booked in Microsoft Exchange, Catering has accepted the order and reception expects the two guests. The organizer moves the meeting to Friday at 14:00 in Outlook, and the room booking, the catering delivery and the guests' arrival details all move with it, with no emails to the kitchen or reception. Then the organizer cancels the meeting, and the room is released for others, the catering order is canceled and reception cancels the visit.

What it's worth

What changes for you, and for the people around you

When the whole meeting lives in one invite, booking takes a minute and changes take care of themselves. Here is what that is worth.

FOR YOU

Ease

The room, the coffee and the guests booked in the invite you are already writing.

FOR YOUR GUESTS

A good start

Expected at reception, with directions and WiFi before they arrive.

FOR THE TEAMS

Orders they can trust

The kitchen and reception get the details from the meeting, and every change with it.

One setup for every site

A Norwegian municipality and a medtech headquarters run AskCody on one platform across many locations, so every employee books the same way, wherever they work.

150

locations on one platform at Sandefjord Municipality

5,000+

employees at Sandefjord Municipality

7

receptions connected across EMEA at Olympus

Read the stories from Sandefjord Municipality and Olympus

Luke Schnoebelen, Director of Professional Development
Luke SchnoebelenDirector of Professional Development

The power back in the hands of the user

“AskCody simplifies the booking process. It gave the power back to the user rather than a ‘wait and see scenario’... AskCody gave us visibility into all the available resources, and that’s great. That was at the core of what we needed.”

Nabil Zerdazi, IT Project Manager
Nabil ZerdaziIT Project Manager

The whole meeting, organized in Outlook

“By using AskCody, our employees will be able to manage the end-to-end process of organizing their own meetings in Microsoft Outlook, and easily find a workplace that will perfectly fit their needs.”

Nané Pr’Out, Director of Information Technology
Nané Pr’OutDirector of Information Technology

Cancel the meeting, and the room frees up

“The biggest impact I think is simply the ease of reserving conference rooms when you’re scheduling meetings... and also when you cancel a meeting, that the conference room frees up, and you don’t have to do additional steps to go into another system and remove it.”

Jesper Imhof Rosendahl, IT Project Manager
Jesper Imhof RosendahlIT Project Manager

Rooms and catering in one overview

“AskCody’s platform gives us an easy overview of available rooms, as well as quick access to book catering for our meetings. Without AskCody, booking premises is ineffective, which results in a large waste of resources.”

Sondre Andersen, IT Manager
Sondre AndersenIT Manager

One platform across 150 locations

“Our vision was to tailor the entire workflow for the individual employee. We now plan everything in AskCody. It is extremely easy for the individual employee to book meetings... In this way, we make the most of all resources across our 150 locations.”

Anthony Moore, IT Director
Anthony MooreIT Director

Ten bookers used to mean ten ways to book

“Ten different people booking a meeting resulted in ten different ways of creating a meeting, and everything that goes with it... With AskCody employees can now book rooms and request services themselves, and it gives them a kind of self-service aspect where they can take control of their own meetings.”

Common questions from employees

What does AskCody do for employees?

AskCody lets you book the room, order catering and register guests inside the Outlook invite you are already writing. When the meeting moves or is canceled, the room, the orders and the guests follow it.
Do I need to learn a new app?

No. The AskCody add-ins work inside Outlook for Windows, Mac and the web, and meetings with a Teams link work the same way, with no separate install in Teams.
How do I find a free room?

Open the AskCody Bookings add-in in the Outlook invite, pick the location, the purpose and the equipment you need, and you see only the rooms that fit your attendees, each with its capacity. Exchange declines a booking that clashes with an existing one by default.

See meeting room booking
How do I order catering for my meeting?

Open the AskCody Services add-in in the same invite and pick from the menu. The kitchen gets the order with the room, time and number of people, and you are emailed when it is accepted, readied or rejected.
How do I register my guests?

Add them with the AskCody Visitors add-in in the invite. Reception expects them, they can receive directions and WiFi details before the visit, and you are notified by email and SMS when they check in.
What happens if I move or cancel my meeting?

Move it in Outlook, and the room booking, the catering request and the guest registrations move with it. Cancel it, and the room is released and the orders are canceled. If the kitchen has already prepared the order or its deadline has passed, the order is detached and you are told, so a person decides.

Read how Follow-the-Meeting works
Why do I only see some rooms?

Your workplace team can link rooms and desks to Entra ID security groups, so you see only the spaces you are allowed to book.

See how your meetings would run

Talk to a consultant about booking the room, the catering and the guests in one Outlook invite.
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