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The meeting Management Blog

Every room ready, every change caught, without chasing anyone

AskCody for facilities managers

You are the facilities manager who keeps the workplace running: rooms set up, services on time, equipment working. AskCody connects the meetings in Outlook with the teams behind them, so every setup, delivery and fault reaches the right people in time.

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The challenge

Why does one room swap ripple through five teams?

You know the morning. A training session moves to a smaller room at 08:10, the booking system knows, and the setup crew, the AV team and cleaning are still working from yesterday's plan. Twenty people walk into a room set for eight, while the room you prepared sits empty.

When the moving parts of a meeting live in different systems, every change becomes a round of phone calls, and you are the one making them. This is what one swap looks like.

A training session today from 09:00 to 12:00 in Room 4, set for twenty with a projector and a flip chart. At 08:10 it moves to Room 6, set for eight. The booking system, cleaning and reception heard about it, but the setup crew and the AV team did not. At 08:50 Room 4 is set for twenty and stays empty, and at 09:05 twenty people arrive in Room 6, set for eight. One room swap, five teams, and the setup lands in the wrong room.

The five challenges behind it

01

Changes that ripple

A moved meeting touches setups, cleaning, catering, AV and reception, and each of them needs to know in time.

02

Manual coordination

Emails, calls and printouts hold the plan together, until one of them is missed.

03

Faults found too late

A broken screen is discovered when the meeting starts, not when someone first noticed it.

04

No picture of real use

Without data on how rooms are booked and used, every space decision is a guess.

05

More expected, same budget

Leadership expects a better workplace and a lower cost line, at the same time.

One request

Setups and AV requested in the meeting itself

Organizers request room setups, equipment and AV in the AskCody Services add-in, inside the same Outlook invite as the room. Your teams get the request with the room, the time and the details, from the one place the meeting lives, instead of from a hallway conversation.

An organizer plans a meeting in the Outlook invite and opens the AskCody Services add-in, next to AskCody Bookings and AskCody Visitors. Three requests are added to the same meeting: a flipchart and pens, an AV check of the screen and the Teams call, and cleaning after the meeting. Each request goes to its own team. In the AskCody portal, facilities and AV see the requests with the meeting, the room and the time, and accept them. When the meeting is moved or canceled, the requests follow the meeting.

Faulty equipment reported from the AskCody meeting room display: someone in Meeting Room 4 picks the screen from the equipment assigned to the room, and the facility contact for the location receives an email so it can be fixed before the next meeting
Faults

Faulty equipment reported from the room

When the screen or the camera does not work, people report it on the AskCody room display by the door, and the facility contact for the location is notified by email. You hear about the fault before the next meeting does.

See how facilities services work

The whole day

Every meeting and service, in one view

Workplace Central shows the day by room and time, and each meeting card carries the host, the attendees, the services ordered and the status of every request. You see where the setups are, what is still pending and where the day is tight.

See Workplace Central

Workplace Central grid for one location and day: rooms side by side by hour, off-hours in gray, each meeting card with host, attendees and service status, and the room info for Conference Room E.
Facilities services through one meeting. At 07:30 the organizer adds a boardroom layout for 16, a flipchart, an AV check and cleaning to the Outlook invite for a workshop at 09:00 in the conference room. The facilities and AV teams see every request with the room and time and accept them, and buffer time blocks 30 minutes around the meeting. At 08:05 the meeting moves to 10:00 in Outlook, and every request and the buffer time move with it. From 09:30 the tables are set boardroom style, and at 09:50 the screen and video call are tested and the room is ready. The workshop starts at 10:00 in the right layout. At 10:40 a faulty HDMI cable is reported on the meeting room display and the facility contact is notified. After the meeting the room is cleaned and reset for the next team.
Buffer time

Time to set up and clear, built in

Hold buffer time before and after a meeting for setup and clearing, so the next booking never starts in a room that is still being rearranged. Each provider serves the rooms you choose and sets its own preparation deadline.

See booking rules and policies

When plans change

When the meeting moves, the requests move with it

Service requests are tied to the meeting in Microsoft Exchange. When a meeting moves to a room and time the provider serves, the request moves with it and the provider is emailed. When it is canceled, the request is canceled and the team is notified. A request that is already readied or past its deadline is detached, and the organizer is told.

When a meeting moves in Outlook, the setup, AV and cleaning requests follow to the new time and room. When it is canceled, the requests are canceled and the teams and the organizer are notified. If a request was already readied, its deadline has passed or the new room is not served, it is detached and the organizer decides.

What it's worth

What changes for you, and for the people around you

When every change reaches the teams behind the meeting, you stop firefighting and start planning. Here is what that is worth.

FOR YOU

Control of the day

Every meeting, setup and request in one view, and faults reported from the room, before they become complaints.

FOR YOUR TEAMS

Tasks from the meeting

Setup, cleaning, AV and catering get their request from the invite, and see the changes as they happen.

FOR THE BUSINESS

Data for the space

Workplace analytics on how rooms are booked and how many seats meetings use, to back your decisions with numbers.

How an investment manager runs 98 meeting rooms from one Outlook invite

One of the largest institutional investors in the capital markets used to prepare a meeting in five steps: book the room, then email AV, facilities, the kitchen and security. With AskCody, the room, AV, room setup, catering and visitors sit in one Outlook invite, and every team gets its task from the same meeting.

5 to 1

five separate steps per meeting became one Outlook invite

1 to 2 hours

saved every day, by the catering team's own estimate

98 rooms

and 144 room displays in a 12-story headquarters

Read the investment manager story

Henry Chace, CIO
Henry ChaceCIO

Try it, and the time savings speak for themselves

“The pilot helped us understand just how much time we could give back to the attorneys and assistants and the price of that time... My best advice is to try it. You will see quickly that the ease of use, ease of management, and overall time savings are worth it.”

Susann Holloway, Conference Services Manager
Susann HollowayConference Services Manager

More attorneys per secretary

“Our secretaries managed two or three attorneys and partners before. Now they’re managing maybe five or six. It’s only possible to manage that increased workload, because they can handle everything in one spot with AskCody.”

Dale Pollock, Conference Services Manager
Dale PollockConference Services Manager

Every request for a room, under one roof

“The fact that admins can manage each reservation for a room and each request that is needed for that event or meeting all under one roof really helped a lot with organizing... Everyone gets it, and we don’t have to have five or six different emails going back and forth for each meeting.”

Manager of Workplace Services
Manager of Workplace Services

Catering, setup, AV and visitors together

“I don’t believe the other vendors can do the catering, the room setup, and AV requests as well as the visitor management piece altogether as seamlessly. Also, what we found was the AskCody user experience was just slicker.”

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.”

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.”

Common questions from facilities managers

What does AskCody do for facilities managers?

AskCody connects the meetings in Microsoft Outlook and Exchange with the teams behind them. Organizers request setups, AV and catering in the invite, faults are reported from the room display to the facility contact by email, your teams work from one view of every meeting and request, and requests follow the meeting when it moves.
How do room setups and AV requests reach my team?

Organizers request them in the AskCody Services add-in inside the Outlook invite. Your team sees each request with the meeting, room, time, requester and notes in the Services Portal, and moves it from Pending to Accepted, Readied and Completed.

See the Services Portal
Can people report faulty equipment from the room?

Yes. People in the room can report it on the AskCody room display, and the facility contact for the location is notified by email, so the fault can be fixed early.

See how facilities services work
What happens when a meeting moves to another room?

The request follows the meeting to the new room when the provider serves that room, and the provider is emailed. If the provider does not serve the new room, or the request is already readied or past its deadline, it is detached and the organizer is told.

Read how Follow-the-Meeting works
Can we see how our meeting rooms are actually used?

AskCody Insights shows how much of each room's open hours are booked and how many seats the meetings use, by location, room type and equipment. It measures scheduling intent from your Exchange calendars, not occupancy, so it uses no sensors.

See workplace analytics
Can we hold time between meetings for setup and cleaning?

Yes. Buffer time can be held before and after a meeting for setup and clearing.
Does AskCody replace our CAFM or helpdesk system?

No. AskCody handles meeting services: setups, catering, AV and the requests that belong to a meeting. Maintenance, assets and IT tickets stay in the systems you already use.

See how your workplace would run

Talk to a consultant about how meetings, setups and service teams come together in one view, and follow the meeting when the plan changes.
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