Skip to content
Close
Login
Talk to a consultant
Login
Talk to a consultant
Latest product updates
The meeting Management Blog

When your executive's day moves, everything moves with it

AskCody for personal assistants

You are the personal or executive assistant who keeps the leaders you support on time. AskCody keeps the room, the catering and the guests in step with their calendar. Book it all in one Outlook invite, and when the meeting moves, the rest follows, without five follow-ups.

Talk to a consultant
The challenge

Why does one calendar change turn into five tasks?

You know the moment. It is 09:12, the CEO's board meeting moves from 09:30 to 14:00, and the calendar update takes ten seconds. Everything around it does not. The room has to be free at 14:00. Catering has to arrive at the new time. Reception has to expect the guests in the afternoon, not the morning. The board needs the new time, and the CEO's afternoon has to make room for it.

When rooms, catering and visitors live in separate tools and email threads, every one of those updates is yours to make by hand, and the one you miss is the one people notice. This is what one move looks like.

A board meeting on Thursday at 09:30 in the Boardroom, with three guests and coffee and fruit for twelve. At 09:12 it moves to 14:00, and five follow-ups land on the personal assistant: find a room at 14:00, email catering, tell reception, update the board and clear the CEO's afternoon. Three get done by hand. Catering and reception are missed, so at 09:30 coffee for twelve arrives in an empty room, and at 14:00 a guest is not on the reception list. One change, five follow-ups, and all of them on you.

The five challenges behind it

01

One change, many tasks

A meeting moves in ten seconds. The room, the catering, the guests and the people still expecting the old time take the rest of your morning.

02

Several leaders, one of you

Supporting two or three executives means competing priorities, back-to-back meetings and changes that arrive while you are still handling the last one.

03

Tools that do not talk

The meeting lives in Outlook, the catering in an email, the guest list with reception and the rest on a sticky note. Every handoff is a place where a detail slips.

04

No room for error

Board members, clients and partners notice the coffee that arrives too early and the guest who waits at reception. A small miss reflects on your executive, and on you.

05

Work nobody sees

When everything runs smoothly, the coordination behind it is invisible. Hours go into meetings that look effortless, time you could spend on the work only you can do.

One invite

One Outlook invite instead of five follow-ups

AskCody puts every request in the meeting itself. You book the room, catering, AV and the guests in one Outlook invite, and each team behind the meeting gets its task from that same invite. When the plan changes, the tasks follow, so nobody works from an old copy of the plan, and you are no longer the one who has to tell everyone.

One meeting at a large office, before and after. Before, booking a meeting took five steps: book the room, then send separate emails about AV, room setup, catering and security. At 08:05 the organizer books Room 12 for 10:00 in one Outlook invite, with AV, room setup, lunch and two guests, and each team is notified from the same meeting. Buffer time to set up and clear away is added automatically. Before the meeting, the guests receive an email or text message with a map to the room, and the reception expects them. At 10:00 everything is in place. When a later meeting is canceled in Outlook, its catering and other orders are canceled too and the teams are notified, with no one having to tell them.

An organizer plans a meeting in the Outlook invite and opens the AskCody Visitors add-in, next to AskCody Bookings and AskCody Services. Three external guests are added with their name and email. At the reception, the guests appear in the AskCody portal as expected visitors, each with their host, meeting, room and arrival time. When the meeting is moved or made recurring, the guests follow the meeting.
Guests

Your guests are expected, not just invited

Add board members, clients and partners to the Outlook invite with the AskCody Visitors add-in, next to the room and the catering. They are pre-registered with reception and linked to the meeting, so reception knows who is coming, who they are meeting and in which room.

Before they arrive, guests can receive directions, WiFi details and parking information by email or SMS. At check-in, the badge prints, guests can sign an NDA, and the host is notified. When the meeting moves, the guests' registrations move with it.

See how visitor management works

The whole day

Every meeting you coordinate, in one view

When you coordinate meetings for several people, Workplace Central shows the day by room and time. Each meeting card carries its host, attendees, catering and the status of every request, so you see at a glance what is ready and what is still open.

With the role Central Full Access Rescheduler, drag a meeting to another room or time, and the Outlook meeting and its catering are updated with it. Private meetings stay private: only very limited information is shown, and they cannot be rescheduled from Central.

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.
The AskCody Services add-in open in an Outlook meeting invite, with a catering request for Meeting Room A: coffee, a fruit basket and water jugs, delivered to the room at 12:30.
On their behalf

Order for the executives you support

With delegate access to your executive's calendar in Outlook, you book the meeting and the room right in their calendar. To order catering and services as well, you get the AskCody role Add-in User with Delegate Access and open the AskCody Services add-in from the meeting in their calendar.

Coffee for the board, lunch for the client team and the AV setup are ordered in the same place as the meeting, by you, for them. Every request follows the meeting if it moves.

Read how delegated access works

When plans change

When the board meeting moves, everything moves with it

Executive calendars move all the time. In AskCody, the room, the catering request and the guest list are tied to the same Outlook invite, so when the meeting changes, everything changes with it. Move it from 09:30 to 14:00, and the room booking, the delivery time and the guests' registrations follow, and the caterer is told. Cancel it, and the room is released and the order is canceled.

If the kitchen has already marked the order ready, or its deadline has passed, the order is not changed silently: it is detached and the organizer is told, so a person decides.

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, your executive and their guests

When one change no longer means five follow-ups, the time goes back to the people who make the day work. Here is what that is worth, for you and for the people you support.

FOR YOU

Less time coordinating

One change is made once, in Outlook. The room, the catering and the guest list follow, so you can plan ahead instead of chasing details.

FOR YOUR EXECUTIVE

Meetings that are ready

The right room, the coffee on the table and the guests expected at reception, also when the day moved twice before lunch.

FOR THEIR GUESTS

A welcome that works

Board members, clients and partners are expected by name, get directions before they arrive and their host is told when they are here.

How Eversheds Sutherland's secretaries handle a bigger workload

Eversheds Sutherland, a global law practice, used to schedule a meeting in the attorney's Outlook calendar, then book the room and order services in a separate program. With AskCody, bookings, services and visitors are handled in one place across its US offices, and the firm reports that its secretaries now support more attorneys than before.

50%

more workload handled by the firm's secretaries, as the firm reports it

700+

guests a month across the US offices, welcomed with visitor management

171+

bookable rooms and desks, with more than 3,500 bookings a year

Read the Eversheds Sutherland story

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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 personal and executive assistants

What does AskCody do for personal and executive assistants?

AskCody is meeting management software built on Microsoft 365. Personal and executive assistants use it to book the room, catering, AV and guests in one Outlook invite, also in the calendars of the executives they support, and to keep all of it in step with the meeting: when the meeting moves, the room booking, the catering request and the guest registrations move with it.
Can I book rooms and order catering on behalf of my executive?

Yes. With delegate access to your executive's calendar in Outlook, you book the meeting and the room in that calendar. To order catering and services as well, you get the AskCody role Add-in User with Delegate Access and open the AskCody Services add-in from the meeting in your executive's calendar.

Read how delegated access works
What happens when a meeting is rescheduled or canceled?

When the meeting moves in Outlook, the room booking moves with it, catering and service requests move to the new time and the provider is told, and the guests' registrations follow. If the meeting moves to another room, the order follows when the provider delivers there. Cancel the meeting, and its service requests are canceled and the provider is told. If the provider has already marked the order ready or its deadline has passed, the request is detached and the organizer is told, so a person decides.

Read how Follow-the-Meeting works
How do I make sure VIP guests are expected at reception?

Add the guests to the Outlook invite with the AskCody Visitors add-in. They are pre-registered with reception and linked to the meeting, so reception knows who is coming, who they are meeting and in which room. Before they arrive, guests can receive directions, WiFi details and parking information by email or SMS, and at check-in the host is notified.

See how visitor management works
Can I see the day's meetings, rooms and catering in one view?

Yes, with Workplace Central, the AskCody view for the people who coordinate meetings for others. It shows every meeting by room and time, each card with its host, attendees, catering and request status. With the role Central Full Access Rescheduler, you can drag a meeting to another room or time, and the Outlook meeting and its catering are updated with it.

See Workplace Central
Can I keep confidential meetings private?

Mark a meeting as private in Outlook, and room displays, dashboards, Workplace Central and maps show it as Occupied, without the subject. Resource groups tied to your Entra ID security groups decide who can see and book each room. Visitor data can be anonymized automatically after 1 to 365 days, 31 by default. AskCody runs on Microsoft Azure and is covered by an ISAE 3000 Type 2 report.

Read about the ISAE 3000 report
Do I need to learn a new tool?

No. AskCody works inside Outlook, with add-ins for booking rooms, ordering services and registering visitors, and your IT team can deploy them centrally. Every booking lives in your Microsoft Exchange room calendars, and reception, the kitchen and facilities work from their own views of the same meetings.

See how your executive's week would run

Talk to a consultant about how rooms, catering and guests come together in one Outlook invite, and follow the meeting when the calendar changes.
Talk to a consultant