Catering & Services

Set up and manage service items for meeting rooms—and track all requests in one place! Deskbird's Catering & Services feature helps you streamline office operations and ensures everything your teams need is available when and where it matters.

Catering & Services lets you define and assign items (like drinks, snacks, or services) to your meeting rooms. Employees can request these services when booking a room—and selected admins can manage all incoming requests from a dedicated dashboard.

1. Step 1: Set up services in the Admin panel
2. Step 2: Enable Catering & Services for meeting rooms
3. Step 3: Book services during a meeting room reservation
4. Step 4: Monitor requests via the Service Requests dashboard
5. Exporting service data
6. FAQ and known limitations

1. Step 1: Set up services in the Admin panel

Go to Admin panel > Meeting rooms > Catering & services.

Here, you can:

• 👤 Add users who can access the service requests dashboard
  
• ➕ Add categories and items, like workshop material, catering or special items
• ✏️ Edit or 🗑️ delete existing categories using the pen or trash icons
• 📤 Export data (see bottom of article)

When creating or editing a category, you can configure:

• Category name
  
• Provider email (who will receive the requests, can be an external provider)
• Public notes (visible to requesters)
• Cost center code: None, Optional, or Required
• Category items: You can define items by name, type, and quantity limit
• Buffer times: Set time before/after meetings (only respected within deskbird – not synced with Outlook/Google)

2. Step 2: Enable Catering & Services for meeting rooms

To activate services for specific rooms:

1. Go to Admin panel > Office configuration > Floors & spaces
   
2. Select a meeting room
3. Enable the "Enable catering & services" toggle
4. Assign the appropriate Service categories to the room

This ensures employees can request services when booking this specific room.

⚠️ Note: Removing a category from a room does not automatically delete existing requests. Admins can manually choose to cancel these if necessary.

3. Step 3: Book services during a meeting room reservation

When an employee books a room with services enabled:

• They will see a "Request services" option
• Clicking this opens a modal where they can:
  
  • Select available service items (e.g. Drinks, Snacks, Flipcharts)
  • Choose quantities
  • Add additional notes

Bookings for meeting rooms with corresponding service requests are shown with a cup icon in the Book > Meeting rooms tab. The requester is also notified in their booking confirmation.

4. Step 4: Monitor requests via the Service Requests dashboard 🆕

Users added under "Add users who can access catering and services" now see a new tab in the main menu: Requests.

This dashboard allows them to:

• View pending and past service requests
  
• Use filters like meeting room, requester, or category
  
• Click on a request to see:
  
  • Items requested
  • Meeting details
  • Notes
  • Cost center
  • Buffer time settings

This dashboard is read-only and helps coordinators or facility managers ensure every service is adequately prepared.

⚠️ Note: After a booking has been made, an email notification is always sent to the address defined in the Provider email when setting up the category. Providers can be external and may not have access to deskbird.

5. Exporting service data

In the Catering & services admin panel, you can export all category and item data by clicking "Export data". This is helpful for reporting or sharing with external service providers.

Your CSV export will include:

• Requester’s email
• Provider’s email
• Meeting dates and times
• Categories and items requested
• Custom entries (such as free text notes or cost centers)

6. FAQ and known limitations

• ❌ It’s currently not possible to export service requests directly from the dashboard (coming soon!)

What’s the difference between Catering & Services and Meeting Room Equipment?
Catering & Services are temporary, meeting-specific requests (like drinks or flipcharts), while Equipment refers to permanent features in a room (like a TV or whiteboard). Services can be added per meeting and filtered when booking; equipment is fixed.

Who can access Catering & Services?

• Admins configure categories, activate them per room, and export data.
• Organizers add services when booking a room.
• Authorized users (like Facility Managers) see and manage requests in the dashboard.
• Service providers receive email notifications with all request details—no deskbird account required.