July 07. 2025 - 4 min. reading time

Catering management -
more efficient than ever!

Meeting organization - from analogue processes to shadow IT to a solution with true MS 365 integration: How to finally handle your room and catering bookings efficiently and user-friendly in one step.

By Vanessa Meißner

While smart buildings, networked workplaces and MS 365 have long been part of everyday life, in practice the picture is often very different when it comes to everyday processes such as organizing meetings. In many companies, these processes are manual, error-prone and therefore time-consuming. Some companies rely on supposedly more efficient catering management systems, but the solutions on the market have so far remained error-prone and not very user-friendly - until now!

A typical situation in the office: a meeting with internal and external guests needs to be organized. A room needs to be booked and a lunch snack ordered. It must also be taken into account that some guests will be joining remotely. As in most companies, Outlook and Teams are used as tools for hybrid implementation.

The task sounds simple and not very complex - it CAN be (with the right system).

However, in companies without a catering management system, even such an organization quickly leads to inefficiencies, frustration and errors. But even supposedly supportive systems harbor risks for errors as well as high process costs and disadvantages in user-friendliness if they do not have a REAL integration with MS 365.

Fortunately, systems are constantly evolving. At Thing-it, we have recently launched a catering management system that is truly integrated with MS 365 for maximum efficiency and ease of use at minimum cost.

A brief overview of the evaluation of catering management in the context of meeting organization

Stage 1: Systemless in planning chaos

Anyone who does not organize catering systematically balances between Excel lists, emails and calls to the caterer. This is particularly time-consuming when it comes to making necessary changes to orders. Manual processes are prone to errors and also cost valuable time (and nerves). Room and catering bookings have no interface here. As a result, it often happens that set-up and dismantling times are not scheduled.

Conclusion: Low user-friendliness, high susceptibility to errors and high process costs.

Stage 2: Facade instead of improvement / The wrong girlfriend

If you have a catering management system, at least you don't have to go back and forth between different applications. Both the meeting room and the catering can usually be booked together in Outlook. Supported by a catering store, this saves a little effort and nerves. Nevertheless, there is still a high susceptibility to errors, as the solutions on the market to date lack synchronization between the catering system and MS 365. Although the user books via an add-in in Outlook, two resource management processes take place in parallel: in Outlook and in the third-party system. The MS 365 integration is merely suggested. However, a closer look reveals isolated solutions. The room is often only invited to a meeting as a participant from the third-party system. This only creates the impression of genuine integration. As a result, there is no compatibility with Teams Rooms for remote participants. In addition, the included booking of set-up and dismantling times is not possible and there remains the risk of double bookings or missing room cancellations in the event of changes to the plan.

Conclusion: improved user-friendliness, but still prone to errors and a clear reduction in efficiency.

Level 3: Integrated. Efficient. User-friendly.

With true integration into MS 365, Thing-it's catering management system offers maximum user-friendliness with minimum susceptibility to errors at minimum process costs.

The key benefits:

Bidirectional synchronization for resource management

"One single source of truth"

100% compatible with Teams Rooms

Full hardware flexibility with Room Panels

Booking of set-up/dismantling times - automatic and invisible to participants

This is how efficient and user-friendly resource planning works.

The booked room is reserved directly as a Microsoft Outlook resource. Necessary set-up and dismantling times for the catering are taken into account in separate dates for the room. These are sent to the caterer so that they have time for their preparations. The participants only receive the actual date.

The Outlook add-in, which is embedded in Microsoft 365, takes center stage. Users book an available room in the familiar Outlook environment and order the desired catering directly via a store - without annoying order lists or switching to third-party systems, but with maximum user-friendliness!

Orders and changes are sent directly to the caterer by email - always reliably and without additional tools. And the backend always provides an up-to-date overview, including live updates in the event of changes. Thanks to bidirectional synchronization, changes to the room do not entail the risk of double bookings or missing room approvals.

"If you want to use Microsoft 365 productively, you don't need a stand-alone solution - you need a system that really integrates. That's exactly what we deliver with our catering management: a solution that feels like it's from Microsoft itself"

Klaus Berberich,
Co-founder and Managing Director, Thing-it

Sounds interesting? Then get in touch with us! We will be happy to talk to you about any questions you may have.