Coordinating catering and room preparation for meetings often means sending separate emails, calling different teams, and tracking responses across multiple channels. When booking, preparation, and service requests live in different systems, the result is extra coordination for organizers and missed details for facilities teams.
Humly Services, available in Humly Reservations, connects catering and custom room requests directly to the booking dialog. One booking covers the room, the food, and the setup, with automatic notifications to the people responsible for each part.
The following steps cover the full setup and booking process, so workplace managers, facilities teams, and IT administrators can enable connected service requests across their organization.
Humly Services requires version 2.4 or later. If your organization has not yet updated, coordinate with your IT team to schedule the upgrade. Services works with Microsoft 365, Exchange, and Google booking systems, so no additional calendar integration is needed beyond what your organization already uses.
Once your environment is on version 2.4, Services becomes available across the Humly Workplace Experience platform. No separate module or license is required. Humly Services is free of charge through December 31, 2026.
A Global Admin or Local Admin enables Services on a per-resource basis through the Humly Control Panel. Navigate to Resources, select a room, and scroll to the Services section.
Under Catering, check "Allow catering" to activate the Catering tab in the booking dialog for that resource. Under Other, check "Allow custom requests" to activate a separate tab for non-catering needs such as furniture rearrangement or equipment setup. Both can be enabled for the same room, desk, or parking space.
Services can also be enabled at the structure level, covering multiple resources at once. This is useful for organizations managing a large number of meeting rooms across different floors or buildings.
Each service type requires a Notification email address. This is the address that receives every new, updated, or cancelled order for that resource. A shared mailbox or distribution list (such as catering@yourcompany.com) works well, since it ensures requests reach the team even when individuals are out of office.
If the room uses an external catering vendor rather than an internal kitchen team, enable the External Catering option. This adds a vendor name field to the booking dialog so the person booking can specify which vendor to use. The notification recipient then coordinates with that named vendor directly.
Important: this is a notification and coordination workflow. Humly does not place orders with external vendors or process payments on behalf of the organization.
The Note to Users field appears in the booking dialog whenever a user opens the Catering or Other tab. Use it to set expectations: required lead time for catering orders, a cutoff time for same-day requests, available menu options, or details about what the facilities team can provide.
Clear notes reduce back-and-forth between the person booking and the service team. For example, a note on a boardroom might read: "Catering orders require 24 hours' notice. Standard options: coffee, lunch buffet, afternoon snack. Contact catering@company.com for custom menus."
When you book a room that has Services enabled, the Catering and Other tabs appear alongside the standard booking details. There is no need to navigate to a different tool or send a separate message.
For a catering request, the user opens the Catering tab, describes the order in the Order Details field, fills in the External Vendor name if applicable, and optionally adds an Order Reference such as a cost center or PO number. For a custom request, the process is the same through the Other tab: describe the setup need, add a reference if needed, and save.
A practical example: a workplace manager books a boardroom for a client presentation. In the same booking dialog, they request coffee and a working lunch through the Catering tab and ask for a specific seating layout and projector setup through the Other tab. Both requests reach the right teams automatically.
You can change service requests at any point before the meeting ends. To update, reopen the booking and edit the relevant tab. To remove a service without cancelling the entire meeting, open the service tab, select remove, and save.
Every change triggers an automatic notification. Humly sends a New Order email when a service is first added, an Updated Order email when details or times change, and a Cancelled Order email when a service is removed or the booking is deleted. Notification emails are processed in batches roughly every three minutes, so a short delay after saving is normal.
Notification emails include the resource name, date and time with time zone, organizer name and email, the order description, any reference information, and the external vendor name where applicable.
If a meeting is ended early from a Humly Room Display or Humly Booking Device, or if the booking is automatically cancelled due to a missed check-in, no Cancelled Order email is sent. By that point, catering may already be in preparation or delivered, and a facilities team may have already completed the room setup.
In these situations, the organizer or facilities coordinator should contact the catering provider or service team directly. Including this detail in onboarding materials helps employees understand the boundary between automated notifications and direct coordination.
Meetings consume a meaningful share of the workweek. Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that meetings account for roughly 12 percent of total work time on average, and coordination tasks around those meetings add to the load. Reducing the number of separate steps involved in meeting preparation has a direct operational benefit.
Humly tracks each service order independently. A single booking can have both a Catering order and a Custom Request order active at the same time, each with its own notification history. When the booking is modified, only the affected service triggers an email.
Deleting a booking from Humly Reservations before it ends sends a Cancelled Order email for every active service attached to it. Disabling a service in Resource Settings, on the other hand, only prevents it from appearing on new bookings going forward. It does not cancel orders already placed on existing bookings.
For administrators, this distinction matters: if a catering vendor changes or a service needs to be paused temporarily, disabling the service in settings preserves any configuration (notification email, notes, vendor information) so it can be re-enabled later without re-entering those details.
Humly Services handles the notification side of the workflow. The actual fulfilment (preparing food, rearranging furniture, setting up equipment) remains the responsibility of the team or vendor that receives the notification email.
For internal teams such as kitchen staff or facilities coordinators, the notification email provides everything needed to act: what was requested, for which room, at what time, and who organized the meeting. For external vendors, the email includes the vendor name so the recipient knows whom to coordinate with.
This separation keeps the workflow clear. You make requests in the place you already book meetings. Administrators control which resources offer services and who receives the notifications. Fulfilment teams receive structured, consistent information instead of scattered emails or informal messages.
Humly Reservations brings room booking, catering, and custom service requests into a single booking dialog. For employees, this means fewer steps and fewer separate messages when preparing a meeting. For facilities teams and IT administrators, it means structured notifications, centralized configuration through the Humly Control Panel, and consistent information across every request.
Humly Services is part of the broader Humly Workplace Experience, which connects room displays, visitor management, wayfinding, and workplace analytics in one platform. Adding service requests to the booking workflow extends this connected approach to catering and room preparation.
Humly Services is free of charge through December 31, 2026. Existing customers can enable the feature by following the setup guide in the Humly Knowledge Base. If you are evaluating Humly for your organization, request a demo to see connected service requests in action.
Yes. Humly Services is supported with Microsoft 365, Exchange, and Google booking systems. If your organization already uses one of these calendars with Humly Reservations, no additional integration is needed to start using catering and custom service requests.
Humly Services supports rooms, desks, and parking spaces. Administrators can enable Catering, Custom Requests, or both on any supported resource type through the Humly Control Panel, either individually or at the structure level.
No. Humly Reservations notifies the configured recipient when a catering order is created, changed, or cancelled. If an external vendor is specified, the vendor name is included in the notification so the recipient can coordinate. Humly does not connect to vendor ordering systems or handle payment.
If a meeting is ended early from a Humly Room Display or Humly Booking Device, or if it is cancelled due to a missed check-in, no automatic Cancelled Order email is sent. The organizer should contact the catering provider or facilities team directly in these situations.
Humly Services is free of charge through December 31, 2026. Existing Humly customers running version 2.4 or later can enable it immediately through resource settings in the Humly Control Panel.
Each service supports a single notification email address per resource. To notify multiple people, configure a shared mailbox or distribution list as the notification recipient. This ensures the right team members all see incoming requests.