Executive Assistant Tips: Calendars and Blackberries

© Duchess O’Blunt, 2010; all rights reserved.

Going global has never been easier. You can travel from Province to Province, State to State or Country to Country with the correct documentation, in a matter of hours - minutes if you are really good and have a few good connections.

The information she will need include:

• hotel arrangements
• flight or rail information
• information on shuttles or taxis services
• meeting locations
• meeting attendees and agenda
• phone numbers and contacts.

Don't be surprised to get a phone call asking for directions, or what terminal she's supposed to be at or what time is her flight.

Here are a few tips to keep your boss happy, in the know and on the go without pulling your hair out in the process.

As her Executive Assistant it is your job to make her look good. It doesn't hurt to make her feel good while you are at it. Simply keeping her calendar up to date is one of the easiest ways to maintaining a very good working relationship.

To maintain her calendar, it is important to be able to share it with her. You need to be able to make appointments in her calendar that she has real time access to. If your office does not have up to date calendar sharing ability here are a couple of options to look into.

For the less expensive access, try ShareOutlook. It's a yearly subscription and costs about $150.00/year. This is a small price to pay for this highly effective interactive tool that allows you to share your calendars. There is some "tweaking" that will be necessary to learn how to give permissions, so be prepared to learn the process. Their customer service department is pretty good. If you are familiar with opening a "ticket" to ask your support question this can be done online, with live chat. They also provide phone support.

For those with heavy traffic in calendars, emails and contact lists, I suggest going with a more robust software program. My weapon of choice is an Exchange Hosting service. Here are three:

• Exchange Hosting with Intermedia
• SherWeb
• Microsoft Hosted Exchange

All of these services integrate with email, contacts, calendars and SharePoint- more about SharePoint in Part II.

Using your favorite search engine will provide you with many other options.

Using your shared calendar and her mobile phone provide easy access for the Executive Assistant to share information instantaneously with her boss. When used correctly your boss will able to view all the information she needs to get to the airport on time, find the correct terminal, have access to the required numbers for boarding, and all without printing any paper. It will show up on her blackberry without her having to click, twirl the pearl, or move the mouse.

These same principles can be used for trains and any prearranged service such as an airline taxi service.

With this feature, you will be able to fly your boss anywhere paperless. The trick is to use the calendar feature effectively.

• In the top line of the Calendar (called Subject), enter her destination, flight number and booking reference number. See the example to the right
• In the second line (called location) enter her ticket number, seat number and her terminal number.
• Use the start time and end time for the start and end flight times. Note: be sure to use the different Time Zones for each leg of her trip.
• Ensure you use the calendar alert to provide her the proper time notices for when she needs to leave to get to the airport, and another one for 1/2 hour before she needs to be there for pre boarding.
• Also use the airline alert systems to advise her cell phone if there are any changes to her flight.

For those times when she will be renting a car to make her appointment, enter an appointment directly following her flight arrival time with the name of the car rental service and her confirmation number. Using the "location" line, tell her where the car rental station can be located. See example on the right

For the actual meeting scheduled, be sure to put the name of the person she is meeting on the subject line, the address and phone number on the location line. Be sure the time and duration of the meeting are correct and use the notes for the agenda or other pertinent information she may require. This ensures that her email with this calendar entry gives her everything she needs. Having the address and phone number on the second line allows her to see without fumbling, engage her GPS with the address, and provides the phone number if it becomes necessary to call because she is caught in traffic.

Your boss' calendar is going to be packed. That's good because her information is needed. If it's not on the calendar she has synced with her blackberry, it won't do her any good. Ensure you are using the correct place to file her information.

Don't be afraid to set up more than one calendar for your own use. You could use a separate calendar for:

• Major projects you are personally involved in. Those little alerts are very helpful at reminding you what needs to be done.
• Vacation Schedules
• Event Planning
• Travel. Use this one and copy all appointments once they are completed. Wait until the trip is done because there are often changes. This tip is very useful for tracking costs, making payments, or even expense notes.

As you can see from this hub, having the correct information in her calendar is essential to your boss being where she needs to be, when she needs to be there.

If you want to be an exceptional Executive Assistant, one of the first things you need to do each day is check her calendar for accuracy and ensure you have everything ready for each appointment on the books. If you are doing your job correctly, she will travel lightly and require only her mobile phone and a lap top. Depending on the length of her stay, she might wish to bring a small portable printer, but most hotels have very nice business centers if there is a need to print something.

Check her calendar each and every day. If she is traveling - it is even more important that you do this faithfully. Check everything for accuracy. If you do this right, she will come to depend on her blackberry and on your efficiency to get her where she needs to be, when she needs to be there with all required information at her fingertips.

For those who have to be their own Executive Assistant - and Marketing Manager - and Accountant - and - well everything; here are a couple on line calendar schedulers that are available. Free is good to start with, but once you get busy and your customer base grows, you will want to look into one of the more robust programs such as mentioned above.

Hotmail and Yahoo and Gmail all offer free calendars. For scheduling - google has a program you can download that works with your Gmail account (start with the free version). This program is called the ScheduleOnce Personal Edition. This is a great service if you must schedule meetings or events with more than one person. Check out the video to the right and download it here

I will use "her" and "she" instead of "him" and "he" because I work for the President and CEO and she is a lady. If I tried to do this to please everyone and insert both genders every time they are used, this would be a convoluted mess. If I try to use the male gender, I am sure to slip and mix up my genders. There is no slight meant and no stereo typecasting here.

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