1.1 Explain the purpose of using a diary system
Being organised and efficient administrator, you should always keep a diary system to avoid wasting time and instead maximising you and your manager’s time effectively and efficiently. It also help to create an organise booking system/appointments as well as a good guidance of where to be or what you should be doing and also gives an overview of how efficient you are in the tasks completion and responsibilities.
There are different way of maintaining diaries i.e., manually or electronically. It always should be kept more than one or two ways of maintaining diary system in the case of any problem; such as electronic system going down or losing document, you will have an alternative options. Also sharing the dairy within entire team member is important for everyone to know where they are and what they should be doing at any given time.
1.2 Describe different types of diary systems
There are different types of diary system, which depends on the nature of task and responsibilities you could use them.
Manually diary system: this is the most traditional way of maintaining diary and still is used in offices for booking appointments by day, weeks, time, and hour using bound book or office’s calendars designed specifically for staff. Depends on the entries you put each day you can choose different type of manual diaries such as one, two, three or more days in a page or adding more pages for each day if needed and etc.
Wall planner and post notes, white board are also could be used as additional way of manual diaries system.
Wall planers are designed based on per day covering whole year in order to have an overview of a whole year for booking system or organisation events
Post notes: are used for temporary record of information or requests and allocating them to the right person or transferring them to the right place on calendar as required.
White board: are used as a temporary overview of the monthly or weekly tasks in front of you for better decision making or taking actions or changes of required.
Electronic systems: used to maintain electronic diaries using computers, mobiles, laptop, ipad and etc. so that you can set the reminder for taking action for the upcoming tasks or avoiding double booking appointment and multi-access availability within the team.
1.3 Describe the purpose of obtaining relevant information about requested diary entries and changes
Arranging appointments and changes are really important task that should never be ignored even they may appear unimportant or minor. For example If any appointment booked for a meeting or an event it should be notified to all attendees in advanced with the full details to make sure they have plenty time to make their appointment. Also in case of any requested changes the attendees should be contacted as quickly as possible to ensure they make it and it is convenient for them before the changes are going to be happening. Delaying or ignoring of booking an appointment or notifying any requested change could cause problem for important meeting or events, hence they should be avoided at any end, at any time.
Learning Outcome 2: Understand how to use a diary system
2.1 Describe the types of information needed for diary entries
Full details of customers (attendees, visitors) such as name, contact number, subject, time, date, location of the appointment or venue, number of people, deadline notification, any prior preparations (e.g., food, drink, chair, stationary, presentation equipment, computer). Therefore having this information will help you to organise your diaries and complete your tasks needs to have been done efficiently.
2.2 Explain how to prioritise requests
As it mentioned above to avoid any errors or chaos in booking system and requested changes, I normally deal with them as follow:
- Obtain the accurate and clear