Capability template for executive and office support
Business trip plan
The assistant hands the traveller one plan for one business trip: dates and nights fixed from the brief, travel and hotel options with prices and the day each was checked, a day-by-day timetable around the meetings, the cost against travel policy and the bookings still to make. Nothing is booked or paid.
The outcome
A trip that used to live in a dozen browser tabs and a chain of messages fits on one page. The traveller sees when they leave, where they sleep, how they get from the airport to the first meeting and how much slack each connection has. The booker sees which flight and hotel fit the meetings and the policy, what each costs, how fresh each price is, and the date each booking has to be made by.
Problems surface before money is spent: a flight that lands after the first meeting starts, a hotel priced for the wrong nights, a fare from a different airport, a room over the nightly cap. Each is set aside with its reason, or written as a question for the booker. The capability compares and times; the traveller and the booker choose, book and pay. It never fills in a booking form, holds a seat or touches a card.
Who starts the work, and when
An executive assistant, an office manager or a team coordinator starts it as soon as the meetings for a trip are fixed, usually two to four weeks ahead. Travellers who book for themselves can run it too. It runs again when anything moves: a meeting changes, a fare goes up, the traveller adds a night. The traveller reads the plan before anything is booked, and anything over policy goes to the person who approves exceptions.
What they supply
- The traveller's brief. Who is travelling, where, the dates out and back, the airport or station they leave from, the fixed meetings with times and places, and anything they need, such as a hotel within walking distance.
- The options found. Flights, trains and hotels, pasted from the airline's or hotel's own site, the company travel tool, an agency quote or another site, each with its price and the day it was checked.
- Journey times. From the airport to the first meeting and between each place, as the traveller's maps app gives them.
- The travel policy, or the part of it that covers this trip: class of travel, the hotel cap, meal allowances, how far ahead to book, and who approves an exception.
- Anything already booked, by reference only. No card numbers and no passport details.
What comes out
- The trip dates. Dates out and back, each night and where it is spent, and the airport the trip starts from.
- A shortlist. For the journey out, the journey back and the hotel: the lowest-priced option that fits the meetings and the traveller's needs, one alternative, and every option left out with the reason.
- The day-by-day timetable. Every leg, transfer and meeting, with the time to leave and the spare minutes before each meeting.
- The cost estimate. Each line against the policy, the total, what is over policy and who must approve it, and what has not been priced.
- The bookings still to make. Who books each one, the date it must be booked by and when its price should be checked again.
A good plan lets the traveller get through the trip without opening another document, and every price in it can be traced to where it was found and when.
An invented example
Illustrative example with invented data. An invented 120-person engineering consultancy is sending Dana, its operations director, to Chicago for three days. Sam, her executive assistant, books her travel. Client X, Supplier B, Airlines A to C and Hotels A to D are invented placeholders, and so are Dana, Sam, Lee and every flight, room, price and journey time below. The city and airport names are real places, used only so the timetable reads naturally.
Sam runs the capability on Tuesday 10 November 2026 with the four things below, and uses the default settings.
What Sam supplied
The brief
Today: Tue 10 Nov 2026
Traveller: Dana, operations director. I'm Sam, her assistant; I book.
Purpose: Client X kickoff and workshop; Supplier B visit.
Destination: Chicago. Out Tue 1 Dec, back Thu 3 Dec. Leaves from Oakland (OAK).
Meetings:
- Tue 1 Dec 15:00-16:30 Client X kickoff, Client X office (Loop)
- Wed 2 Dec 09:00-12:00 Client X workshop, Client X office (Loop)
- Wed 2 Dec 14:00-15:00 Supplier B, Supplier B office (River North)
- Thu 3 Dec 08:30-09:30 breakfast with Client X CEO, Client X office (Loop)
Needs: hotel within a 15-minute walk of the Client X office; no overnight
flights; carry-on only.
Cost centre: CC-410. Exceptions approved by: Lee (CFO).
Already booked: nothing.
Settings: use the defaults.
The travel policy excerpt
Flights: economy. Book at least 14 days before departure. Take the lowest
fare departing within two hours of the time that suits the meetings.
Hotels: Chicago cap $260 a night before taxes.
Meals: $75 a full day; $55 on a travel day.
Ground transport: train, taxi or rideshare. Keep receipts over $25.
Anything over policy needs the CFO's approval before booking.
The options found
Ref | Type | Provider | Details | Dates | Depart | Arrive | Price | Price covers | Cancellation | Checked on | Source
F1 | Flight | Airline A | OAK-ORD nonstop | 2026-12-01 | 07:00 | 13:10 | 214.00 | one way, economy, taxes incl., carry-on | changes for a fee | 2026-11-09 | Airline A website
F2 | Flight | Airline B | OAK-ORD nonstop | 2026-12-01 | 09:45 | 15:55 | 189.00 | one way, economy, taxes incl., carry-on | no changes | 2026-11-09 | travel tool
F3 | Flight | Airline C | SFO-ORD nonstop | 2026-12-01 | 07:30 | 13:45 | 176.00 | one way, economy, taxes incl., carry-on | changes for a fee | 2026-11-09 | travel tool
F4 | Flight | Airline A | ORD-OAK nonstop | 2026-12-03 | 13:30 | 15:55 | 198.00 | one way, economy, taxes incl., carry-on | changes for a fee | 2026-11-09 | Airline A website
F5 | Flight | Airline B | MDW-OAK nonstop | 2026-12-03 | 12:15 | 14:40 | from 129 | fares from, in a fare alert | not stated | 2026-11-06 | fare alert email
F6 | Flight | Airline B | ORD-OAK nonstop | 2026-12-03 | 16:40 | 19:05 | 231.00 | one way, economy, taxes incl., carry-on | no changes | 2026-11-09 | travel tool
H1 | Hotel | Hotel A | Schaumburg, 40 min drive to Client X office | 2026-12-01 to 2026-12-03 | | | 159.00 a night | before taxes | free cancellation until 2026-11-29 | 2026-11-10 | Hotel A website
H2 | Hotel | Hotel B | Loop, 5 min walk to Client X office | 2026-12-01 to 2026-12-03 | | | 245.00 a night | before taxes; taxes and fees 85.75 for the stay | free cancellation until 2026-11-29 18:00 | 2026-11-10 | travel tool
H3 | Hotel | Hotel C | Loop, 3 min walk to Client X office | 2026-12-01 to 2026-12-03 | | | 289.00 a night | before taxes; taxes and fees 101.15 for the stay | non-refundable | 2026-11-04 | booking comparison site
H4 | Hotel | Hotel D | Loop, 12 min walk to Client X office | 2026-12-01 to 2026-12-04 | | | 219.00 a night | before taxes | free cancellation until 2026-11-30 | 2026-11-10 | travel tool
The journey times
From a maps app, 10 Nov:
Home and OAK: drive 25 min, either way. OAK parking $28 a calendar day.
ORD to Client X office: train 45 min, $5; taxi or rideshare 40-60 min, about $55.
Hotel B and Client X office: walk 5 min, either way.
Client X office to Supplier B: walk 25 min; car 15 min, about $15.
Client X office to ORD: train 45 min, $5; taxi or rideshare 40-60 min, about $55.
What came back
BUSINESS TRIP PLAN: Dana (operations director), Chicago, Tuesday 1 December 2026 to Thursday 3 December 2026
Prepared 10 November 2026 for Sam. Purpose: Client X kickoff and workshop; Supplier B visit. Cost centre: CC-410.
Changes from the last plan: first plan.
Trip dates: out Tuesday 1 December, back Thursday 3 December. 2 nights: 1 December, Chicago; 2 December, Chicago. Starts from: Oakland (OAK).
Policy: excerpt supplied (flights, hotels, meals, ground transport, approval). Exceptions approved by: Lee (CFO).
Settings: at the airport 90 min before departure, 30 min from landing to leaving; at each meeting 15 min early; prices checked again after 3 days. All times local.
To settle before booking: 1
1. No journey time or cost was supplied from the Supplier B office back to Hotel B on Wednesday
afternoon. How will Dana get back, and what should the estimate carry for it?
Fixed meetings
- Tuesday 1 December, 15:00 to 16:30. Client X kickoff. At the Client X office (Loop).
- Wednesday 2 December, 09:00 to 12:00. Client X workshop. At the Client X office (Loop).
- Wednesday 2 December, 14:00 to 15:00. Supplier B. At the Supplier B office (River North).
- Thursday 3 December, 08:30 to 09:30. Breakfast with the Client X CEO. At the Client X office (Loop).
Shortlist
Journey out
- Lowest that fits: F1, Airline A, OAK to ORD nonstop, 07:00 to 13:10, $214.00 (one way, economy,
taxes included, carry-on). Direct, checked 9 November. Cancellation: changes for a fee.
Policy: within (economy; the only fare from OAK that reaches the 15:00 kickoff).
- Alternative: none that fits.
Journey back
- Lowest that fits: F4, Airline A, ORD to OAK nonstop, 13:30 to 15:55, $198.00 (one way, economy,
taxes included, carry-on). Direct, checked 9 November. Cancellation: changes for a fee.
Policy: within (economy; departs within two hours of 11:45, the earliest workable departure).
- Alternative: F6, Airline B, ORD to OAK nonstop, 16:40 to 19:05, $231.00 (one way, economy,
taxes included, carry-on). Direct, checked 9 November. Cancellation: no changes.
Policy: over: departs more than two hours after 11:45 and costs $33.00 more than F4;
approval from Lee (CFO).
Hotel
- Lowest that fits: H2, Hotel B, Loop, 5 min walk to the Client X office, 2 nights at $245.00 =
$490.00, plus $85.75 taxes and fees = $575.75. Direct, checked 10 November.
Cancellation: free until 29 November, 18:00. Policy: within ($245.00 a night against the
$260.00 cap before taxes).
- Alternative: H3, Hotel C, Loop, 3 min walk to the Client X office, 2 nights at $289.00 =
$578.00, plus $101.15 taxes and fees = $679.15. Third-party, checked 4 November. RECHECK.
Cancellation: non-refundable. Policy: over: $29.00 a night above the $260.00 cap, $58.00 for
the stay; approval from Lee (CFO).
Exception reason: none needed.
Set aside, and why
- F2, Airline B, $189.00: lands at ORD at 15:55, after the 15:00 kickoff starts.
- F3, Airline C, $176.00: leaves from SFO; the brief says Dana leaves from OAK. Not compared.
- F5, Airline B, from $129: a "from" fare in a fare alert, not a price for 3 December.
- H1, Hotel A, $159.00 a night: in Schaumburg, a 40-minute drive from the Client X office; the
brief asks for a hotel within a 15-minute walk.
- H4, Hotel D, $219.00 a night: priced for 1 to 4 December, three nights; the brief is two
nights, 1 to 3 December.
Day by day, if the Lowest that fits options are booked
Tuesday 1 December
- 05:05 Leave home for OAK. Drive, 25 min; park at OAK.
- 05:30 At OAK, 90 min before F1.
- 07:00 F1 departs OAK. Lands at ORD 13:10.
- 13:40 Leave ORD. Train to the Client X office, 45 min, $5.00 (taxi or rideshare 40 to 60 min,
about $55).
- 14:25 At the Client X office.
- 15:00 to 16:30 Client X kickoff, Client X office. Spare before the meeting margin: 20 min.
- 16:30 Walk to Hotel B, 5 min.
Wednesday 2 December
- 09:00 to 12:00 Client X workshop, Client X office. Leave Hotel B by 08:40: walk, 5 min.
- 14:00 to 15:00 Supplier B, Supplier B office. Leave the Client X office by 13:20: walk, 25 min
(car 15 min, about $15).
- 15:00 Supplier B office back to Hotel B: TRANSFER TIME NEEDED (question 1).
Thursday 3 December
- 08:30 to 09:30 Breakfast with the Client X CEO, Client X office. Leave Hotel B by 08:10: walk,
5 min. Check-out day.
- 11:15 Leave the Client X office for ORD. Train, 45 min, $5.00 (taxi or rideshare 40 to 60 min,
about $55).
- 12:00 At ORD, 90 min before F4.
- 13:30 F4 departs ORD. Lands at OAK 15:55.
- 16:25 Leave OAK. Drive home, 25 min; home about 16:50.
Cost estimate
- Journey out, F1: $214.00. Direct, checked 9 November. Policy: within.
- Journey back, F4: $198.00. Direct, checked 9 November. Policy: within.
- Hotel, H2: $575.75. Direct, checked 10 November. Policy: within.
- Ground transport: train ORD to the Client X office $5.00; train Client X office to ORD $5.00;
walks $0.00 = $10.00. Supplied by Sam. Policy: within (train).
- Parking: 3 days x $28.00 = $84.00. Supplied by Sam. Policy: not covered by the excerpt.
- Meals: 2 travel days x $55.00 + 1 full day x $75.00 = $185.00. Policy allowance.
Total: $1,266.75 USD.
Over policy: none. Approval needed before booking from Lee: none.
Not priced: Supplier B office back to Hotel B on Wednesday (question 1).
Personal costs, kept out of the total: none.
Bookings still to make
1. F1, Airline A, OAK to ORD, 1 December 07:00, $214.00. Booked by: Sam. Book by: Tuesday
17 November (policy: at least 14 days before departure). Approval: not needed under the policy
supplied. Cancellation: changes for a fee. Check the price again if booking after 12 November.
2. F4, Airline A, ORD to OAK, 3 December 13:30, $198.00. Booked by: Sam. Book by: Thursday
19 November (policy: at least 14 days before departure). Approval: not needed under the policy
supplied. Cancellation: changes for a fee. Check the price again if booking after 12 November.
3. H2, Hotel B, 1 to 3 December, $575.75. Booked by: Sam. Book by: no deadline supplied.
Approval: not needed under the policy supplied. Cancellation: free until 29 November, 18:00.
Check the price again if booking after 13 November.
Already booked: nothing supplied.
Draft for Sam. Nothing has been booked, held, paid or sent.
Sam asked Dana how she wanted to get back from Supplier B on Wednesday; she chose to walk, and Sam added the time to the journey list and ran the plan again. Dana read the timetable, and Sam booked the two flights and the hotel herself on 11 November, inside every check-again date. Nothing in this example happened to a real company.
Where it fits
- Executive and office support: the assistant who arranges travel for one leader or for a whole team.
- Sales: client visits and sales trips, where a missed first meeting costs more than the fare.
- Professional services: consultants and partners on site with clients, with the trip often charged back to the client.
- Engineering firms: site visits and project meetings far from the office.
- Manufacturing: plant visits, supplier audits and customer reviews.
- Software technology: customer workshops, partner meetings and conference trips.
- Established businesses: a travel policy already exists and every trip should be checked against it the same way.
- Growth & scaling: more people travel than one office manager can plan by hand.
What has to change for your company
Paste in your own travel policy; the capability invents no limits of its own and checks nothing against a policy it has not been given. Set the margins your travellers want: how early to be at the airport, how long to allow after landing and how early to arrive at a meeting. Decide how old a price may be before it has to be checked again. Name who books, who approves an exception and where the approved plan is kept. Agree which booking sources count as direct. It runs in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini from what you paste in, and needs no connection to a travel tool, a booking site or a card.
What has been checked
Fully Powered AI wrote this capability template. It was editorially reviewed on 10 November 2026. It was tried on its invented example in Claude on 10 November 2026; the record of the latest run is published with it and lists the ambiguities it met. The record says plainly that the run was not blind to the published example output, so a blind run is still to do. It has not yet been tested in a client environment. It has not yet been tested as a packaged version in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini.
Testing in your environment means running it on two or three past trips whose bookings you already know, plus hard cases written in advance: a flight that lands after the first meeting, a hotel quoted for the wrong nights, a fare from another airport, a room over the cap, a journey time nobody supplied. The booker checks every time and figure before anyone relies on the plan. Pilot acceptance-test preparation sets those cases up, and what we test before we call an AI workflow ready describes the record we keep.
The full capability template
Everything above is the outline. The complete capability template is the working version: the roles, the inputs, the procedure, the exceptions and stop conditions, the output format, the reviewer checklist, the acceptance tests, the instructions for an AI assistant and what to customize for your company. It comes with a download and the link to its folder in Fully Powered’s public repository.
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Next step
Bring a real piece of this work to a call. We’ll walk through what it takes to fit this capability to your rules, prove it on your work and put it in the hands of the roles that own it.