All offices are different, and you should find a solution that has the flexibility to meet your particular needs.  Hybrid offices typically offer a variety of spaces, including desks, meeting rooms, breakout areas, kitchens, and collaboration spaces. Additionally, they provide bookable resources like parking spaces, lockers, and other essential amenities. Effective management of these spaces ensures employees can find the right environment to work productively.

All organisations should have policies on hybrid working!  It’s important that teams with the flexibility to work outside of the office are given guidance on how to do this effectively and to avoid many of the common pitfalls.  For organisations in a hybrid set-up, it’s doubly important that people know what is expected of them in terms of office attendance, and that they have the tools to make sure time spent in the office is as productive as possible.  It’s also important that HR policies are in place to reflect hybrid working policies - including things which might not seem immediately relevant around performance reviews, promotions and culture building.

Setting up your workplace management software should be easy - whether you choose to do it yourself, or if you would prefer to have it deployed for you via professional implementation services.  Which is right for you depends on the size and complexity of your deployment, and your comfort levels with technology solutions.  Ask AiB is a simple and easy solution to deploy with walkthroughs, guides and assistance available - if you would like to discuss which deployment option is best for you, get in touch!

Design workspaces that employees want and need to be productive. Leverage workplace analytics to align space usage with hybrid work policies, minimizing unused areas and understanding why some spaces are more popular. Provide the spaces employees prefer, and use Ask AiB’s ESG and reporting metrics to ensure the office delivers value effectively.

A desk booking system or solution allows people to find and book desks or workstations to work at in an office.  There are often different types of desks involved including hot desks, hoteling space, permanently assigned spaces or a mix of all three.  Users may have access to book some, all or none of these and may be subjected to rule such as not having “concurrent bookings” - meaning they can’t have multiple desks booked at the same time.  Desk booking systems often commonly allow users to search for and view the locations of colleagues on interactive floorplans, as well as offering the ability to book multiple different resource types beyond just desks.  

The primary difference is in how these spaces are reserved, and by whom. Hot desks are typically available on a first come, first served basis and may or may not be available for pre-reservation.  Hot desks are designed with maximum flexibility in mind. 

Typically, hoteling desks are booked in advance and offer a little more structure than classic hot desks.  Hoteling spaces will often be restricted to certain users or teams, and sometimes even to those individuals or teams on specific days, to fit hybrid work schedules and provide a little more predictability to how the office will look and operate. 

A desk or workstation in an office assigned to a particular person or or group which the group or person do not need to book.

There is no right or wrong answer to this question! Most organisations though will likely not find that a one size fits all approach to providing access to the desk estate provides the best value. 

Placing some restrictions on which users or teams can access which spaces and when can provide a lot of structure into a hybrid office, even with significantly less space than if everyone had a permanently assigned desk.  Combining restrictions with advanced booking rules or releases of rules within certain time periods (such as - “this is a sales team desk.  If it is same day and unbooked though, any user can book this desk) can add significantly to the flexibility of office space. 

Additionally, many organisations have diverse workforces where individual users, even within a team, may have different needs and requirements.  It may, for example, therefore be appropriate to give some team members permanently allocated spaces because they will be in the office most days, whereas other members of the same team may remain with access to hot or hoteling spaces only as they will be in less frequently. 

One of the best ways to make sure your desk usage stats coming out of your desk booking system are accurate is to pick a solution which is the easiest for people to use, requires the fewest clicks and generate the highest levels of user adoption. 

Like every system, it’s good data in – good data out.  In addition to this, your desk booking system should provide the flexibility you need to capture the data points that will enable you to really drive office estate value.  Options such as check-in/check-out of space, integrating into MS Teams for easy access and system features such as making sure space restrictions and permission are flexible and reportable will help to make sure you drive value from your system.  The ability to add custom fields and custom resources will also help – allowing you to really tailor the booking experience and data points to what you want to measure in your unique office set-up. 

The final piece of the puzzle is reporting and analytics.  Make sure all aspects of the data you capture – including any custom fields or other elements – are reportable. 

For teams, the amount of space allocated should depend on the number of people in the team, the volume of time they are expected to be in the office and whether you want to keep teams together in single neighborhoods or encourage office mobility and for people to move between different spaces meeting new colleagues.  This will all be balanced against the total desk estate available and whether desks are the right resources to be provisioning or whether adding further rooms or collaboration resources would provide further benefit. 

For individuals, it is a little different.  Whether an individual should be assigned a permanent desk, or a permanent desk on certain days of the week, will be dependent on each users personal circumstances.  A common example of this is where certain users are not properly equipped for remote work – such as not having an area to use as an office at home.  These users may benefit from additional access to space which others users do not need. 

No! It is not always necessary to “book” a desk in advance, or even on the spot! Many organizations use desk booking solutions to allocate spaces to groups and use the office maps but do not require direct booking.  There is also the possibility of auto-assigning space to users when they enter the building and “check in” either with a building pass or at a tablet. 

There are advantages though to booking as well.  Booking spaces will let colleagues know exactly where others are, when they will be in and allow them to find a space to work near their preferred colleagues. 

If you choose to go down a route where booking isn’t necessary, just be sure to make sure that the metrics you will be tracking for reporting and analytics don’t rely on the granular data that direct booking provides. 

Your workspace booking system should offer you the flexiblity of booking more than only desks.  Standard resources which are bookable often include rooms and parking spaces – but you should look for a solution that can easily accomodate everything in your office that might enhance the in-office experience of people.  This may include lockers, phone booths, gym slots – the list is endless. 

Additionally, a system should allow users to book multiple of these different resources at the same time – greatly simplifying their experience of booking their day in the office, and inviting colleagues to join them.

You should select a booking system that matches your particular requirements, of course!  We recommend looking for a system that is user friendly and doesn’t require a ton of training for standard users, provides the flexiblility to customise the experience to meet your specific requirements and – finally – a solution which offers good value today but also affordable scalability if and when your needs expand.  Making sure the solution has a strong product roadmap and robust integrations with your existing workplace applications may also be important. 

A successful initial set-up and deployment is essential to make sure both users and administrators can quickly pick up what is needed of them.  You should also consider launch communications and guidance on how you expect the system to be used. 

askAiB is designed to be easy to deploy and set-up, with comprehensive video guides avaliable to walk you through every step of the process if you get lost.  

Additionally, you can talk to us about getting help with your deployment and us taking care of some of the set-up for you at any time. 

Space restrictions and permissions are the methods by which your desk estate will be divided up and certain individuals, user groups or teams being given priority access. 

For many users of workplace booking systems, these are essential for making sure that people know where to bookg, when and where their colleagues will be. 

With desk space now limited for many organisations and well below the total number of people in the team, restrictions allow priority access to be given for different teams to the same desk – greatly enhancing estate value and simplifying the process of helping teams know when to come to the office. 

In it’s most simple form, an example would be “Desk 001 is restricted to user of the sales team on Monday, Finance on a Tuesday, Marketing on a Wednesday and is available for anyone on Thursday and Friday”.  This can significantly increase the flexiblity and utilisation of your spaces – and make hybrid work scheduling easier. 

A room booking system or solution allows people to find and book rooms or team working areas to work in in an office.  There are often different types of rooms or meeting spaces involved including meeting rooms, meeting pods, phone booths, boardrooms or breakout spaces.  Users may have access to book some, all or none of these and may be subjected to rule such as not having “concurrent bookings” - meaning they can’t have multiple rooms booked at the same time.  Booking solutions should allow resources to be tagged with key amenities – such as VC capable, projection screens or natural light. 

Other popular restrictions include “same day” booking restrictions to make sure some resources are always available for ad hoc use, or not allowing some smaller spaces to be bookable at all. 

Room booking systems commonly allow users to search for and view the locations of colleagues on interactive floorplans, as well as offering the ability to book multiple different resource types along with a room to reserve everything needed for a day in the office. 

Many systems also allow users to book ancillary resources or make service requests as part of a booking.  

In short, booking is finding and reserving a room, while scheduling is the strategic management and tracking of multiple bookings to ensure efficient space utilization. 

Both are important in every office.  Over time, effective scheduling and management can significantly alter the amount and types of spaces required.  Understanding how space is being used, average attendees per meeting and other key metrics will allow organisations to better sweat their real estate assets. 

An effective booking system is key to making enabling this. 

Most organizations will likely not find that a one size fits all approach to providing access to the room estate is an efficient way to manage space. 

Placing some restrictions on which users or teams can access which spaces and when can provide a lot of structure into a hybrid office.  Segmenting the types of room is also often important – for example, “internal” and “external” meeting rooms, or boardrooms vs standard rooms.   

Segmenting resources like this allows granular control of which meetings happen where, and ensure boardrooms capable of holding 20+ people are only ever used for 1:1s. 

Combining restrictions with advanced booking rules or releases of rules within certain time periods (such as - “this is a boardroom and is restricted to the Executive Team.  If it is the same day and unbooked however, any user can book this room) can add significantly to the flexibility of office space. 

You should select a booking system that matches your particular requirements, of course!  We recommend looking for a system that is user friendly and doesn’t require a ton of training for standard users, provides the flexibility to customize the experience to meet your specific requirements and – finally – a solution which offers good value today but also affordable scalability if and when your needs expand.  Making sure the solution has a strong product roadmap and robust integrations with your existing workplace applications may also be important. 

One of the best ways to make sure your room usage stats coming out of your room booking system are accurate and complete is to pick a solution which is the easiest for people to use, requires the fewest clicks and generate the highest levels of user adoption. 

Like every system, it’s good data in – good data out.  In addition to this, your room booking system should provide the flexibility you need to capture the data points that will enable you to really drive office estate value.  Options such as check-in/check-out of space, attendee tracking, integrating into MS Teams and Outlook for easy access and system features such as making sure space restrictions and permission are flexible and reportable will help to make sure you drive value from your system.   

The ability to add custom fields and custom resources is also essential – allowing you to really tailor the booking experience and data points to what you want to measure in your unique office set-up. 

The final piece of the puzzle is reporting and analytics.  Make sure all aspects of the data you capture – including any custom fields or other elements – are reportable. 

Yes - askAiB integrates and synchronises with Exchange calendars, meaning users can book from either calendar without concern about clashses or meetings not showing up in either calendar.

Contact us to learn more and we can set up a "proof of concept" with your system so you can see the sync in action.

Aside from payroll, for a lot of organisations the next greatest expense is office real estate.  In many parts of the world, operating a single person desk can run into many thousands of Dollars, Pounds or Euros. 

It is essential that office space therefore delivers value, and meeting rooms are big, expensive parts of most offices. 

Effective space scheduling, and getting the right meeting happening in the right space, can significantly improve space utilisation and meeting outcomes, helping meetings happen faster.  It can also help reveal if and where inefficiencies are and which space could be repurposed or even off loaded. 

When it comes to meeting spaces, getting the space allocations and availability right are crucial.  It’s a little different to desks – typically rooms aren’t assigned permanently to individuals or teams, although they can be for specific projects. 

There are certain high value rooms where controlling access can be important – these are often “client facing” or boardrooms which are often expensive resources showing the best an organisation can offer.  These resources need to be used appropriately.  Time based restrictions can be very helpful here, releasing resources to be bookable only if they are not prebooked for their primary purpose – such as external meetings.  This can also drive up utilisation. 

Other resources such as breakout spaces, internal rooms and phone booths may have wider access permitted.  A common requirement to avoid the plague of meeting no shows is to reserve a portion of these resources to be booked same day only.

This depends a little on the type of meeting room resource.  Many premium spaces remain bookable only in advance. 

However, maintaining a proportion of the estate to be bookable only for “walk ups” or same day bookings can significantly boost utilisation.  Shorter lead times are known to reduce no show rates, with many organisations seeing over a 40% no show rates for meetings booked – this can have a meaningful impact on the amount of space required. 

A successful initial set-up and deployment is essential to make sure both users and administrators can quickly pick up what is needed of them.  You should also consider launch communications and guidance on how you expect the system to be used. 

askAiB is designed to be easy to deploy and set-up, with comprehensive video guides avaliable to walk you through every step of the process if you get lost.  

Additionally, you can talk to us about getting help with your deployment and us taking care of some of the set-up for you at any time. 

A custom resource is any resource which does not come as standard in a booking solution.  Most solutions will allow you to book the basics like desks or rooms, custom resources give you the power to create any other type of resource. 

In askAiB, custom resources can be anything from lockers to gym spaces to tables – or anything else! It’s important if you need custom resources to pick a solution which really does let you fully customise the resource so it is useful and meets your needs. 

Custom fields allow every organisation using a workplace bookings system to really tailor their experience to meet their particular needs.  User adoption and the value the system provides will be greater if the experience of users gives them exactly what they need, and the more data points are available to be captured – the greater the value of insights on estate performance. 

It should be easy to create and maintain custom elements.  It should not be necessary for development work to be done to support custom elements – it should be possible for administrators to create and maintain these themselves. 

In askAiB, all resources can be fully customised directly by users without need from oversight from our support team. 

Custom resources can really help to drive value in your workplace, really helping you to utilize every aspect of the office and make these available for people to find and book. 

They can also greatly enhance user experiences by making sure every aspect of their in-office needs can be scheduled with ease. 

A custom field is a data point either on a resource record or a booking form which does not come as standard with a booking solution.   

In askAiB, these can include plain text fields, checkboxes, picklists, multiselect lists, numeric fields and more.  This gives users great power to fully customise the data they are making available to and capturing from users, enriching experiences and reports. 

A custom or flexible rule is a rule, usually on a resource or group of resources, which can change dependent on factors such as time, booker or day of the week. 

For example, some resources are restricted to certain user groups but those restriction can be released if another user wants to book the space for within 48 hours and it is not yet reserved.  This is a great way to drive up office utilisation without compromising the space assignments you want or need to make. 

Yes, in askAiB all custom resources and fields are fully reportable. 

In askAiB, there are no limits on the numbers of custom fields or resources that can be created in our Advanced edition.  In our Simple edition, there is a limit of 3 custom resources. 

Reports and analytics are the way to digest all the data that is captured by all the booking and activity in your hybrid workplace.   

Data can be presented at resource, individual, team, floor, zone, building or global levels.   

The reports and analytics will reveal in detail all aspects of workplace operation and enable you to start gaining an understanding of how your space is being used and what efficiencies might be available. 

Dashboards are graphical summaries of reports or data which help to make office performance and metrics easily digestible. 

They can include text base reports, graphical reports and combinations of data. 

Metrics for the sake of metrics are not helpful.  As the saying goes, oil is the new gold – but dump a barrel of oil on my lawn and it’s completely useless to me! It needs to be refined into something useful and usable. 

The same is true of your analytics and insights.  Always ask the question “what will I use this data point for and what decisions will it allow me to make?” which will help to make sure that your analytics are really delivering value.  It’s easy to get carried away with analytics and reporting – just make sure the data you are looking at is really helping you to drive value in the workplace and is data that is genuinely usable and useful to you. 

Yes, in askAiB you can configure your own reports and dashboards, including ordering the data any way you see fit.  Any and all data points, including your custom fields, are reportable.

Reports and analytics allow you to really understand how all aspects of your office are operating. 

Effective reports will enable users to ultimate have an improved experience through the better planning that the data will reveal. 

Workplace insights derived from the data you have generated through your office usage are important to understanding how your workplace attendance policies and office set-up are performing.  Both of these can have significant impacts on your workplace culture. 

One of the potential pitfalls of hybrid or remote working is that team members may not build the same relationships that can be formed through face to face interaction.  Supporting your teams with an office set-up and attendance policies that provide them with both the guidelines on expectations on in person attendance and when to attend the office, along with providing appropriate office spaces matched to the reasons people are coming to the office is vital.   

To get your workspace helping to drive culture and productivity, it’s important you understand how people should be and are using the space.  Analytics can help you understand where any gaps are and how to bridge them. 

The data you generate and the reports and analytics insights they provide and help you to really tailor the office space you provide to the needs of your teams.  Not what you think they need, but what they really need! 

It’s easy for employers to ask people what they want their office to look like or how they want to work – but the issue is, we almost all answer these sorts of questions based on how we want to be, not how we actually are! 

The real world data you generate through actual space usage though doesn’t lie, and will reveal what the preferences of people really are, allowing you to plan your future space allocations and needs accordingly. 

Yes, with askAiB your key reports and dashboards can be emailed to you on a regular schedule, so you never miss an important insight or data update.

This is the process of getting your system ready for you to use for the first time including importing your users, setting up your resources, floorplans and any booking policies or other customizations you might want. 

It’s important that all the basic administration functions are easy to use to allow you to continue to make updates as your needs change over time. 

In askAiB, all admin functions are easily accessible, easy to use and come supported with both text and video guides. 

Yes, askAiB’s support teams can create floorplans for you if you either don’t have any, or if you’d like to update them for use in a booking system.   

Get in touch with us today to discuss the options available if you’d like us to create new floorplans for you. 

Yes, you can upload your existing floorplans into askAiB and get started with them immediately. 

Yes.  You can upload your users either from a .csv spreadsheet which is available for download in the web portal, or through self-registration using Single Sign On (SSO). 

Both options are simple and only take a few seconds. 

Yes.  Single Sign On (SSO) is available for all users of askAiB to both provision and manage user access. 

Portal admin refers to settings that effect all global permissions and sites within your askAiB set-up.  These include your logos, colour schemes, resource types and SSO set-up. 

Site admin refers to settings specific to a particulary site or building.  This includes setting up specific resources, floors, site specific operating hours and holidays. 

Yes.  Comprehensive walkthrough guides are available in both text and video formats for all areas on the solution.

A visitor management system allows you to register and manage the experience of visitors to your office. 

These can be external visitors, internal visitors from other sites, contractors or even people who work in the building who need some sort of arrivals process. 

Visitor management systems usually comprise of a registration, check in on arrival, check out on departure and notifications system.  Other features may include emailing maps and instructions to site attendees, pre-arrival screening or questionnaires or delivery management. 

It’s important to know who is coming to site and when they are expected to ensure you provision an experience which reflects you and your organization well. 

There may also be security implications of knowing who is expected or is on site, and ensuring that all visitors are escorted as appropriate whilst on site. 

A visitor management system allows you to curate and control the experience visitors to your sites have whilst they are with you.

Joining instructions are guidance provided to a visitor to site in advance of their arrival.  This may include an email with details on how to find the site, security information, maps or other pre-arrival requirements including screening/site onboarding where deployed.  ​

The first experience visitors have of visiting your organization may well be the pre-arrival communication. 

Getting this right and then providing a slick arrival and on-site process is a great way of showing that you are a professional and well organized.  Curating the visitor experience you feel best represents your organization and values is a great way to set the tone for any engagement. 

Yes, visitors can be required to complete pre-arrival screening or site onboarding.  There may then be instances where this has to be completed in advance or site access may be denied or visits cancelled dependent on your policies as an organisation. 

The pre-screening and onboarding can range from health related screening questions to security or health and safety. 

It’s completely configurable and up to you! 

Office wayfinding and mapping are the tools, maps, and digital solutions that help employees and visitors navigate a workplace efficiently. It may incldue physical signs, interactive maps, and mobile apps that provide directions, desk booking, and meeting room locations, enhancing productivity and user experience in hybrid and flexible work environments. 

Office maps should be searchable, allowing users to find and locate their colleagues and other available office resources.

Floorplans really help to bring user experiences to life and provide a great and appealing visual tool for users to engage with their workplace. 

Floorplans really help to energize and enegage users over and above simple lists of resources. 

Seeing exactly where your favourite colleagues or desks greatly enhances the user experience. 

Other useful information such as muster points, health and safety equipment or locations of kitchens, dining areas or gyms can be shown. 

Yes, you can use your existing floorplans in askAiB and these can easily be set-up to show all the resources you create in askAiB!

A system designed to optimize the use, monitoring, and control of parking spaces. It enables people to understand whether parking spaces are available for them, and to book in advance or on the spot where possible.  A parking management solution is especially effective when there are limited spaces available for colleagues on site. 

Parking spaces can be categorized as visitor spaces, disabled access spaces, executive spaces or electric charging point spaces amongst others. 

It is not a requirement that all parking spaces are the same.  Parking spaces can be configured in the same way any resource can be configured.  Restrictions can be applied, and spaces can be different sizes and designated as required for disabled parking access, electric charging points, and more. 

Yes, parking spaces can be allocated in the same way other office areas are allocated. 

Microsoft Teams booking integration means having all of your booking platform available to you within an app in the Teams experience.  This means you can search for and book all your office needs without ever leaving the Teams environment.

 Yes - we strive to make the experience with our Teams app as good as, or even better, than our web platform experience.  

askAiB's Teams app is designed to be quick and simple to use, but with the power to enable you to plan everything you and your team need for effective in person work and collaboration.

The Teams app is included for all users of askAiB on either our Simple or Advanced plans.  There is no extra cost.

Yes - askAiB's Microsoft Teams booking app is specifically designed to offer a unique, user friendly experience on mobile devices.

There are no functionalities not available within the Teams app.  By default, there are a few areas - such as system admin - that we recommend are done in our web portal, but even these can be enabled within Teams if needed.