Administrator guide

1. How a workspace is organised

Your organisation has its own workspace at its own address, for example yourcompany.booking-desks.com. Everything in it belongs to your organisation only: people, bookings, floor plans and settings.

People have one of two roles. Users book desks and parking. Administrators also see the Admin area, where they manage facilities, users, settings and statistics.

2. First steps

1. Send us your logo and brand colour. We set up your workspace address with your design on every screen, including the sign-in page.
2. Sign in as the first administrator using the details we send you.
3. Set your organisation's rules in Admin → Settings: open days, holidays, check-in and carpooling.
4. Add your first facility and floor in Admin → Facilities & Rooms, then draw rooms and desks on the plan.
5. Invite your people: share your workspace address. Colleagues on your company's email domains choose Request access on the sign-in page to get a registration link, or sign in with Google or Microsoft.
6. Book a desk yourself to check that everything looks right, then announce it to the team.

3. Facilities, floors and desks

Go to Admin → Facilities & Rooms.

• Add a facility for each building. A facility can have several floors.
• Add a floor and upload its plan as an image (PNG, JPG or SVG). A clean architectural plan or even a simple drawing works; what matters is that people recognise the space.
• Draw rooms on the plan, then place desks inside them and give each a label people will see, such as a number.
• Switch a desk off when it is out of use. It stays on the plan but cannot be booked.

4. Parking and carpools

Parking works like a floor. In Admin → Facilities & Rooms, choose Add Parking to create a parking level, upload a plan of the car park and draw the spaces.

Once a parking level exists, everyone sees a Parking section and a parking card on their dashboard. Parking does not use check-in.

A location can have office floors, parking levels or both. A location with only parking levels is not offered for desks, and one with only office floors is not offered for parking, so a separate car park can be its own location. The Facilities list shows what each location offers.

Carpooling

• Turn on Allow carpools and carpool-only spots in Admin → Settings → Carpooling.
• In the floor editor, mark individual spaces as carpool only.
• A driver booking a space can add up to four passengers. Passengers see the booking immediately; no acceptance is needed.
• Carpool-only spaces are held for cars with passengers until 18:00 the evening before, then released to everyone.
• Each person can be in one car per day, as driver or passenger.

5. Open days and closed dates

In Admin → Settings → Open days, choose which weekdays can be booked. A new organisation starts with Monday to Friday. At least one day must stay open.

Under Closed dates, close individual dates such as public holidays or an office move, with an optional label people will see.

6. Desk check-in

Check-in makes sure booked desks are really used. In Admin → Settings → Desk check-in:

• Require check-in for desk bookings switches the feature on or off for the whole organisation.
• Check-in opens is the earliest time people can check in on the day.
• Deadline is the time by which a booking must be checked in. Bookings that are not checked in by then are released.

People check in with one tap on their dashboard. Users can turn on push or email reminders before the deadline in their account settings. A desk booked on behalf of a colleague is checked in automatically.

7. Managing people

Go to Admin → Users.

• Add user creates an account directly with a name, email and password.
• Change role makes someone an administrator or a regular user.
• Set password resets a user's password.
• Revoke sessions signs someone out on every device, for example after a lost phone.
• Delete removes a user together with their bookings.

Who can join

Your organisation's allowed email domains decide who can register. People with an address on one of those domains can choose Request access on the sign-in page to get a registration link, or sign in straight away with Google or Microsoft. We set the domains up with you when the workspace is created; contact support to change them.

Anyone can also book a desk for a colleague. If the colleague has no account yet, one is created and they are emailed how to sign in.

8. Sign in with Google or Microsoft

Single sign-on lets people use their work account instead of a password.

• First sign-in creates the account when the provider has verified the email and it is on one of your allowed domains. There is nothing to register.
• Someone already booked for by a colleague claims that account, with the bookings, on their first sign-in.
• Existing password users can sign in with Google or Microsoft using the same email address.
• People can only sign in on their own organisation's address.

For Microsoft accounts, your Entra ID administrator may need to approve the app once for your tenant. Contact us if you want sign-in limited to your own Microsoft tenant.

9. Weather for each location

The top of the app shows the current weather. Each location has its own city, because an organisation's offices can be far apart.

• In Admin → Facilities & Rooms, choose Set weather city under a location and search for the city. The search finds places by name in any language, with or without accents.
• People see the weather for the location where their desk is booked today, otherwise their preferred location, otherwise the first location with a city.
• When several locations have a city, anyone can switch between them from the weather box. The choice is remembered on their device.
• Choose Turn off weather here to remove a location's city. With no city anywhere, no weather is shown.

Weather comes from Open-Meteo through our server, so no one's device or location is shared with the provider.

10. Statistics

Admin → Statistics shows how the office is used: bookings and occupancy over time, by facility and floor, so you can see busy days and unused space. Use it to adjust open days, desk numbers and parking before problems appear.

11. Notifications for users

Each person controls their own notifications in Account:

• email when a booking is created or cancelled;
• a check-in reminder by email;
• push reminders 30 or 15 minutes before the check-in deadline, on devices where they allowed notifications.

Someone booked for by a colleague always receives an email about it, whatever their settings.

12. Installing the app on a phone

Booking Desks is a web app, so there is nothing to download from an app store.

• iPhone and iPad: open your workspace address in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
• Android: open it in Chrome and tap Install app (or menu → Add to Home screen).
• Desktop: in Chrome or Edge, use the install icon in the address bar.