A desk booking tool is bought for the convenience of the booking and judged, a month later, by the record it left. Deskbooking is one person on one desk on one day, and desk booking solutions differ mostly in the interface around that one row; what separates a tool worth having from a calendar is whether the rows can be read back as a table by desk and by day, because that table is the attendance count, and the attendance count is the only evidence for the ratio the floor runs on. This guide is office space desk booking from that side: the row, the table it becomes, the ratio it proves, and what a desk reservation app has to hold so that to book desk by desk is also to count the floor.
The row: one person, one desk, one day
Every booking is the same three facts, and everything a desk booking tool does with them afterwards depends on the row being filed against the desk rather than into a calendar. Filed against the desk, a month of rows says how many people were in on each day, which desks are never booked, which are fought over, and what the busiest day looked like. Filed into a calendar, the same rows say who is in on Tuesday and nothing else. Ask for the export before the demo, and ask whether it is by desk and day.
The table: the attendance count the ratio needs
84 in on an average day against 140 desks is 60% utilization; 126 on the busiest day is 90%; 14 desks are spare; the attendance supports 7 desks per 10 people. Every one of those figures is the booking table read down a column, and the free space utilization worksheet on this site works them from the two counts you enter. A desk reservation app that cannot produce the table has kept the convenience and lost the measurement, and the next lease decision is made from memory.
Shared and assigned desks side by side
The desk record under the bookings has to hold assigned desks and shared desks in the same list with the ratio visible: 120 desks with 20 kept assigned leaves 100 shared desks for 160 people, 6.25 per 10. Desk booking solutions that model only bookable desks hide the assigned ones from the arithmetic, and the ratio the policy depends on is wrong by exactly the desks nobody can book.
What the tool is not, and what HardFM keeps
A desk booking tool is not a room booking system, which has a different buyer and a different record, and it is not a visitor sign-in; HardFM does neither. HardFM Pro keeps the desks with shared and assigned marked, each booking as one person on one desk on one day, and the counts that fall out, and exports all three, for $24 a month for the whole team. The booking interface is the small part of that; the table is the product.
Questions people ask about desk booking tool
What should a desk booking tool record?
One person on one desk on one day, filed against the desk, and readable back as a table by desk and by day. That table is the attendance count, and the count is the evidence for the ratio the floor runs on. HardFM Pro keeps and exports it.
Is there a free desk reservation app?
The arithmetic is free here: the space utilization worksheet works the utilization, the surplus and the sharing ratio from your own counts with no account. Keeping the desks and the bookings as a record is HardFM Pro at $24 a month for the whole team.
Does office space desk booking need a floor map?
It helps the person booking and changes nothing in the record. The row is the desk, the person and the day whether it was picked from a map or a list; the count that matters is the same either way.