An office map is the space inventory drawn: the floors, the rooms, the desk positions and, on a good one, who is booked where today and which contractor is on site. Office mapping and an interactive office map are the map with a live layer on it; facility mapping is the same drawing carried across several buildings; and a stacking plan, stack planning and stacking plan software are the map read the other way, which teams go on which floors and whether the floors fit them. Every one of those is worth exactly what the inventory underneath it is worth, and this guide is the inventory first, the map second, and the stacking arithmetic worked on this site's example with no account.
What an office map is drawn from
The inventory: every floor, room and desk position with its area, its use and its assignment. A map drawn from a floor plan file rather than from the inventory looks the same and cannot be counted: desks on the drawing that are not in the record, and desks in the record that are not on the drawing, are the ordinary state of an office map nobody reconciled. An interactive office map earns its name when clicking a desk shows the booking and the count, and that is a record with a picture on it, not a picture.
The live layer: bookings, occupancy, contractors
Office mapping with a live layer shows three things the static map cannot: which desks are booked today and by whom, how full each floor is against its desks right now and on its busiest day, and which contractors are cleared and on site. The count behind the second is the usual one: 84 in against 140 desks is 60%, 126 on the busiest day is 90%. The map is the friendliest way to read those figures and changes nothing in how they are worked; the free space utilization worksheet works them from the counts you enter.
Stacking plan: teams onto floors by the numbers
A stacking plan puts each team on a floor with the desks it needs, and stack planning is the arithmetic that decides whether the floors fit: a team of 36 at 7 desks per 10 needs 26 desk positions, a team of 12 needs 9, and the sum per floor against the floor's desk count is the plan. Stacking plan software that draws the stack without the ratio underneath lets a floor be drawn full of teams it cannot seat; the office space per person worksheet works each team's requirement from your own ratio and allowances.
Facility mapping across buildings, and what HardFM keeps
Facility mapping is the same inventory and the same live layer carried across a campus, and the arithmetic does not change with the number of buildings. HardFM Pro keeps the inventory, the allocation, the bookings, the counts and the contractor clearances against each building and exports them, for $24 a month for the whole team. It does not draw the map or design the floor; it keeps the record any map worth reading is drawn from.
Questions people ask about office map
What should an office map be drawn from?
The space inventory: every floor, room and desk with its area, use and assignment, reconciled to the drawing. A map drawn from a floor plan file alone cannot be counted, and the counts are the point. HardFM Pro keeps the inventory a map is drawn from.
What is a stacking plan?
Teams placed on floors with the desks each needs, checked against the desks each floor has. A team of 36 at 7 desks per 10 needs 26 positions; the office space per person worksheet works each team's requirement free from your own ratio and allowances.
Does HardFM draw an interactive office map?
No. It keeps the inventory, the bookings, the occupancy and the contractor clearances any live map reads from, and exports them; the drawing and the floor's design are the designer's and the map vendor's.