The culture of desk sharing, where the employees don’t have permanent seating arrangements really took off about a decade ago. This practice saved a lot of office space and raised the level of employee interaction. The worldwide quarantine has only increased this tendency: employees that work remotely got used to only coming into the office if it’s absolutely necessary, like if there is a mandatory in-person meeting. The office spaces themselves shrunk as well due to the current state of the economy. After the quarantine was lifted, and some workers have stopped working remotely, companies ran into a surprising problem: there simply wasn’t enough space left for everyone. Having to comply with social distancing rules only exacerbated the issue. The only solution is to book workspaces and conference rooms in a timely manner.

The “Workspace Booking Manager 365” system lets employees reserve a specific desk or conference room for a given date and time (within one hour) via Internet right on the office floor plan. The system monitors previous bookings and will return a warning if the user tries to book an already booked desk or conference room. When booking, we use a floor plan unique to the company that shows all available desks. The system works in Microsoft Teams and does not need any additional authorization from the users.

Advantages:

· Teams-based application.

· Accessed via the Internet, only a browser is needed.

· Visual aid: selecting the necessary desk is done using the office floor plan, with all booked desks/conference rooms shown for each day. Each entry is listed along with the time and user that did the booking. Clicking on a desk opens the booking window. The color of the desk on the floor plan shows its availability: booked for the whole day (red), booked for a part of the day (yellow), or free (green). Afterwards, the user can cancel a booking online.

· The floor plan completely matches the physical office floor plan.

· COVID-19 mode: social distancing requirements enforced when booking. Desks within social distancing range from a booked desk are colored grey and can’t be booked.

· Notifying the user with a confirmation of date, time, and desk booked, and letting them cancel the booking.