deskbird makes it easy to plan where you work each day. Whether it’s in the office, remotely, or elsewhere, you can set your status manually or automate your schedule with weekly preferences.
- Schedule manually
- Schedule for half-days
- Schedule using weekly preferences
- Automated bookings
- Schedule for another user
- Customize scheduling statuses
- Follow colleagues
1. Schedule manually
If your company has the Schedule add-on enabled, you can update your daily status directly from your Personal feed. You may also use the Colleagues tab to schedule your work. There, you can adjust the schedule up to one week in the past as well.
- Go to the Schedule tab. It opens by default when you log in.
- Click on any day—e.g. Today or Tomorrow.
- Select your preferred status:
- Office
- Mobile work
- Absent
- Business travel
- Holiday
🔧 Note: These options may be customized by your company. If the Desks add-on is active, selecting Office will prompt you to book a desk for that day.
2. Half-day scheduling
Half-Day Scheduling gives users the flexibility to plan their day more precisely by allowing them to select either the first or second half of the day for their status and desk bookings. This feature also ensures that hybrid work policies and reporting adapt accordingly. Once enabled, users can select two statuses on the same day—“First Half” and “Second Half.” When a user books a desk for just one half of the day, their schedule status will automatically reflect that. This syncs with calendar work locations and desk reservations, so users always have the correct status and bookings.
- Half-Day Status Options: Toggle on "Half day" when creating a schedule
- Hybrid Work Policies: Define whether half days count as 0.5, 1 or are excluded from policies.
- Analytics Update: Workforce dashboards now include partial-day data, with an option to hide/show half-day entries.
- Calendar Sync: Half-day statuses are synced with calendar work locations.
- Mobile Ready: Fully supported on iOS and Android.
Set up
Admins can enable or disable half-day schedules for all users in deskbird via Admin > Workforce > General setup. Once enabled:
- Define the mid-time (e.g., 13:00) under Admin > Office configuration > Office settings.
- This midpoint determines how the day is split into two halves and will impact booking periods and attendance tracking.
💡 HRIS sync for half-day is supported for Personio and HiBob. More providers will follow.
3. Schedule using weekly preferences
The Weekly preferences feature allows you to automatically set your weekly schedule based on recurring habits.
💡 This feature is available starting from the Desks Business plan, or with the Workforce Business & Enterprise plans.
- Click on your profile picture or initials in the bottom-left corner.
- Select Your preferences.
- Choose your status for each weekday (Monday to Friday).
- Click Save to apply your preferences.
🛠️ You can change your preferences anytime.
🚫 Currently, Saturday and Sunday are not supported.
The system initially schedules up to 2 months in advance; after the initial setup, the system automatically rolls forward each month so that one past month drops off and a new month is added, keeping schedules continuously updated month over month.
⚠️ Due to limitations from Microsoft and Google, the scheduling status of weekly preferences is not synchronized with a linked calendar.
4. Automated bookings
Automated Bookings eliminates repetitive booking actions by syncing Weekly preferences with the maximum lead time.
Admins can enable this in Admin > Desks, parking & others: Booking settings > Automated bookings, where they choose whether users can activate automation for desks and parking.
Users find their settings under Profile picture/initials > Your preferences: Automated bookings, where they can toggle desks or parking spots. The booking logic follows a priority order: assigned spaces are booked first, then favourites, followed by historically most used resources, zones and floors, and finally a random allocation. Requests beyond the user’s maximum lead time are deferred and processed automatically at the next eligible date.
💡 Disabling automated booking won’t affect any bookings that have already been made.
💡 Future bookings are generated as each office is processed, and since offices are evenly distributed throughout the day, bookings will appear gradually — meaning if something seems missing at first, it may simply be added later once that office’s processing is complete.
5. Schedule for another user
Admins and managers can schedule the workweek for other users, either for individuals or user groups. This helps coordinate team presence and align attendance with company needs.
- Go to the Schedule section and select the Colleagues tab next to Personal feed.
- From the dropdown, select All, Following or a group.
- Selecting opens their schedule. You can now choose statuses like Office, Mobile work, or Business trip for each day.
- Click Save to confirm. If notifications are enabled, team members will be informed via email.
- Optionally, add a note before saving to provide context.
📣 This feature is especially useful for team leads and people managers looking to proactively plan on behalf of their teams.
6. Customise scheduling statuses
Admins can request custom scheduling statuses to better reflect your company's working models. For example, renaming “Office” to “Headquarters” or adding statuses like “Field work” or “Client visit.”
To request changes, please contact support@deskbird.com. Our team will help configure and activate your custom status setup.
💡 Custom statuses apply across your organization and can be managed by deskbird support in collaboration with your admins.
7. Follow colleagues
Want to know when your favorite colleagues are in the office or remote so you can plan accordingly? The Follow colleagues feature shows their schedules at a glance.
- Click on any day in your Personal feed.
- A side panel shows who’s scheduled to be in the office.
- If you’re not following anyone yet, click Follow colleagues to start.
- Click the ⭐ next to a name to follow them. A purple star means you're following them.
- Use filters to search by office function (e.g. First aider, Fire responder).
- Switch between All or Following tabs.
You can also switch to the Colleagues tab next to your Personal feed for a weekly view of their schedules.
🖼️ Tip: Add a profile picture to make your feed easier to scan.
💡 Note: Depending on your company’s privacy settings, some colleagues may not be visible.