Early Beta
Desk detection links a specific monitor to a specific desk, so users are checked in at the exact desk they plug into and get a booking created for them if they don't have one. It is also what makes the floor and desk occupancy dashboards accurate. This article covers mapping monitors manually and automatically, what mapping mode changes while you work, and how to export the finished mapping into an asset management system.
- Map a monitor to a desk
- How auto-mapping counts detections
- Mapping mode
- Conflicts and moved monitors
- After a monitor is mapped
- Exporting the monitor-to-desk mapping
1. Map a monitor to a desk
The floor, area and desk must all be active in the floor plan, and the desk must be bookable by the user. To link a monitor to a desk:
- Navigate to Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Presence detection: Desk detection
- Click the gear icon for the desired office to open its Mapping progress page
- Manual mapping: click Manual mapping, connect a monitor to your device to surface it in the system, select the correct desk from your floor plan, then click Map to link the monitor to it.
- Auto-mapping: switch on the Auto-mapping toggle and set the number of detections required to confirm a match. Track progress in the Mapped and Unmapped tabs.
💡 Note: monitors that do not report a usable serial number and product code can never be mapped and never appear in the list, however often they are connected. In the Dock window they show as "Unknown display". This is the first thing to check when a monitor does not surface.
Desk detection also requires office detection to be configured, since monitor data is only transmitted once a device has matched a recognized office network. See Setting up office detection and network configuration.
2. How auto-mapping counts detections
Auto-mapping only counts a detection when the monitor is connected during an active booking at that desk. Matching then runs once a day at 02:00 office time, so new matches appear the following morning rather than live.
⚠️ Important: in offices where people do not book a desk before they arrive, auto-mapping never confirms a match. Map those desks manually — a permanently empty Mapped tab is almost always this.
Auto-mapping also requires an office network to be configured. To enable it, go to Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Presence detection > Office detection and add your office networks.
3. Mapping mode
Clicking Manual mapping starts mapping mode, and a confirmation dialog appears first: "Start mapping mode? While mapping mode is active, automatic check-ins and bookings are paused. It turns off automatically when you leave the page."
While mapping mode is active, a banner reads "Mapping mode is active. Automatic desk check-ins and bookings are paused while you're on this page." with a Disable mapping mode button. Once it is turned off or the page is left, the banner switches to "Mapping mode is off. Automatic desk check-ins and bookings have resumed."
⚠️ Important: mapping mode pauses automatic desk check-ins and bookings for the admin's own device only — colleagues are unaffected. Admins testing desk detection on their own device should leave mapping mode before expecting an automatic check-in, and allow a short moment for detection to resume.
4. Conflicts and moved monitors
Conflicts are detected while a monitor is being mapped: if the same monitor is seen at two or more desks, you are asked to resolve it before the mapping is saved.
⚠️ Important: once a monitor is mapped, moving it to another desk does not raise a conflict. It stays mapped to its original desk until you re-map it by hand.
If a device resolves two mapped monitors that point at different desks, monitor detection is dropped without a prompt: the user is checked into the office, but no desk action happens. If the two monitors resolve to different offices, monitor detection is abandoned entirely.
5. After a monitor is mapped
Once a monitor is mapped, a user who connects to it is detected at that desk and checked in — provided that:
- their device is also detected on that office's network
- the office uses the User authenticated privacy mode (see Privacy modes and data handling)
- the desk is bookable by them, with no closure policy or booking restriction blocking it
Monitor detection applies to desks only, not to meeting rooms or parking.
Mapping is not stored on the device, so a new mapping is live immediately and there is no cache to wait out. It takes effect from the next detection, not retroactively. To trigger a detection straight away, open Activity > Sync now in Dock, or disconnect and reconnect the monitor. The "up to an hour" delay applies to office network rules only.
💡 Tip: monitor mapping coverage also determines how accurate the floor and desk occupancy dashboards are. Desks without a mapped monitor always count as unused. See Occupancy analytics (deskbird Dock analytics).
6. Exporting the monitor-to-desk mapping
Mapping data doesn't have to stay inside deskbird. Once monitors are mapped, the full list can leave the Admin area and flow into an IT asset management (ITAM) or CMDB system — so hardware records show which monitor sits at which desk, without walking the floor to check it manually.
CSV export: to download the mapping for one office:
- Navigate to Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Presence detection > Desk detection
- Click the gear icon for the desired office to open its Mapping progress page
- On the Mapped tab, click Export CSV, next to Manual mapping
Each export contains the following columns, in this order:
- Manufacturer
- Manufacturer ID
- Display Name
- Serial Number
- Product Code
- Manufacture Week
- Manufacture Year
- State
- Last Connection
- Office Name
- Floor Name
- Area Name
- Desk Name
- Mapped At
Timestamps are rendered in the office's timezone, with the zone shown — for example 2026-04-02 10:15 (Europe/Berlin).
The export runs per office, so repeat the steps above for each office you need. Only mapped monitors are included — desks without a mapped monitor do not appear in the file.
API access: the same mapped-monitor data is available through the deskbird API. Use it to pull the mapping into an ITAM or CMDB system on a schedule, instead of downloading and importing CSV files by hand.