Early Beta
deskbird Dock offers flexible privacy controls, so you can decide exactly how much personal data Dock collects — from full user-level tracking to complete anonymity. This is especially useful for organizations with strict data privacy requirements or an active works council. The mode you pick controls which analytics and automations are available, and how identifiable the data is, so it is worth choosing deliberately before you roll Dock out.
- Where to configure privacy settings
- Available modes
- What each mode enables
- Impact on analytics in Anonymous mode
- Switching modes
- When automations do not run
1. Where to configure privacy settings
Presence settings live in a dedicated Workplace Intelligence section in Admin, split into two pages:
- Presence detection: the standard network and desk detection setup.
- Privacy: choose the privacy mode and its settings.
To configure, go to Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Privacy, select a mode, and click Save. Reset discards unsaved changes and restores the last saved configuration.
2. Available modes
| Mode | What it does | Best for | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| User authenticated (recommended default) | Every office visit is linked to a specific person. Each device maps to a named deskbird user, so the full set of analytics and automations is available. Requires active deskbird accounts for all users. | Companies that want the full feature set, including booking automations. | In the Admin UI for combined (Workplace Intelligence + Booking) customers only. |
| Anonymous | The office is tracked, never the individual. Activity is collected only at office and company level and is never linked to a person, in the UI or in exports. The same device is still recognized over time, so utilization and device-level reporting still work. No deskbird account needed. | Companies with strict worker-privacy requirements, or works councils that require full anonymity. | In the Admin UI for combined or standalone Workplace Intelligence customers. Combined customers lose booking automations in this mode. |
💡 Note: Anonymous mode can also rotate device identifiers every week, so visits cannot be linked across weeks. This is not self-serve — contact deskbird to enable it.
3. What each mode enables
| Capability | User authenticated | Anonymous |
|---|---|---|
| Office & resource utilization | ✅ | ✅ |
| Activity linked to an individual | ✅ | ❌ |
| Booking automation (auto check-in / auto-book) | ✅ | ❌ |
| No individual is ever identifiable | ❌ | ✅ |
4. Impact on analytics in Anonymous mode
In Anonymous mode, the change applies to the Workforce Analytics dashboard, which is built on booking and scheduling data. The Dock analytics dashboards — Office, Floor and Desk occupancy — are aggregate and device-based in every mode, so they are unchanged. See Occupancy analytics (deskbird Dock analytics).
5. Switching modes
💡 Note: if you rely on Dock's booking automations (auto check-in, desk swapping, automatic desk booking creation), keep the User authenticated mode.
⚠️ Important: changing the privacy mode affects data that has already been collected:
- User authenticated to Anonymous removes the user link and the device details from all past events. Occupancy history by office and desk is preserved, but user-level information is permanently removed.
- Anonymous to User authenticated does not recover past data.
deskbird shows a confirmation warning before applying a change — review it carefully before confirming.
6. When automations do not run
If auto check-in or automatic desk booking is not happening even though presence is detected, check in this order:
- The office's privacy mode. In Anonymous and Company mode there is no user identity, so booking automations cannot run at all.
- Whether the device is detected on that office's network.
- Whether the monitor is mapped to the desk.
The check-in can also be refused by ordinary booking rules — check-in disabled for the office, a closure policy, a booking restriction, or the user not being permitted to book that desk. None of these produce an admin-visible message.