Early Beta
Most deskbird Dock issues come down to one of three things: the device isn't matching an office network, the monitor isn't mapped, or the privacy mode doesn't allow booking automations. This article groups the common symptoms by area so you can go straight to the likely cause, and answers the questions that come up most often.
- Check-in and booking automations aren't running
- Network and office detection
- Monitor and desk detection
- App, sign-in and background running
- Analytics and exports
- Feedback & support
- FAQs
1. Check-in and booking automations aren't running
| Issue | What to do |
|---|---|
| Not being checked in automatically | Confirm the user is on the office network or plugged into a mapped monitor. Verify that Presence detection is configured for the user's office under Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Presence detection, and that the rule you expect to match is switched on — disabled rules are never sent to Dock and never match. |
| Presence is detected, but no auto check-in or auto-book happens | Check the privacy mode under Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Privacy. Booking automations only run in User authenticated mode; in Anonymous and Company mode they are unavailable by design. If the mode is correct, the check-in may have been refused by ordinary booking rules: check-in disabled for the office or resource type, a closure policy, a booking restriction, or the user not being permitted to book that desk. None of these produce an admin-visible message. |
| Plugged into a mapped monitor, but no auto check-in or booking occurred | Verify that the device is connected to a recognized office network — monitor data is only transmitted and processed when an active office network is detected. The monitor must also be mapped in the same office the network detected. If two mapped monitors are connected and resolve to different offices, monitor detection is abandoned; if they resolve to different desks in the same office, the user is checked into the office but no desk action happens. |
| A monitor was just mapped and nothing happened | Automations do not fire retroactively for a session already in progress. Open deskbird Dock > Activity > Sync now, or unplug and replug the monitor. |
| No booking was created before the office opened | Desk bookings created by Dock must fall within the office's opening hours. Before opening time, Dock still detects the office and checks the user into any existing booking, but cannot create a new desk booking. It also does not create or swap bookings after closing time. |
| No check-in happened and the booking was released | The booking was released later by your no-show policy, because no check-in happened. This usually means one observation matched more than one office, in which case the check-in is skipped. Review your office rules so that each office's rule set can only ever match one office — criteria within a single rule are combined with AND, so a value shared between offices (a common gateway MAC, for example) is fine as long as another criterion in each rule differs. |
2. Network and office detection
| Issue | What to do |
|---|---|
| Not being checked in over an Ethernet connection | Ethernet is supported, but rules based on Wi-Fi SSID or BSSID only match over Wi-Fi. Add a rule using Default gateway (MAC), Subnets (CIDR), or Public IP for that office. Since multiple rules per office are combined with OR logic, a separate Ethernet rule can run alongside the Wi-Fi one. See Setting up office detection and network configuration. |
| A Wi-Fi rule never matches | Check the operating system's location permission. On macOS, and on Windows 11 version 24H2 and later, Dock cannot read the network name or access point without it, so any rule containing SSID or BSSID silently fails. Dock shows a warning banner on its Overview page when this happens. Also check the spelling: Wi-Fi network names are matched case-sensitively, while gateway MAC and BSSID values are not. |
| A public IP rule stops matching | A full-tunnel VPN replaces the public IP address deskbird sees, so public-IP rules stop matching even inside the office. Add a gateway MAC or subnet criterion to the office rule. Note also that public IP addresses are matched exactly, not as a range. |
| A subnet rule never matches | Subnets are matched by containment: the configured subnet must be equal to or wider than the one the device sees. A configured /24 does not match a device on a /16. |
| A network rule change hasn't taken effect | Dock refreshes its copy of your office's network rules every hour, so a change can take up to an hour to reach a device that is already running. Activity > Sync now applies it immediately. |
| Nothing is detected right after signing in or launching Dock | Dock deliberately sends nothing until it has fetched its office rules, which takes about a minute. A user who signs in while offline registers nothing until the rules arrive. |
3. Monitor and desk detection
| Issue | What to do |
|---|---|
| A monitor does not appear in the mapping list | Some monitors do not report a usable serial number or product code — the values are blank or all zeros. These cannot be identified, are never sent to deskbird, and never appear in the mapping list. In the Dock window they show as "Unknown display". |
| "This monitor is already mapped to desk X" | That monitor is already mapped to a different desk. Unmap it first, or use the swap action. You will also see an error if the monitor has been excluded — reactivate it before mapping. Note that two physically different monitors reporting the same identifiers are treated as one monitor and share a single mapping. |
| A monitor was moved to another desk and check-ins are wrong | Once a monitor is mapped, moving it does not raise a conflict. It stays mapped to its original desk until an admin re-maps it by hand under Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Presence detection > Desk detection. |
| The Mapped tab stays empty with auto-mapping on | Auto-mapping only counts a detection when the monitor is connected during an active booking at that desk, and matching runs once a day at 02:00 office time. In offices where people don't book a desk before arriving, auto-mapping never confirms a match — map those desks manually. |
| An admin's own device stops being detected | Detection is paused while the admin has the Desk detection page open in mapping mode, and can take up to about two minutes to resume after leaving the page. It affects only that admin's device, not colleagues'. Leave the page, then use Activity > Sync now. |
4. App, sign-in and background running
| Issue | What to do |
|---|---|
| Tray bar icon is missing (macOS) | Free up space in the menu bar via System Settings > Control Center. |
| Tray bar icon is missing (Windows) | Click the ^ icon in the taskbar to reveal hidden icons. After a silent install through your MDM, Dock only starts at the next sign-in — sign out and back in, or restart the device. Locking and unlocking the screen is not enough. |
| Dock stopped running in the background (macOS) | Dock cannot detect or fix this itself. Re-enable it under System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions. |
| Login error | Make sure the user is using the exact email registered with deskbird, and a login method your company has enabled under Admin > General settings > Authentication. Disabling a login option does not remove it from the login screen — it still appears, and authentication simply fails. |
| Browser tab stuck on "loading" | The login tab may stay on "loading" after a successful sign-in. Users can safely close it. |
5. Analytics and exports
| Issue | What to do |
|---|---|
| Occupancy dashboards look emptier than the office feels | Floor and desk metrics only count devices at mapped monitors, so incomplete monitor mapping under-reports usage. Review mapping coverage under Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Presence detection > Desk detection, and see Occupancy analytics (deskbird Dock analytics). |
| Names are missing from Workforce Analytics dashboards | The account is likely in Anonymous mode, where activity is never linked to a person. Switching back to User authenticated restores user-level reporting going forward, but does not recover past data. |
| Desks are missing from the exported CSV | The export only covers monitors that are already mapped to a desk. Desks without a mapped monitor are not included — check mapping coverage under Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Presence detection > Desk detection, and map the remaining monitors first. |
6. Feedback & support
As an early beta tester, your feedback is essential to shaping the final product. To report a bug or request support, submit a request through the deskbird Help Center at help.deskbird.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.
⚠️ Note: this version is for early-stage testing and may contain rough edges. It does not necessarily reflect the final product. Thank you for helping us build a better workspace experience!
7. FAQs
You can download deskbird Dock for macOS or Windows from https://dock.deskbird.com/.
Only for individual installs. Users sign in once with whichever method your company has enabled under Admin > General settings > Authentication — Google Workspace, Microsoft Workspace, or SAML 2.0. When IT deploys Dock through an MDM solution with pre-configured authentication, the app activates silently and users never see a sign-in screen.
Dock follows whichever login methods your company has enabled under Admin > General settings > Authentication: Google Workspace, Microsoft Workspace, or SAML 2.0. Anonymous presence detection (for example, via Intune Company mode) doesn't require individual sign-in at all, since it tracks occupancy without identifying users.
No. deskbird Dock only detects whether a user's device is connected to a network or monitor that an admin has linked to a specific office or desk. It does not track GPS or physical location, and it never collects browsing data or location while you're away from the office.
Dock does ask for the operating system's location permission on macOS, and on Windows 11 version 24H2 and later. This is only because the operating system requires that permission before any app can read the Wi-Fi network name. No GPS or physical position is collected.
Yes, when a user plugs into a recognized monitor while connected to a recognized office network. If no desk booking exists for that day, Dock creates one for the mapped desk and checks the user in. If a booking exists for a different desk, it is swapped to the mapped desk.
When a user only connects to a recognized office network, Dock checks them into their existing desk and parking bookings but does not create new ones — users can still create those in the deskbird web or mobile app. Booking automations require the User authenticated privacy mode.
It starts the moment the monitor is plugged in, and ends at the end of the user's personal booking hours. If those are not configured, it ends at the end of the office's opening hours. Dock cannot create a booking outside the office's opening hours, so a user plugging in before the office opens is checked into any existing booking but does not get a new one until opening time.
Yes. Default gateway (MAC), Subnets (CIDR) and Public IP all work over both Ethernet and Wi-Fi, so office rules built on these conditions work for either connection type. Wi-Fi SSID and BSSID are only reported over Wi-Fi, so a rule containing them will not match on Ethernet. Add a separate rule for Ethernet if needed — multiple rules per office are combined with OR logic, so connecting to any one of them triggers the automations.
After a network change, the public IP condition is briefly unavailable until Dock re-checks its egress address, so detection over a public-IP rule can take a moment longer on arrival.
As long as each office network and monitor is configured under Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Presence detection, Dock automatically detects the correct office and desk based on the network or monitor the user is connected to. Each office's rule set must resolve to exactly one office. Values can be shared between offices as long as another criterion in the rule tells them apart.
Yes. Go to Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Presence detection > Desk detection, click the gear icon for the office to open its Mapping progress page, then click Export CSV next to Manual mapping on the Mapped tab.
The file contains these columns, in 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 shown in the office's timezone, with the zone included — for example 2026-04-02 10:15 (Europe/Berlin). Export one office at a time.
Yes. The mapped-monitor data is available both as a CSV download and through the deskbird API, so it can be imported into an ITAM or CMDB system manually or pulled automatically on a schedule. Because deskbird Dock detects which monitor is connected at which desk, the export answers the question an asset inventory usually can't: where a given monitor physically sits — no hardware walkthrough needed.
Admins and Office Admins find the occupancy dashboards under Intelligence > Dock analytics, covering office, floor, and desk usage. They show aggregated figures only, so individual employees are never identified. For what each KPI and chart means, see Occupancy analytics (deskbird Dock analytics).
Yes. In the Anonymous privacy mode, activity is collected only at office and company level and is never linked to a person, so occupancy and device-level reporting still work without identifying people. Combined (Workplace Intelligence + Booking) customers lose booking automations in this mode. Configure it under Admin > Workplace Intelligence > Privacy.
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.
Switching to Anonymous also 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 and cannot be recovered by switching back.
Yes. Enterprise IT teams can deploy deskbird Dock centrally via Microsoft Intune to Entra-joined, Intune-managed Windows devices. On managed installs, the app activates silently — no browser sign-in required. After a silent install, Dock starts at the user's next interactive sign-in. See Deploying deskbird Dock via Microsoft Intune.
Windows: uninstall via Settings > Apps > Installed apps. The autostart entry is removed for both installer variants.
macOS, individual install: move deskbird Dock from the Applications folder to Trash, then delete the background launch agent it leaves behind. This is a per-user file the user can remove.
macOS, MDM install: there is no macOS uninstaller, and the launch agent is a system file that requires administrator rights. IT should submit a request through the deskbird Help Center.
On both platforms, sign-in credentials in the OS keychain or Windows Credential Manager, local settings files and diagnostic logs remain after uninstalling. The stored device identifier is designed to survive logout, restart and reinstall.