This guide walks you through the first setup of deskbird for desk booking, in the order the steps depend on each other: offices first, then floors and spaces, floor plans, users and groups, access rules and meeting rooms. Each step explains what to set up and why, and links to the article with the detailed instructions. When you finish, your team can find and book desks and meeting rooms in your offices.
- Before you start
- Create your offices
- Add floors and spaces
- Upload your floor plans
- Add users and create groups
- Restrict access to offices and areas
- Set up meeting rooms
- Publish your setup and go live
- FAQs
1. Before you start
The steps in this guide are available on all Desks plans (Desks Free, Desks Business, Desks Professional and Desks Enterprise). Where a linked article describes an option that needs a higher plan, it is marked there. For an overview, see Feature Availability.
- Role: you need the Global Admin role to complete every step. Office Admins can change the setup of the offices they manage. See System roles and permissions.
- Office details: the name and address of each office, and its opening hours.
- Floor plan images: one image per floor, ideally as .svg (.pdf, .jpg, .jpeg and .png also work, up to 15 MB).
- Team structure: the departments or teams you want as groups, for example to reserve an area for one team.
- Meeting rooms: whether your rooms should sync with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 calendars, or live only in deskbird.
💡 Tip: Save new offices as a draft while you set them up. Draft offices, floors and areas stay hidden from users until you publish them, so you can build the whole setup first and go live in one step (see Publish your setup and go live).
2. Create your offices
Offices are the starting point: floors, spaces, access rules and bookings all belong to an office, so create every office before you continue.
- Go to Admin > Workplace > Office settings and click Add office.
- Enter the office name and address, and save the office as a draft.
- Select the office in Office settings and configure its opening hours. Opening hours define what a full-day booking covers and limit when desks can be booked.
Repeat these steps for each office. Full instructions: Office settings: Create and manage an office.
3. Add floors and spaces
Floors and areas describe the layout of each office. Users book the desks, parking spots and other resources inside these areas.
- Go to Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces and add the floors of the office.
- Add areas to each floor and choose the area type, for example Desk area, Meeting room or Parking area. Give each area a name and a capacity.
- Create the desks, parking spots and other resources inside each area.
Full instructions: Floors and spaces and Desks, Parking Spots and Other Resources. If your office has parking, see Set up parking.
4. Upload your floor plans
A floor plan shows users where each desk and room is, so they can pick a spot near their team and find it on the day. Upload one floor plan per floor and place the areas and resources you created in the previous step.
- In Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces, open the floor and add a floor plan.
- Upload the floor plan image.
- Draw each area on the plan, place its desks and other resources, and save regularly.
- Publish the floor plan.
Full instructions: Floor plans, including placing areas and resources and publishing.
5. Add users and create groups
Groups let you manage access and planning for whole teams instead of single users. Add your users first, then sort them into groups.
Add users
- Invite people in Admin > User management: Users with Invite users, or upload them with a CSV file.
- By default, people with your company email domain can also register on their own and are added to your account automatically.
- To keep users and groups in sync with your identity provider or HR system, see the options in User and group management. With UDM Plus, set up SSO, SCIM and your HRIS step by step in User & Data Management (UDM) Plus: setup.
Create groups
- Go to Admin > User management: Groups, add a group for each team or department, add its members and, if needed, a Group manager who can plan and book for the group.
- Sub-groups do not inherit access from their parent group. If you restrict access by group in the next step, add each group on its own.
Full instructions: Users and Groups.
6. Restrict access to offices and areas
By default, everyone can book everything. Use access rules where only certain teams should use an office or an area, for example a team zone or a restricted floor. You can restrict access on two levels:
- Office: in Admin > Workplace > Office settings, choose Shared (everyone can book this office) or Restricted (only selected groups). See Office settings: Manage access.
- Area: in Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces, edit the area and choose Open access (all users with access to the office) or Restricted access (only selected users or groups). You can also hide a restricted area from users without access. See Floors and spaces: Manage access.
⚠️ Important: Before you restrict an office, add every user who has an assigned desk or parking spot there to one of the allowed groups. Otherwise, their assignments are removed because they no longer have access.
7. Set up meeting rooms
Meeting rooms can be booked in deskbird in two ways. Decide per room before you create it:
- Synced with your calendar: bookings are kept in sync with the room calendars in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, so a room booked in Outlook or Google Calendar is also blocked in deskbird and the other way around. Set it up under Admin > Company: Integrations. See Calendar sync for schedule status and meeting rooms.
- Created in deskbird only: add the room as a meeting room on its floor in Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces, then set its capacity and access.
⚠️ Important: A meeting room created in deskbird can't be converted into a synced room later. To sync it afterwards, you need to create the room again as a synced room.
To help users find the right room, add equipment such as a screen or whiteboard in Admin > Meeting rooms: General settings. Full instructions, including check-in, approvals and catering, are in Meeting Rooms. For restricted rooms, catering and services and room kiosks, continue with Rooms Plus: setup.
8. Publish your setup and go live
When the setup is complete, make it visible to your users:
- Publish each office in Admin > Workplace > Office settings.
- Publish any floors and areas you saved as drafts in Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces. Publishing an area can't be undone.
- Check that each floor plan is published.
- Book a desk and a meeting room yourself to check that everything looks right.
- Let your team know they can start booking, and share the Quick start guide for users with them.
💡 Tip: Global Admins, Office Admins and Managers can book any area, regardless of access rules. To check a restricted area, ask a colleague without an admin role to try to book it.
Next steps
- Desks: Advanced setup: booking rules and check-in, parking, assigned spaces, holidays and closures, office functions, hybrid work and room calendar sync. Available on every plan.
- Desks: Professional add-ons: temporary closures, auto check-in via geolocation, priority access, workplace ticketing and the Public API, for Desks Professional and Desks Enterprise.
- Add-ons: Rooms Plus: setup, Visitors Plus: setup, User & Data Management (UDM) Plus: setup and deskbird Dock: Overview & Setup.
9. FAQs
We recommend it, because each step builds on the one before. Floors and spaces belong to an office, desks can only be placed on a floor plan inside an area, and access rules need the groups you want to allow. Meeting rooms can be set up at any point after the office exists.
Not if you save it as a draft. Draft offices are hidden from users until you publish them, new floors are added as drafts, and you can save new areas as drafts too. Publish everything when the setup is complete.
No. As long as an area is published and not closed, users can book its desks, even if the area isn't placed on a floor plan. A floor plan makes it much easier for users to find the right spot, so we recommend adding one before you go live.
Create each building as its own office. If people should share parking across the buildings and see colleagues in the building next door, the offices can be grouped into an office site. Office sites is in beta and available on request. See Office sites.
If your team books rooms in Outlook or Google Calendar today, sync them, so bookings stay consistent in both places. Rooms created only in deskbird suit offices without room calendars. Decide before you create a room: a room created in deskbird can't be converted into a synced room later. See Calendar sync for schedule status and meeting rooms.
- Check whether the office is restricted in Admin > Workplace > Office settings. If it is, the user can only get it as main office if they have access to it.
- Check the user's groups in Admin > User management: Groups and add the user to a group that has access to the office.
- If access was granted to a parent group only, add the user's own group too: sub-groups don't inherit access.
Yes. Global Admins can open the in-app Setup guide at any time via their profile picture or initials > Setup guide. It lists the setup steps that apply to your company's subscription, with links to the right settings. Steps are not marked as done automatically, so check them off yourself as you go.
Once people are booking, most teams look at how bookings work in day-to-day use next:
- Booking settings: how far ahead people can book, per role.
- Check-in and auto-cancellation settings: release desks that were booked but not used.
- Set up parking: parking areas and spots.