This guide covers the settings you add once your offices, floors, spaces and meeting rooms are running: booking rules and check-in, parking, assigned spaces, the office calendar, office functions, hybrid work and room calendar sync. The steps are ordered by how often admins ask about them, so you can start at the top and stop where your team's needs end. Each step explains what the setting does and links to the article with the detailed instructions. Features that need Desks Professional are in Desks: Professional add-ons.
- Before you start
- Set booking rules: check-in and booking limits
- Set up parking and other resources
- Assign spaces to people
- Plan the office calendar: holidays, closures and events
- Set up office functions
- Set up hybrid work: policies, scheduling statuses and automated bookings
- Sync meeting rooms with your calendars
- FAQs
1. Before you start
Every step in this guide is available on all Desks plans. Some steps have limits on Desks Free and Desks Business, listed below. For an overview of what each plan includes, see Feature Availability.
- Role: you need the Global Admin role for every step. Office Admins can change booking settings, parking, assigned spaces, office settings and closures for the offices they manage. Only Global Admins can create hybrid work policies and change Workforce settings. See System roles and permissions.
- Existing setup: your offices, floors, spaces and resources are already created (see Desks: Basic setup). Most settings here are configured per office, so use the office selector at the top of each admin page to check you are in the right office.
⚠️ Plan limits: On Desks Free and Desks Business, your company can have 1 hybrid work policy (active and scheduled policies both count), up to 5 active office events, and office functions can be assigned to 2 people in total. Desks Professional and above removes these limits and adds approval flows for hybrid work policies.
2. Set booking rules: check-in and booking limits
Booking rules decide how far ahead people can book and whether they have to confirm that they actually came in. Check-in frees up desks and parking spots that stay empty, so others can use them. Desks and parking spots share one set of booking settings per office.
Check-in
- Go to Admin > Desks, parking & others: Booking settings and select the office.
- In the Check-in section, choose No check-in, Check-in with click and/or QR Codes or Check-in with QR Codes only.
- If you turn on check-in, set the grace period and the Earliest auto-cancellation time. Bookings without check-in are canceled after the grace period, but never before that time.
- Click Save.
Meeting rooms have their own check-in settings under Admin > Meeting rooms: General settings. How the methods, reminders and auto-cancellation work together, with examples: Check-in and auto-cancellation settings.
⚠️ Important: Before you choose a QR code option, download the QR codes and place them at the desks and parking spots. Click Get QR Codes in the Check-in section for all codes of the office, or use the QR code icon next to a floor, area or resource in Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces. See QR codes. Users check in as described in Check in to your desk or parking booking and Check in using a QR code.
Booking limits
- What is the maximum booking timeframe for resource bookings? Set how many days in advance each role can book desks and parking spots, from 0 (same day only) to 365 days. It does not apply to meeting rooms.
- Users and Group manager cannot book more than one desk or parking spot at the same date and time: prevents double bookings. Global Admins, Office Admins and Managers are exempt.
Both settings are on the same page. Full instructions: Booking settings.
3. Set up parking and other resources
Besides desks, users can book parking spots and other resource types in the same app. Parking follows the same booking settings as desks, so there are no separate parking rules to maintain.
- Parking: in Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces, add an area of type Parking area to a floor. Its Capacity is the number of parking spots. Then add the spots and decide who can park. Office Admins can set up parking for the offices they manage. Step by step: Set up parking.
- Other resource types: open an area in Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces and add resources there, alone or in bulk. See Desks, Parking Spots and Other Resources.
Users book both from the same place as desks. See Book a parking spot or other resource.
4. Assign spaces to people
Assign a desk or parking spot to a person who needs the same space every day. An assigned space is booked automatically when that person sets their status to Office.
- Go to Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces and open the area with the resource.
- Edit the resource and restrict its access to a single user.
- Optional: turn on Allow others to book this space if the assigned user is not in the office.
To assign many desks at once, use the assignment tool on the floor plan. Full instructions: Desks, Parking Spots and Other Resources: Assigned spaces and Floor plans: Assign desks on the floor plan.
💡 Tip: With the option from step 3 turned on, an assigned space is freed for others only on days the assignee plans a status such as Absent or Mobile work. If no status is set, the space stays blocked, so encourage assignees to plan their week.
5. Plan the office calendar: holidays, closures and events
Keep each office's calendar accurate, so people know when it is closed and when it is worth coming in.
- Public holidays: in Admin > Workplace > Office settings, select the office and choose a regional holiday calendar under Public holidays. Users with this office as their main office inherit it, and holidays show up in their schedule. You can set a different calendar for single users in their user details. See Office settings: Public holidays.
- Close a space indefinitely: in Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces, select the office, floor, area or resource, click Manage and add an Indefinite closure. The space is hidden from users until you reopen it. Each space can have one indefinite closure. See Closing spaces.
- Office events: in Admin > Workforce > Events, click Add event to invite groups, single users or whole offices to a team lunch, workshop or celebration. You can also let Managers, Group managers or Users create events. See Events.
⚠️ Important: Closures don't apply to meeting rooms. Meeting rooms keep their own Active / Inactive toggle, and their existing bookings are not canceled when the office or floor around them is closed.
6. Set up office functions
Office functions show who holds an on-site responsibility in each office: First aider, Fire responder, Evacuation assistant or Key holder. Colleagues and admins can then find the right contact quickly.
- Go to Admin > User management: Users, open the three-dot menu next to Invite users and select Office function settings.
- Turn on the functions your company uses. Optional: turn on Allow users to add their own office functions.
- Click Save, then assign functions to users in the Office functions tab of each user, per office.
Full instructions: Office functions. If users add functions themselves, point them to Add an office function to your profile.
7. Set up hybrid work: policies, scheduling statuses and automated bookings
These settings connect where people plan to work with the desks and parking spots they get.
Hybrid work policy
A policy sets how many days people are expected in the office, or the maximum number of remote days, per week, month or year. Go to Admin > Workforce > Hybrid work policies and click Add policy. Setup has three steps: Configuration, Assignees and Additional info. See Hybrid work policies.
Approval flows let managers approve schedules that go beyond the policy, or approve every schedule. You choose the approval flow while you create the policy.
Scheduling statuses
Scheduling statuses are the options people pick when they plan their week, such as Office, Mobile work or Absent. In Admin > Workforce > Workforce settings, go to Scheduling statuses to rename statuses, set their color and icon and allow them for half a day. To create your own, click Add scheduling status and choose the status type Custom. See Workforce settings: Scheduling statuses.
Automated bookings
With automated bookings, deskbird books a desk, a parking spot or both for users on the days they plan to be in the office.
- Go to Admin > Desks, parking & others: Booking settings and select the office.
- In the Automated bookings section, turn on Desks, Parking or both, and click Save.
- Each user then turns it on in Profile > Hybrid preferences with Use automated booking.
Full instructions, including how deskbird picks a resource: Set up automated bookings. User steps: Manage your profile: Hybrid preferences and Schedule your week.
8. Sync meeting rooms with your calendars
With room calendar sync, meeting room bookings stay in sync with the room calendars in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. A room booked in Outlook or Google Calendar is blocked in deskbird too, and the other way around.
- Go to Admin > Company: Integrations and open Rooms calendar sync.
- Connect your calendar provider and grant the required permissions.
- Import your room calendars as meeting rooms.
Step by step: Sync meeting rooms with Microsoft 365 or Sync meeting rooms with Google Workspace. For an overview of both calendar integrations, see Calendar sync for schedule status and meeting rooms.
⚠️ Important: A meeting room created in deskbird can't be converted into a synced room later. If you plan to sync a room, import it from your calendar instead of creating it in deskbird.
For the rest of the meeting room setup, such as restricted rooms, catering and services and room kiosks, see Rooms Plus: setup.
9. FAQs
- Check-in is turned on for the office, and people forgot to check in within the grace period.
- With Check-in with QR Codes only, users can only check in by scanning the code at the space in the deskbird mobile app.
- Check-in reminders help people check in on time. They can turn on notifications in their profile.
If check-in is not needed for an office, choose No check-in: bookings then stay in place. See Check-in and auto-cancellation settings.
As far as the maximum booking timeframe for their role allows, from 0 to 365 days. You set it per office and per role in Admin > Desks, parking & others: Booking settings (section What is the maximum booking timeframe for resource bookings?). It applies to desks and parking spots, not to meeting rooms. See Booking settings.
No. Desks and parking spots share all booking settings of an office, including check-in. You can still limit who can park with access rules on the parking area. See Set up parking: Control who can park.
Yes, if you turn on Allow others to book this space if the assigned user is not in the office for that desk. The desk becomes bookable on days the assignee plans a status such as Absent or Mobile work. On days without a status, it stays blocked.
No. Public holiday calendars are predefined regional calendars and can't be edited. You can choose a calendar per office and override it for single users. See Office settings: Public holidays.
On Desks Free and Desks Business, your company can have one hybrid work policy in total, and a scheduled policy counts too. Desks Professional and above includes unlimited policies. See Hybrid work policies.
- Automated bookings are turned on for this office and resource type in Admin > Desks, parking & others: Booking settings.
- The user turned on Use automated booking in Profile > Hybrid preferences.
- The day has the status Office in the user's schedule. Fixed office days from a hybrid work policy don't create bookings on their own.
- The day is within the maximum booking timeframe for the user's role, and any manager approval for the status is done.
No. Meeting rooms use their own Active / Inactive toggle instead of closures. Synced meeting rooms may still be bookable from Outlook or Google Calendar, depending on your calendar setup. See Closing spaces.