Floors and spaces

The Floors & spaces section in deskbird lets you define and manage your office layout, from floors to individual desk areas, meeting rooms, parking spaces, and more. This setup forms the foundation for interactive floor plans, access restrictions, and user booking management.

1. Create, edit and delete floors and spaces
2. Meeting rooms and desks, parking spots and other resources
3. Floor plans
4. Manage access
5. Weekday-based access rules

1. Create, edit and delete floors and spaces

Access the Admin and navigate to Workplace > Floors & spaces. A left-side panel displays all floors, making it easy to switch between floors without losing context.

Floors

• Add a floor: Click + Add floor. A new floor appears in the list and in the main panel on the right. Use the pencil icon next to the floor name to rename it (e.g. "Floor 01"), and click Manage to add or delete closures. 
  💡 Note: Newly created floors are added as a draft by default. You can publish the floor once you are ready.
• Rename or delete a floor: Click the pencil icon next to the floor name. A pop-up appears, allowing you to rename the floor or delete it.
• Change a floor's status: Click Manage at the top of the areas list. This opens a dedicated pop-up to update the floor's status. 
  ⚠️ Closing a floor will delete all existing bookings on that floor. This cannot be undone. Users cannot book on a closed (inactive) floor until it is activated again. Read more details here: Closing a space
• Download QR codes for the entire floor

Areas

• Add an area: Select a floor and click + Add area. Choose the area type (Desk area, Meeting room, Parking area, or Other), then define the Name, Capacity, and optional Description. 
  💡 Note: Newly created areas are active by default. You can use the toggle to save it as a draft upon creation.
• Edit an area: Click the pen icon next to each area. This opens a page where you can:
  • Rename the area, and change the description
  • Delete the area
  • Define access to the area
  • Create and manage resources in that area
  • Manage the status of the area via Manage 
    ⚠️ Closing an area will delete all existing bookings in that area. This cannot be undone. Users cannot book a closed area until it is activated again. Read more details here: Closing a space
• Download QR codes for the entire area

2. Meeting rooms and desks, parking spots and other resources

To ensure each type of resource is fully documented, we've created dedicated setup guides:

• Meeting Rooms
• Desks, Parking Spots and Other Resources

3. Floor plans

After setting up your floors and areas, you can visually place them on a floor plan to help users navigate and book more easily.

Full instructions are available in our Floor plans article.

💡 Note: Areas do not need to be positioned on the floor plan to be bookable. As long as an area is active, users can make bookings.

4. Manage access

deskbird lets you control who can book which areas, supporting use cases such as team-specific zones, VIP-only sections, or shared access with priority rules.

💡 Global Admins, Office Admins, and Managers can always book any area, regardless of restrictions. That also applies to bookings made on behalf of others.

To configure access for an area:

1. Go to Floors & spaces in the Admin.
2. Select the floor.
3. Click the pencil icon in the area row.

You can choose from three access types:

• Open access: Default option. All users with office access can book the area.
• Restricted access: Only selected users or groups may book the area. You can also hide the area from the floor plan for users without access. 
  
  Note: When an area is hidden, users without access will not be able to see individuals on the floor plan who have booked in that area. This can be relevant for specific office functions. Global Admins, Office Admins, and Managers can always see all areas.

Professional and above

• Priority access: Grants selected groups or users access to book an area. Other users can book only:

  • Starting one day in advance of a specified time
  • If desks or spaces remain available after priority users have booked

  Example: Finance has priority for 4 desks. If only 3 are booked, another team member (e.g., Marketing) may book the remaining desk one day in advance, starting at 4 PM.

💡 Tip: You can refine access further with weekday-based rules. See Weekday-based access rules below.

5. Weekday-based access rules

deskbird allows admins to control which days of the week specific users or groups can book a desk or parking space. This adds a new layer of granularity on top of the existing Restricted access and Priority access types, and also works alongside Open access.

⚠️ Important: Weekday-based access rules apply to desks, parking spots, and other resources only. Meeting rooms are not supported and continue to use the standard access model.

How it works

Each access rule includes an Allowed weekdays setting. Per rule, admins choose which weekdays apply — for example, Engineering on Mon/Wed/Fri and Sales on Tue/Thu. Multiple rules with different day patterns can coexist on the same area.

Set up weekday-based access rules

1. Go to Admin > Workplace > Floors & spaces.
2. Select the floor and click the pencil icon next to the area you want to configure, or click on the floor row.
3. Click on the Access section to open the Access configuration dialog.
4. Select Restricted Access or Priority Access from the dropdown.
5. Add the users or groups and select the Allowed weekdays for this rule.
6. To add another rule with a different day pattern, click + Add rule.
7. Click Update to save.

The area detail page shows a summary of all configured rules, including the assigned weekdays and users or groups per rule.

What users see

Users receive clear messaging when weekday restrictions apply:

• On the floor plan and in the booking sidebar, a tooltip informs users which days they can book, for example: "You can't book here on Tuesday, only on: Monday, Wednesday, Friday."
• In the booking calendar, restricted days are disabled. A tooltip explains the restriction, for example: "You don't have priority to book here on Friday, only on: Tuesday, Thursday."
• For Priority access areas, non-priority users can still book on restricted days under the standard priority rules.