How to Create and Manage Neighborhoods

Work Areas previously created in the Layout tool are now Neighborhoods and can now be managed in the Assignments tool. 

What are neighborhoods

Neighborhoods are a visual way of organizing the office floor plan to assist specific teams or departments sit together. They allow administrators to group desks together visually on the map. They provide a color-coded, on-map representation of grouped desks, with labels that indicate which desks belong to each neighborhood.

For Admins:

• Visual Planning: Neighborhoods serve as a visual guide for drafting seating plans. The color-coded desks and labels help showcase how the office is organized at a glance.
• Resource Management: Neighborhoods make it easy to see how many desks are and are not allocated to a specific neighborhood. This helps ensure there are enough desks in an area to accommodate a team or department.
• Drafting: Neighborhoods can be drafted across multiple explorations and shared with other team members for alignment before publishing live.

For End Users:

• Wayfinding: Employees looking to book a desk or find their specific desk, the on-map labels and desk styling helps them immediately identify where their team is sitting.
• Improved Collaboration: By naturally guiding everyone on a team to book in the same area, neighborhoods help ensure that time in the office is as productive as possible.

Navigating to neighborhoods

1. Navigate to the Map tab in the main navigation
2. Click the Edit floor button in the top right corner of the map.
3. From the dropdown menu, select either Assignments - Quick edits or Assignments - Scenario planning.

Quick edits vs. Scenario planning

• Quick edits are limited to only one active draft with minimal addition features, and they are best suited for small, routine changes to a floor plan.
• Scenario planning drafts provide a more robust drafting experience. You can create multiple Scenario Planning drafts to explore various floor plan scenarios. You can customize the draft name, clear all assignments, clear all neighborhoods, and share a read-only version with other team members.

Create new neighborhoods

Once inside either a Quick Edit or Scenario Planning draft, you can begin drafting neighborhoods on the map.

New neighborhood via ‘Create new neighborhood’ button

1. Click the Neighborhoods tab in the left sidebar. (The sidebar opens to Assignments by default).

   

2. Click the Create new neighborhood button in the left-hand sidebar.

    

3. This will open a right-hand sidebar titled "New neighborhood".

   

4. Add a name for your neighborhood via the Name text input

5. Pick a color for your neighborhood via the color picker dropdown

    

6. To add a desk, click directly on a desk on the map to instantly add it to the neighborhood.

   

7. To select multiple desks, hold down the Shift key, then click and drag to select multiple desks.

8. 

9. To remove desks, click on any selected desks on the map or click the  [x] button on any added desks in the sidebar
10. To finish creating the neighborhood, click the Create button at the bottom of the sidebar.

New neighborhood via desk selection

1. Click the Neighborhoods tab in the left sidebar. (The sidebar opens to Assignments by default)
2. Click directly on the map to select one or more desks.
3. This will bring up a right-hand overview sidebar for the selected desks.
4. Click  the "Neighborhood" dropdown and click + Create new.

5. This will launch the "New neighborhood" experience with the selected desks pre-added.
6. You can then continue with the rest of the new neighborhood flow as described above.

Viewing, Editing, and Deleting a Neighborhood

Once inside either a Quick Edit or Scenario Planning draft with existing neighborhoods, you can view, edit or delete the existing neighborhoods.

View a neighborhood details

1. Click on the label or left-hand navigation item of an already created neighborhood on the map.
2. This will open a right-hand sidebar with neighborhood details and a summary of included desks.

Edit a neighborhood

1. Click on the label of an already created neighborhood on the map.
2. Click the Edit button at the bottom of the sidebar. (This button is only visible when you are in the Neighborhoods tab of a draft).

3. This will open  "Edit neighborhood" sidebar

4. To edit the name of your neighborhood, edit it via the Name text input
5. To select a new color for your neighborhood, select a new option  via the color picker dropdown
6. To add an additional desk, click directly on a desk on the map to instantly add it to the neighborhood.
7. To add multiple desks at once, hold down the Shift key, then click and drag to select multiple desks.
8. To save your changes, click Save at the bottom of the "Edit neighborhood" sidebar.

Delete a neighborhood

1. Click the Edit button at the bottom of the sidebar. (This button is only visible when you are in the Neighborhoods tab of a draft)
2. Click the Delete button at the bottom sidebar. 

1. Note: Deleting a neighborhood will permanently remove it from the draft. The desks and their existing assignments will remain on the map, but the neighborhood association will be removed.

Set Neighborhood Display Settings

Once inside either a Quick Edit or Scenario Planning draft, you can choose whether or not the unique neighborhood colors are visible to end users.

1. Click the overflow button [...] in the top right of the header.

2. Then, click on Neighborhood display settings.

   

3. An overlay will appear with two options:
   • Show colors: Your users will see the custom neighborhood colors defined in this draft.
   • Hide colors: Your users won't see any custom neighborhood colors.

Select one of the options and click Save.

Note: Neighborhoods that were automatically created from previously existing Work Areas have their colors turned off by default. This is done to maintain a consistent experience for end users. For all new drafts without migrated Work Areas, the colors will be on by default. You can toggle these settings on or off in a draft and then publish the changes if you prefer that end users see the unique colors.

Publishing Neighborhoods

Once you finalized all changes in a draft with new or edited neighborhoods, you can publish the changes to the live map.

1. Click the Review & publish button in the top right corner of the draft.
2. This will open a Review & publish overlay.

3. Use this overlay to review all changes to desk type, seating assignments, and neighborhoods.
4. If all looks correct, you can publish the draft to the live map.
5. The neighborhoods will then be available to end-users navigating the map.

What end-users will see

End-users can use neighborhoods on the map to find and book a desk near their team.

• They will see color-coded labels that show where different teams are sitting on the floor plan.
• Hovering over a neighborhood label will highlight all the desks within that neighborhood, making them easier to distinguish.
• Clicking on a neighborhood label will zoom the map in on the desks in that neighborhood.
• The unique colors of the neighborhood will be displayed, making it simple to identify which desks are included in that neighborhood.
• Users can then click on an available desk to book it within that neighborhood.