Best practices for space efficiency

Introduction

This guide gives best practices for space efficiency. Space efficiency means that booked rooms and desks are actually used. When people book a space and do not show up, other people cannot use it. Robin can release these unused bookings and show you where space goes to waste.

What is an abandoned meeting?

An abandoned meeting is a room booking that nobody checks in to. Robin can automatically release the room after a set time so that other people can book it.

What is an abandoned desk?

An abandoned desk is a hot or hotel desk reservation that nobody checks in to. Robin can cancel the reservation so that the desk becomes free again.

Why is space efficiency important?

About 20% of space reservations are typically abandoned. This often happens when people add more than one room to an event, or when they cancel or move an event but do not update the room reservation. These "ghost meetings" make rooms look busy when they are empty. Releasing them gives time back to people who need a room now. Accurate check-in data also shows you how much space your office really needs.

Best practices for space efficiency

• Set up room displays. Pair room displays with your spaces first. Abandoned meeting protection works only on spaces that have a room display.

• Turn on meeting check-ins. The Meeting check-ins setting shows a check-in button on the room display. Robin needs this setting to cancel abandoned meetings. People can also check in from the web dashboard, mobile app, Slack, Teams, or email.

• Set the meeting confirmation window. This window controls how far in advance people can check in to meetings. The default is 2 hours. You can set it from 10 minutes to 12 hours under Manage > Organization > Event Customizations. Meetings booked inside the window confirm automatically.

• Turn on abandoned meeting protection. Enable it for a whole building or for specific spaces, in the Display scheduling section. Then set the Abandoned Threshold. This is the time Robin waits before it cancels an unconfirmed meeting. The default is 10 minutes. Meetings of 8 hours or more are never released.

• Clear forgotten recurring meetings. Use Strikes for recurring events to set how many meetings in a row can go unattended before Robin removes the space from the series.

• Tell people about back-to-back check-ins. When someone checks in on the room display, Robin also checks them in to their next meetings in the same room. Other check-in methods do not do this.

• Turn on desk check-ins. Enable desk check-ins for a building or for desk groups. For the most accurate data, turn on local desk check-ins only so that people must be in the office to check in.

• Release unclaimed desks. Turn on abandoned desk protection for hot and hotel desks. Set the abandoned desk threshold. We recommend 4 hours to give people a fair grace period. Use the remote check-in window to control how early people can confirm a desk from outside the office.

Measuring your results

Use these dashboards to find unused bookings and right-size your space:

• Space Insights: usage dashboard. The Recaptured time chart shows the total time released when nobody checked in, and how much of it people used for ad hoc events. The Utilization chart shows the percentage of time that spaces were reserved. 40–60% is healthy. Under 40% means you can repurpose some spaces. Over 60% means people likely struggle to find a room. The Event Fit and Space Type charts show which kinds of space are in the highest demand.
• Space Insights: Space check-in dashboard. Shows the space check-in rate and when people check in. A low rate can mean people do not use the spaces or do not follow the check-in policy.
• Desk Insights: The Desk Check-In dashboard. Shows the desk check-in rate over time. Use it to decide if you need as many desks as you have.
• Workplace Insights dashboard. The Unused space by capacity recommendation finds spaces of a certain capacity with consistently low usage. Use it to reconfigure or remove space that does not fit your workforce.
• Stack Visualizations dashboard. Compares desks checked into with desks reserved or assigned, per department. The gap between them is your no-show space.

For raw data, use the workplace data exports. The "Automatically unbooked at" column shows released meetings. In the desk export, the "Canceled at" and "Cancellation type" fields show released desks.