Onboarding to TMU Workspace Booking

Welcome to the TMU Workspace Booking system onboarding process! The following information will help you identify the data and workspace configurations you need to prepare to set up the booking system for your spaces. This document is also  (google doc) available as a Google Doc (external link)  for you to make as a notation-friendly copy.

The Space Planning team in Facilities Management and Development (“Facilities”) will be available to assist you with your customization.

Approximate implementation timeline

• Early-adopter groups will be invited to a TMU Workspace Booking demonstration to be introduced to the system and review the information that must be collected prior to onboarding.
• Groups that feel they have met the data requirements to proceed will be scheduled for onboarding by Space Planning.
• The estimated implementation time for each group is 4-6 weeks depending on their size, data and the complexity of their space(s) and user needs.
• Once the first group of early adopters is successfully onboarded, the system will be opened up to other university groups who are ready.

How you use your space: A checklist of key considerations

To ensure a successful setup, you must understand the operational needs of your group’s work and have defined goals for how your spaces should be used and administered. The following are some key considerations to determine prior to the system setup:

• Which spaces will be bookable? Offices, meeting rooms, workstations, collaborative spaces, team rooms etc.
• Will some areas be non-bookable and dedicated to specific employees? Will some areas be available only for short-term work such as a drop-in office or a touchdown desk?
• Will you want limits on who can book the spaces you use (e.g. departmental users only, or specific teams)?
• Should frequent collaborators from other departments be able to book some of your spaces to facilitate interdepartmental work?
• Do you want to limit the frequency that individual users can book the same space to ensure equitable access to popular or high-demand spaces?
• Do you have working hours that you would like to specify in the booking system?
• Do any spaces need additional permissions to book?
• Are there other considerations specific to your team and how they work?
• For future space administration, what metrics do you want the system to collect to help you optimize your space use?
  • How often are your spaces booked and then not used? 
  • How often are some spaces types used compared to others? 
  • Are there spaces that no one is using that could be reassigned? 

Space planning will help advise how best to set up the system so you are able to collect the information to support all your future space needs requests.

Assigning a departmental administrator for space bookings

Departments will need to designate a booking system administrator who will be responsible for the setup and maintenance of departmental spaces in the TMU Workspace Booking system.

They will be able to control how spaces can be booked within the app, get space reports and manage the space to align with operational needs. They will also be the first point of contact for departmental troubleshooting. Training will be provided for this role as part of the onboarding implementation process. 

Roles and responsibilities

System setup

Departments and user groups will need to designate their booking system administrator who will need to work with the Facilities space-planning team to provide current furniture configurations on floor plans and develop workspace numbering, space-use and booking parameters for each space.

Space Planning will assist with the collecting the data required and creating floor plans to upload to the TMU Workspace Booking system.

Booking parameters and oversight

Departments and user groups will define the department’s approach to space use (the guidelines and restrictions for space bookings). The group will assign a booking administrator to manage booking spaces that require formal permission to use and/or to manage bookings for employees who don’t manage their own calendars or meetings.

Space Planning will assist departments in identifying and implementing their booking parameters and set them up in the TMU Workspace Booking system.

Reporting

Departments and user groups will identify the space-use metrics they need to capture to further refine and develop their space allotments and usage guidelines. They will be responsible for generating the reports they need for analysis.

Space Planning will oversee the overall reporting functionality in the system.

Departmental Communications, Training and Troubleshooting

Departments and user groups will maintain their specific internal guidelines and documentation and provide change-management communications to their user group(s). The departmental booking administrator will be the first point of contact for any system issue. Issues that cannot be resolved should be escalated to the Facilities space-planning team or CCS, depending on the nature of the issue.

Space Planning will provide general training resources, FAQs and troubleshooting information on the TMU Workspace Booking’s website. They will facilitate the resolution of system-related issues and/or escalate them to CCS as necessary.

Setting up your data

Documenting spaces

Once you have all your planning complete, Space Planning will meet with you to go through the Departmental Workspace Data worksheet and prepare the next steps of the process together. Below is a summary of what the working meetings will cover.

Room/Seat Number - Together, you will collaborate with Space Planning to list all bookable rooms and workstations. Please note: all rooms (offices, meeting rooms) must retain their existing room numbers. Workstations may be assigned their own unique identifying number (“seat number”).

Where there are multiple workstations in a space, the workstation numbering convention is as follows: 

Workspace Types - The system has been set up with standard bookable space types: (office, workstation, quiet room, meeting room etc.) A full list of common space types and definitions are in the Departmental Workspace Data worksheet.  If you have a space type not listed there, the Space Planning team will add it into the system for you.

Features - Features will be added to each of the bookable workspaces so your users can search spaces based on features (e.g. double monitors, window, standing desk) next to a window) The system has been set up with standard features for each bookable workspace. If you have workspace features not listed here, please note in red on the list and we will add it into the system for you.

User Permissions - If there will be different booking rules for different employees or groups in your department, these can be documented here. Space Planning will work through the details of this section with you.

Floor Plans

In addition to the data collected in the spreadsheet above, the booking system will be able to display a floor plan that corresponds to workstation numbering. Space Planning can provide draft floor plans. Departments will need to note any changes to furniture configurations to ensure that what is displayed in the booking system accurately reflects what is on site.