Buyer's guide
How to choose, and switch, your workplace platform.
Eight questions to put to every vendor, what a good answer looks like, a requirements checklist for your RFP, and the steps to move from the tool you have today.
The scorecard
Tick what each vendor can prove.
- 01
Occupancy you can defend
“Where does your occupancy number come from, and would finance accept it?”
A good answerOne number built from the systems you already run, not a single source.
How Kadence answersKadence Sense combines bookings, badge data, Wi-Fi/network, rooms, authentication and Agent check-in.
- 02
Planning that reaches the building
“When the plan changes, what writes the change back?”
A good answerThe stack plan, the move list and the bookings update in one system.
How Kadence answersSpaceOps plans the change; when it executes, it writes back into WorkOps instantly.
- 03
Adoption where people already work
“Can employees book without opening another app?”
A good answerBooking inside the tools employees use every day.
How Kadence answersMicrosoft Teams, Slack, Outlook and Google Workspace.
- 04
Identity and security
“Which identity providers, and what evidence for security review?”
A good answerSSO, directory sync and third-party evidence your security team can check.
How Kadence answersOkta, Microsoft, Google and JumpCloud sign-in with directory sync. SOC 2 and Cyber Essentials. Penetration-tested at least annually.
- 05
Data protection
“Where is data encrypted, and what do you store?”
A good answerEncryption in transit and at rest, and only the data the product needs.
How Kadence answersGDPR and CCPA aligned. Encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest.
- 06
Open data and AI access
“Can our own systems and AI assistants use the data?”
A good answerA documented API, plus a supported way for AI assistants to act on the workplace.
How Kadence answersAn open API and an MCP server that lets your own agents act on the workplace.
- 07
Time to value
“What does it take to get the first building live?”
A good answerLive on your existing directory and floor plans, without a specialist project.
How Kadence answersWorkOps activates on your existing employee directory and floor plans. Most teams are live within days.
- 08
Commercials that follow use
“What are we billed for, and what is the commitment?”
A good answerBilling that scales with real use, with the term stated up front.
How Kadence answersActive-user billing, with a one-year minimum billed annually.
The RFP checklist
66 requirements to put in your RFP.
A vendor-neutral requirements checklist for enterprise workplace platforms. Each row names the team that should verify the answer and a suggested weight. Change the weights to fit your project.
How to run the evaluation
- 1
Set your must-haves first
Mark each row Must, Should or Could before any vendor sees it. A missed must-have ends the evaluation early and saves everyone time.
- 2
Send every vendor the same list
Ask for evidence on each row: a demo of the feature, a document or a report. A yes without evidence scores zero.
- 3
Give IT and security their rows early
Identity, directory sync, data hosting, any desktop agent and the integrations are IT's project. Start their review in week one.
- 4
Score each row from 0 to 3
0 for no answer, 1 for a promise, 2 for a document, 3 for a working demo. Multiply by the weight, and compare totals only after must-haves pass.
- 5
Pilot the shortlist on one building
Run the finalist on real floors with real presence data. Check the reports against what you see in the building.
Presence data and check-in
The occupancy number is only as good as the signals behind it. Ask how each one is collected.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Which check-in methods are supported: mobile, web, kiosk, room display, badge, Wi-Fi or network, desktop agent? | Workplace | Must |
| 02 | Can presence be detected without employees opening an app? How does it behave on VPN and across floors? | IT | Must |
| 03 | How are people who turn up without a booking counted in occupancy? | Workplace | Should |
| 04 | Can bookings, badge data and network signals be combined, and can you see which source each check-in came from? | Workplace | Must |
| 05 | What hardware, if any, does presence detection need, and who installs and maintains it? | IT | Should |
| 06 | How are unused bookings released, and can each building set its own check-in window? | Workplace | Must |
Booking and space rules
Rules people can follow, enforced by the system rather than by memo.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07 | Can employees book desks, rooms, parking, lockers and other spaces ahead, on repeat and on the day? | Workplace | Must |
| 08 | Can you set booking windows, maximum and default durations, and limits per person or team? | Workplace | Must |
| 09 | Can selected teams get priority access to spaces before general release? | Workplace | Should |
| 10 | Are assigned desks, team neighborhoods and neighborhoods that change by date all supported? | Workplace | Must |
| 11 | Can admins close a building, floor or single space for holidays or works, and tell the people affected? | Workplace | Should |
| 12 | Can assistants book on behalf of others, with a record of who made each booking? | Workplace | Should |
Identity and provisioning (SSO and SCIM)
IT owns these rows. Settle them early; they decide how fast the first building goes live.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Which identity providers are supported for single sign-on (SAML, OpenID Connect, Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, Google)? | IT | Must |
| 14 | Can single sign-on be made mandatory for every user? | IT | Should |
| 15 | Is SCIM or directory sync supported, and are leavers removed automatically? | IT | Must |
| 16 | Can teams be built from directory attributes such as department, cost center or location? | IT | Should |
| 17 | Can admin rights be limited by role and by building? | IT | Must |
| 18 | If a desktop agent is used, can it sign in silently with your identity provider and deploy through your device management tool? | IT | Should |
Microsoft Teams, Outlook and collaboration tools
Adoption follows the tools people already use. Microsoft shops should weight these rows highly.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | Can people book desks and rooms inside Microsoft Teams? | IT | Must |
| 20 | Does room booking sync both ways with Outlook or Google Calendar, including edits and cancellations? | IT | Must |
| 21 | Is there an Outlook add-in for finding and booking rooms and desks? | IT | Should |
| 22 | Is Slack supported for the parts of the company that use it? | IT | Could |
| 23 | Which permissions does each integration request, and can your admins review them before consent? | IT | Must |
| 24 | Are there native iOS and Android apps, and which languages does the product support? | Workplace | Should |
Data hosting, retention and security
Ask for evidence, not a yes. Reports, certificates and documents your security team can read.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | Which independent certifications can the vendor show, such as SOC 2 Type II, and how recent is the report? | Security | Must |
| 26 | In which regions can your data be hosted, and can you choose the region? | Security | Must |
| 27 | Is data encrypted in transit and at rest? | Security | Must |
| 28 | Can you set how long personal data is kept, and delete it on request? | Security | Must |
| 29 | How often does a third party penetration test the product, and can you see a summary of the results? | Security | Should |
| 30 | Can audit logs be exported to your SIEM, and how much history is kept? | Security | Should |
| 31 | Which sub-processors handle your data, and where are they? | Security | Must |
Privacy and works-council readiness
Presence data raises fair questions. Answer them before rollout, not after.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | What exactly does presence detection collect, and what does it not collect? | HR and legal | Must |
| 33 | Can employees hide their location from colleagues? | HR and legal | Should |
| 34 | Can reports show teams and departments without naming individuals? | HR and legal | Should |
| 35 | Can presence detection be turned on country by country or site by site, so you can roll out by region? | IT | Should |
| 36 | Will the vendor supply documents a works council or data protection officer can review, such as a data map and help with a data protection impact assessment? | HR and legal | Must |
Reporting and exports
The reports leadership will ask for, and the exports finance will check.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 37 | Does reporting show attendance, occupancy, no-shows and peak use by building, floor and team? | Workplace | Must |
| 38 | Can you decide what counts as an office visit, for example whether parking or lockers count? | Workplace | Could |
| 39 | Can you build custom dashboards, including attendance against your hybrid policy? | Workplace | Should |
| 40 | Can every report be exported, with who made each booking and who checked in? | Workplace | Must |
| 41 | Can reporting data reach your BI tool, such as Power BI, through an API or a scheduled export? | Finance | Should |
| 42 | How far back does history go, and is it kept if you change plans or packages? | Finance | Could |
API, integrations and AI
Your data should reach your own systems, and your own AI assistants, under the permissions you set.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 43 | Is there a documented REST API, with keys you can create and revoke? | IT | Must |
| 44 | Are webhooks available to send real-time events to other systems? | IT | Should |
| 45 | Can your HR system sync new starters, leavers and leave dates? | IT | Should |
| 46 | Can badge or access-control data be brought in as a presence signal? | IT | Should |
| 47 | Can AI assistants such as Copilot, ChatGPT or Claude act on the workplace through a supported interface, such as an MCP server, under each user's own permissions? | IT | Could |
| 48 | What are the API rate limits, and is there a test environment? | IT | Could |
Visitors
Front desk, security and the visitor log your auditors may ask for.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 49 | Can hosts invite visitors and get notified when they arrive? | Workplace | Should |
| 50 | Is there a self-service kiosk or QR check-in, with badge printing? | Workplace | Should |
| 51 | Can visitors sign NDAs or site policies at check-in? | Workplace | Could |
| 52 | Is there a central visitor log you can export? | Security | Should |
Moves and space planning
Where a lease event, move or consolidation is coming, these rows decide the business case.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 53 | Can you plan new starters, leavers and team relocations, and tell each person where they are moving? | Real estate | Should |
| 54 | Can you build stack plans and compare scenarios side by side before you commit? | Real estate | Should |
| 55 | Do plans use measured attendance and occupancy, not only headcount? | Real estate | Must |
| 56 | When a plan is approved, does it update live neighborhoods and seat assignments, or does someone re-enter it by hand? | Real estate | Must |
| 57 | Can floor plans be edited in the browser, and can plans be exported for stakeholders? | Real estate | Could |
Multi-site rollout and administration
How the platform behaves on the tenth building, not just the first.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 58 | Can you roll out building by building or region by region, with local admins for each? | Workplace | Must |
| 59 | Can each site keep its own rules, time zone and closures? | Workplace | Must |
| 60 | Can spaces, neighborhoods and assignments be created in bulk from a spreadsheet? | Workplace | Should |
| 61 | How are floor plans brought in, and what does setup cost per floor? | Finance | Should |
Support and commercials
What happens after signature, and what you pay for.
| No. | Requirement | Verified by | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62 | What uptime does the vendor commit to in writing, and how is it reported? | IT | Must |
| 63 | What onboarding and admin training is included? | Workplace | Must |
| 64 | What support channels and hours are there, and in which languages? | Workplace | Should |
| 65 | How is billing counted (licensed seats or active users), and what is the minimum term? | Finance | Must |
| 66 | Can the vendor give references from organizations of your size and sector? | Finance | Should |
Terms behind the checklist: presence data · SSO · SCIM · SOC 2 · works council · workplace API · scenario planning · workplace management system
The switching guide
Six steps from your current tool.
Most of the work is knowing what you have. Identity and floor plans come first; people follow when booking lives in their own tools.
- 1
Take stock of what you run
Buildings, floor plans, desks, rooms and neighborhoods; users and teams; booking rules; and every integration the current tool touches.
- 2
Ask your current vendor for your data
Booking and occupancy history, floor plans and user lists, in formats you can reuse. Check the notice period in your contract.
- 3
Connect identity first
Single sign-on and directory sync, so people and teams arrive ready and nobody is set up by hand.
- 4
Bring in floors and spaces
Floor plans, desks, rooms and neighborhoods, with the booking rules each building needs.
- 5
Connect calendars and collaboration tools
Microsoft Teams, Slack, Outlook or Google, so booking moves to where people already work.
- 6
Pilot one building, then roll out
Measure adoption on the first building, then roll out by building or region. Retire the old tool once bookings have moved.
FAQ
Buyer's guide questions
What should a workplace management software RFP include?
Group your requirements by what each team must verify: presence data and check-in, booking rules, identity and directory sync, Microsoft Teams and Outlook, data hosting and retention, privacy and works-council readiness, reporting and exports, API and integrations, visitors, moves and planning, multi-site rollout, and support and commercials. Give each requirement an owner and a weight.
Is there a desk booking RFP template?
Yes. The checklist on this page has 66 requirement questions for desk booking, room booking and the wider workplace platform. Download it as a spreadsheet, delete the rows you do not need, set your own weights and send the same list to every vendor.
How do you choose workplace management software?
Start from your trigger, such as a contract renewal, a lease event or a move. Decide which data you need to trust, then test vendors on evidence: where the occupancy number comes from, how it reaches your planning, whether people can book in the tools they already use, and what IT and security need to sign off.
Who should be involved in evaluating a workplace platform?
Workplace, real estate or facilities leads own the evaluation. IT is a co-buyer, because single sign-on, directory sync, Microsoft Teams and any desktop agent are its project. Security and legal review data hosting and privacy, HR covers works councils, and finance or the executive sponsor signs off the business case.
How do you score vendor answers in an RFP?
Score each requirement from 0 to 3 based on the evidence you saw, not the answer you were given: 0 for nothing, 1 for a promise, 2 for documentation and 3 for a working demo. Multiply by the weight, then compare totals only among vendors that pass every must-have.
Next step
Put Kadence through the scorecard.
Bring your criteria. A workplace strategist shows the evidence for each one, on your buildings.