Customer stories · Higher Education
The University of Exeter nearly doubled meeting room use without adding a square meter.
Across 14 buildings on Kadence, the estates team makes space decisions on measured use rather than assumption. Collaborative team days rose from 418 to 1,900 a month and meeting room use went from 20% to 38% per day.
The situation
Before Kadence
- Space booking run on Excel spreadsheets and email
- Attendance self-reported, with no measured view of how buildings were used
- Need to grow and change courses without expanding the footprint or carbon consumption
What changed
With Kadence
- Desk and room use measured monthly for every building on the system, showing where space is under pressure and where it is under-used
- Teams moved into under-used space, anchor zones set and in-office days staggered on usage data rather than assumption
- Private offices bookable as meeting rooms when their occupants are not in
- Professional services workspace at the Innovation Centre compressed and restacked on occupancy evidence, with teams sharing the same space on alternating days
- Space released by the restack used by the university to create a 120-person computer lab, academic offices and a larger cafe for a new computer science and AI program
- Booking and check-in inside Microsoft Teams, with minimal end-user training
What the estate data shows
Workplace Analytics gives the estates team a monthly view of desk utilization for every building on the system. It shows where pressure sits, with the Innovation Centre and the Peter Lanyon Building the most used, and which buildings are under-used.
“The quality of the data is really important. We know that people are physically in the building when they say they’re in the building. It has enabled us to make better informed management decisions.”
How the data is used
In the Department of Clinical and Biomedical Sciences, Kirsty Mushing manages over 400 staff across multiple sites and counties. Before Kadence, most of them would say they were in every day. The department now plans its week around where the data shows hotspots and clashes between teams, and the same data supports her business cases for growing the department into other parts of the university.
“What we’ve been able to do with that data is see where we’ve got hotspots within our offices and where we are creating clashes with teams. We’ve been able to then move teams into spaces that are not used as much and expand into other areas around the university.”
At the Innovation Centre, the university needed space for a new computer science and AI program for an incoming cohort of master’s students. Rather than new build or a new lease, the estates team used the occupancy evidence to compress and restack professional services workspace. Teams that once held space five days a week now share it, one on site on Monday and another on Tuesday, which Helen says has let teams stay together while driving efficiency of space. The university was able to create a 120 person large, state of the art computer lab and academic office through the replanning.
Adoption and what comes next
Adoption has tripled over the past year. Helen credits the Microsoft Teams integration: staff book and check in without leaving the platform they already work in, and end-user training has been close to nothing. Inside departments, uptake was built as much on culture as on the tool. Kirsty ran informal sessions on the advantages, senior academics and the dean of the medical school use the system to lead by example, and staff were consulted on the booking principles before rollout.
The next step is sustainability: limiting access to under-used spaces over winter to reduce heating costs, and integrating Kadence with the university’s timetabling system. Asked what the university would do without it, Helen’s answer is short: “it would be a bit like gridlock.”
Next step
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