Author: Luke Christian-Farman

Managing your spaces, and making sure your people check into their bookings can be a time-consuming and tedious task, and a hot-desking model without the right tools to manage everything very quickly becomes a free-for-all fiasco! If this is you, then maybe it’s time to take advantage of an automated hybrid workplace check-in API! 

It’s vital you know how your spaces are used, and who uses them. Not only so you can manage them with ease, but so you can optimize your real-estate footprint to cut costs.  

It all starts with how your people check into their bookings.

The way you get the space utilization data you need is by making sure your people check into their bookings. That’s where the data is, and the knock-on effect is bigger than you think.

When your space usage data is accurate you can easily see how your spaces are used. This then helps you meet future space needs, and demands, decide if you want to rent out empty rooms on off days, cut back on resources, and deliver a great space that facilitates great work from your employees.

It’s a no-brainer, hence why we decided to make it possible for you to make this part of the process completely automatic. 

Overview

Our new Check-in API will look to create an automated check-in experience for your workplace in order to gain accurate booking data.

We’ll do this by providing the following endpoints:

1. Bookings – An endpoint with the ability to retrieve a list of all bookings (filterable by id, start date, end date, type & status).
2. Users – An endpoint with the ability to retrieve a list of Kadence users (filterable by id, email address, first name, and last name).
3. User Bookings – An endpoint with the ability to retrieve a list of bookings for a Kadence user (filterable by id, start date, end date, type & status).
4. Buildings – An endpoint with the ability to retrieve a list of buildings (filterable by id, name, country code & city).
5. Check In – An endpoint with the capability to check in a specific user with the ability to specify a check-in method (door access, wifi, geofence, sensor)

What’s possible

As with any API, the sky is your limit. You can choose how best to integrate with your various software in any way you choose. 

To help ignite your creativity, here is a list of options to easily help automate your check-in flow ????

1. Automatically check users into their bookings through a badging integration system of your choice
2. Show information on bookings, users, and buildings within your applications
3. Display who has booked a desk to use as a waypoint tool so you know who should be sitting where, but also to warn users not to sit at that desk
4. Authenticate users and check them into their bookings when they log into a computer, book to come onsite, or when you access WiFi
5. Alert office managers if there are no designated fire marshals or first aiders onsite

Technical implementation

Before you can use the API you’ll need to have a Kadence account, so if you’re new to Kadence you can sign up or book a demo at kadence.co.

Using the API

You can find our API specification at https://api.kadence.co/. This describes all of our endpoints, how to call them, and what responses to expect.

All requests will return an HTTP status code that indicates the success of the response. For more information about response codes, see the MDN HTTP response status code documentation. The response will include headers that give more details about the response. Headers that start with X- are custom to Kadence. Where applicable operations will return a response body that is JSON formatted.

Authentication

In order to use any of Kadence’s REST API you’ll need a global administrator from your organization to create an API key. Once you’ve got an API key you’ll have full access to the Kadence API.

Kadence implements OAuth 2.0 authentication. You will need to use the OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials Flow to get a token that can be used to call the Kadence API.

Check out our help center to learn more about our Getting started guide, as well as How to set up, and manage API keys.

Join your colleagues wherever they’re working that day

In-person work creates an environment of engagement and a shared sense of purpose. When working in person teammates can easily read each other’s nonverbal cues which can dramatically increase trust and understanding. With Kadence, planning to come together or coordinate both remote, and in-person meetings are easy and straightforward. Log into the Kadence Web app, and check out your starred colleagues within the User Homepage.

Quickstart guide – Check-in

Understanding how your space is used is fundamental to reporting, and decision-making. The great thing about our new Check-in API is that there are unlimited powerful integration possibilities enabling you to get accurate data on your spaces through check-ins and maximize your spaces as a result in order that you may create a frictionless team experience. 

Here’s a quick guide on how to get started:

1. Ensure you’ve got an API key and that you’ve obtained a token using the client credentials OAuth 2.0 grant type. (See the Getting Started guide for more information).
2. Find the user you want to check-in. You can use the v1/public/users endpoint to achieve this. This endpoint supports filtering on email, first name, or last name to find the appropriate user. (You may want to store the user ID when you’ve matched to the appropriate user to reduce the number of API calls made to the Kadence).

e.g. GEThttps://api.onkadence.co/v1/public/users?email=john.smith@example.com

3. Find the booking for the user you want to check in to. You can use the v1/public/users/:id/bookings endpoint to achieve this. This API supports filtering on start date, end date status, and type to find a booking that’s available for check-in. You’ll need to use the user ID you retrieved at the last step query for bookings.

e.g. GET <https://api.onkadence.co/v1/public/users/{userId}/bookings?type=desk&status=booked&startDate=2023-01-01&endDate=2023-01-02>

4. You can check in to the booking on behalf of the user using the v1/public/bookings/:id/check-in endpoint. You’ll need to use the booking ID retrieved at the previous set to check in to the booking.
   
   e.g. https://api.onkadence.co/v1/public/bookings/{bookingId}/check-in
   
   This endpoint requires you to include the user ID in the post body of the user that is performing the “check-in” action. It is up to you who performs this action. You may want to set up a service account within Kadence that does this, or you may want it to appear as if the user themselves had checked in.
   
   Optionally you can also include a method property in the post data to indicate how the user was checked in. This can be one of the following values:
   

• doorAccess i.e. checked in automatically via a door access system.
• wifi i.e. checked in automatically by connecting to company WiFi.
• geofence i.e. checked in automatically because a user’s device reported they were in the building.
• sensor i.e. checked in automatically because a sensor detected their presence.

Note: If self-certification is enabled for buildings you may not be able to check in on behalf of users if they have not self-certified for their booking.

Note: Kadence also allows you to query building information if you want to add further logic to limit checking in on a per-building basis.

Conclusion

Managing your workspace and optimizing its usage is essential to reducing costs, and ensuring a productive work environment. Your real-estate footprint can be easily measured with the right tools that automate the check-in process. 

Not only will you be able to meet the changing needs of your employees, but you’ll also be able to allocate resources better, and you’ll really create a great working environment in the process.

Don’t let space management become a free-for-all fiasco!

Watch the full demonstration here to find out how to transform your hybrid workplace with an API that automates employee check-ins.

Don’t be caught off guard, and reduce real-estate costs where you can with space management tools for hybrid working. The ecosystem of office work has changed. The shift from static destinations to a blend of in-person and remote work chimed in with a whopping 78% of people in favor of this new way of working. Those who took part in this survey said it gave them a better work-life balance, they completed work faster with fewer distractions, and they experienced an overall improvement in their well-being.

All that to say, hybrid work is here to stay. This means it’s time to focus on optimizing your real-estate costs, and team productivity whilst growing and reducing the cost of underutilized space. 

In fact, with Kadence’s new Interactive Office Floorplan, you get to visualize the occupancy, and availability of your entire space across time. Whether you want to view past booking behavior to spot trends to help with future decisions or check out where your teammates are going to be working in the future so you can book a space nearby, Kadence enables you to master your spaces, reduce costs, and generate growth all in one tool. 

Here’s how:

Visualize space availability anytime, anywhere!

Plan your commute in advance

As a busy professional, time is your most valuable asset. From planning projects to setting up team meetings, knowing team, and space availability well in advance is crucial to staying on top of your game plan.

That’s why our new Interactive Office floor is so exciting. With one glance, you can visualize what spaces are available throughout the day in real-time and in the future, making planning easy.

Coming soon

Quick book by the minute

When you’re busy, being able to book the exact space you need for the exact moment you need it couldn’t be more useful. Once you’ve found a space you want to book, whether it’s a room for a meeting, or a desk near a go-to colleague, simply click on an available or partially available desk, and book it right there on the spot for the exact times you need.

Work where it’s right

Sometimes, if you work remotely from home, it’s good to work in a different environment with different surroundings. It’s part of being as productive as possible for the task at hand and is great for your well-being too. 

It’s one of the reasons why our new Interactive Office Floorplan is so useful. At any point where you feel like a change of scenery, or you want to be in your office space atmosphere on the off-chance you spontaneously bump into a colleague, just check out the Interactive Office Floorplan and claim the space of your choice.

Connect with the right people

The beauty of seeing where your teammates are sitting in the future is that it makes a world of difference when it comes to planning. 

Whether you’re looking to meet up with your friends and make your commute to the office worthwhile, or if you want to see how busy the office looks the following week, visualizing it all in one place is fast, and convenient. 

With one quick look, you get to see what spaces are free, and who’s around that day helping you make the most of your time, and everyone else’s.

Optimize your space to reduce costs & cut back where it counts

Know what to expect in the future

If companies are striving to do more with their spaces by optimizing every square inch to cut costs, then being able to accurately predict how busy your office is going to be in the future makes sense.

Now with our Interactive Office Floorplan, you’re able to identify days or areas of the office that are in high demand. This means you can easily spot areas of the office that are underutilized allowing you to make changes or reduce any unnecessary costs.

Understand past booking trends

Knowing how your people use your space in the past makes space planning for the future a lot simpler. So being able to identify patterns, and trends in booking habits helps you to understand which spaces could do with being repurposed or even reallocated to areas of the office that are in higher demand. 

As well as cutting costs you could also think about generating revenue. By analyzing past booking trends you can determine which spaces are used the least, and offer those spaces to other companies or rent out conference rooms during quieter periods.

Boost team performance

Create office neighborhoods

Great team dynamics help individuals, and companies flourish. It makes them productive with their time, and in their work, producing fruitful outcomes, and a decent return on all of your investments. 

With Kadence, the power is in your hands to manage your spaces and your teams in a way that works for everybody. 

Creating office neighborhoods is a great way to segment portions of your office to truly meet the needs of your teams giving them the flexibility to book any available space within that area, as well as the value of being amongst their teammates for greater collaboration.

Assign permanent desks

Whilst flexible desk booking is a fantastic way to boost individual and team productivity, having a more regular, and consistent desk to work from is also a need many companies, and employees have. 

In taking team neighborhoods to a granular level we make it possible for you to assign permanent desks to your people on any day of the week. 

Not only does this give you an extra layer of visibility, and knowing exactly who is working in your office but it helps individuals form closer connections with the people they sit by on a regular basis.

Release desk bookings back when no one shows up

Your space is one of your company’s biggest assets so letting unused space go to waste when people cancel or don’t show up to their booking is simply money down the drain.

With that in mind, users can set to release bookings back into the system to be rebooked by someone else after a certain period of time has elapsed.

Helping you to maximize the use of your spaces, not letting anything go to waste, boosting team productivity, and reducing real-estate costs all at once.

Conclusion

Optimizing your spaces is a wise step in the right direction. It all starts with a tool that handles everything from smart people scheduling to smart space management with the sole purpose of helping your people, and your company succeed and flourish. 

That’s why our new Interactive Office Floorplan is so powerful. It considers the goals, and interests of both you, as well as your employees allowing you to manage your space, as well as enable your teams to be productive by connecting with the right people, at the right times, and in the right spaces.

To find out how to take advantage of your spaces so you can plan ahead and reduce your real estate costs, book your demo here.