team coordination Archives

Master Team Productivity with the Homepage Dashboard

Posted on September 1, 2023November 13, 2023 by Luke Christian-Farman

Team Productivity is the single most important thing companies are trying to get right in 2023.

In a world of hybrid work, being agile, informed, and proactive is no longer a luxury—Team Productivity is a necessity. Kadence’s new Homepage Dashboard helps you stay ahead and make smart decisions about your work schedule.

Let’s explore how our newest features help you master your hybrid work routine.

Stay Connected with Starred Colleagues

Boost Team Productivity by seeing who's going to be in the office — Smart notifications let you know when to reschedule your bookings.

Collaboration thrives on connectivity. With My Starred Colleagues, you can easily view your team’s schedules. You can also get notified about their office arrival or any sudden cancellations.

This deep synchronization ensures you’re never out of the loop. No more second-guessing your office trips, or missing great opportunities for face-to-face time.

Predict the Office Pulse for the Week

Enhance Team Productivity by seeing who's in on any day of the week — Easily see who’s going in on a team day.

Ever walked into the office expecting a bustling environment only to be met with silence? No more. My Office Activity lets you gauge the week’s office pulse at a quick scan.

Whether you’re aiming for collaborative days or solitude for deep work, you’ll know exactly when the commute is worth it.

My Schedule: Seamlessly Navigate Your Week

Get prompted to make a booking if you've already planned to go in — Instant smart suggestions let you know that you haven’t booked your space for when you’ve planned to go into the office.

A comprehensive view of your booking schedule. Check in, manage bookings, and get a clear picture of where you need to be. With My Schedule, juggling between apps and emails is history. One glance, and you’re in control of your week.

Let Kadence Guide Your Decisions

Smart Suggestions let you know when a teammate has cancelled their booking so you can reschedule.

Kadence isn’t just a tool; it’s your intelligent work partner. With Smart Suggestions Kadence offers the prompts you need exactly when you need them:

Team Kadences: Know when your squad hits the office.
Starred colleagues: Stay updated on your closest colleagues’ plans.
Office capacity: Be alerted when the office is in high demand, allowing you to secure your spot.

Kadence does the thinking so you don’t have to. It knows your schedule, preferences, and needs, ensuring you’re always prepared.

Final Thought

In a world of hybrid work that can sometimes feel hard to navigate, let Kadence chart your course. Our new Homepage Dashboard is more than just a tool. It’s your work compass, helping you make decisions throughout the week.

P.S. Want to see it in action? Check it out here and take your hybrid game plan to the next level.

Unlocking Team Coordination: The 5 Benefits of Hybrid Work Software

Posted on May 10, 2023 by Dan Bladen

The working world in 2023 is complex.

Most companies are operating some kind of hybrid model — where employees have the choice to work from home or from the office.

As positive as hybrid work is for employee wellbeing and work-life balance, it also leaves one fundamental question: how do you keep your team coordinated?

In this post, we’ll explore how vital it is to have dedicated software in place for managing hybrid work — and how it could transform your team coordination goals this year.

1. See the bigger picture

The office is no longer the rigid, consistently populated space it used to be.

People come and go as they please, and it can be very hard to get an overview of their movement — let alone ensure team coordination doesn’t suffer as a result.

Hybrid work software gives you the bigger picture, by providing a clear overview of the week’s office attendance – including which teams and individuals are planning to go in, and which desks, areas and meeting rooms are in high demand.

Team coordination depends on employees having the same access to important information – and there’s no information more important than where your colleagues are choosing to spend their time to collaborate.

With the right hybrid work tool, your team will stay in touch with the bigger picture and regain the ability to make proper plans for their future office attendance.

2. Choose the schedule that works for you

Team coordination in a hybrid world is so much more than just making sure everyone is in the office three days a week.

It’s about realizing that everyone has a unique life situation, and allowing them to choose a schedule that fits around their lives.

Hybrid work software is designed to recognize that fact. By giving you a granular breakdown of what’s happening in the week ahead, and allowing you to book a desk on any given day, for any given duration, your hybrid tool acts as your companion for building a schedule that works for you.

Coming into a physical workspace is no longer an obligation — it’s a benefit and a perk. That’s why it’s so important to give your employees the right reasons and the right platform to make use of this perk — at their own Kadence.

A coordinated team is not one that is forced together — it’s one that purposely moves in the same direction.

3. Nudge people together

More and more, we’re seeing how radical, one-size-fits-all solutions work against a company’s productivity or team coordination goals.

The idea that uniformity leads to coordination and growth is outdated. Our new world relies on nuance and flexibility.

Rather than forcing people to go into the office, how about sending them intelligent nudges based on concrete projects and goals?

That’s precisely what the right hybrid work software will do for you. Seeing key moments or colleague movements in your week ahead, your hybrid companion will send you smart recommendations for booking desk time to coordinate and collaborate with them.

It’s never a forcing suggestion — ultimately it’s up to you — but it’s a polite nudge in the right direction. The sum of these nudges is a team that is both coordinated and happy to be coordinated.

4. Book time in specific office neighborhoods

When it comes to the specifics of your time in the office, hybrid work software is set up to offer you the physical space that is optimal for your collaboration and social goals.

Office neighborhoods are areas that can be marked out for a variety of uses – whilst always having team coordination at their heart.

Some might be department specific: Marketing Metropolis / Numbers Nook / Creative Corner. Others might be task specific: focus areas, zones with access to relevant equipment and facilities, high activity areas.

Your hybrid work tool will display these neighborhoods to you and their use on any given week — giving you the opportunity to join them when they’re busiest (and most appealing!) or when relevant colleagues are also planning to make use of them.

The office should be the social hub of your organization, where your community is built and supported.

Coordinating your team around its physical spaces goes a long way towards ensuring it becomes that thriving social centre.

5. Make meetings count

In a hybrid world, meetings can be finicky things. “Can you guys hear me?” “You’re on mute, Dave” “We’re just waiting for Julia to join, she’s in the office”.

When managed poorly, a hybrid meeting schedule can result in a bunch of people attending a bunch of meetings from a bunch of different remote or physical locations — all at the expense of a good collaborative experience.

We sometimes forget that meetings aren’t just boxes to tick. They’re opportunities to bring people together, put great minds on big questions, and achieve brilliant things.

That’s why it’s so important to coordinate your team properly around meetings.

A tool for hybrid work lets you book the right space for each meeting and notify relevant people about the whereabouts. Team members who wish to participate are equipped with all the necessary information for them to make a decision about whether or not to attend the office on that day. The potential chaos and confusion of a hybrid meeting is replaced by clarity and intention.

Synchronizing your team around meetings will ensure that these key collaborative moments are used to their maximum benefit.

Managing the ins and outs of a hybrid team is hard.

Trying to do it without the right software is like being left alone with a 16×16 rubix cube. You can stare at it all you want, but it won’t solve itself!

Adopting another tool can also feel intimidating. Not another piece of software to add to our ever-growing catalogue…

We hope we’ve convinced you that this particular tool really is worthwhile. It tackles a question that runs at the core of every business: how can I coordinate my team and empower them to do amazing work together?

If you are still struggling to find the right solution for your own hybrid team, we’d love to hear from you — and help in any way we can.

Introducing Hybrid Workplace Automated Check-ins

Posted on April 11, 2023October 31, 2023 by 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:

Bookings – An endpoint with the ability to retrieve a list of all bookings (filterable by id, start date, end date, type & status).
Users – An endpoint with the ability to retrieve a list of Kadence users (filterable by id, email address, first name, and last name).
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).
Buildings – An endpoint with the ability to retrieve a list of buildings (filterable by id, name, country code & city).
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 ????

Automatically check users into their bookings through a badging integration system of your choice
Show information on bookings, users, and buildings within your applications
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
Authenticate users and check them into their bookings when they log into a computer, book to come onsite, or when you access WiFi
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:

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).
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

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>

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.

New Interactive Office Floor plans For Better Hybrid Work

Posted on March 23, 2023November 13, 2023 by Luke Christian-Farman

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.

Introducing Homepage: Optimize your Hybrid Workforce with Smart Planning

Posted on January 23, 2023 by Luke Christian-Farman

Hybrid working just got smarter, and so did Team Coordination! That’s right, it’s true, and as a result, your hybrid workforce can be more productive than they were before, and real-estate costs are being slashed.

In fact, now with Kadence’s new User Homepage, you no longer need to dig around to see who’s in, or how busy the office is. Kadence gives you the tools, and suggestions you need, all in one place to make smarter choices about all of those things enabling you, and your teams to stay on top of your gameplan, and accomplish your goals.

Here’s why:

A schedule that dramatically increases productivity

Your work week in one view

Say goodbye to the chaos of multiple calendars, and scattered to-do lists. With a one-view hybrid schedule, you’ll be able to see your entire work week at a glance, stay organized, and never miss a chance to connect with your team in the office.

Manage your hybrid workforce with smart recommendations

Just think how much better it would be to have a tool more in sync with your schedule than you were. What about a tool that simultaneously synced yours, as well as all of your starred colleague’s schedules, and then gave you smart recommendations around the best times to meet up, and where? With Kadence’s new team coordination tools you now get smart recommendations to let you know who’s in that week so you can make the best choices.

Know where you need to be and when

Imagine the peace of mind and productivity boost of having all of your commitments and bookings in one place. With Kadence, you can remain in control of your week, knowing exactly where you need to be, and when.

Make the most of your time

Get notified of last-minute changes

Avoid another wasted commute to the office! There’s nothing worse than going through the time, and the trouble of organizing meetings, catch-ups, or social events, and then turning up to those things only to find out your teammates have canceled at the last minute. Now with the new features on your homepage, you get notified of any last-minute changes to your starred colleague’s plans via email, Slack, and Microsoft Teams Desk Booking saving you time and train fare!

See how busy the office is on any day that week

An effective hybrid workforce solution is getting to choose how you work. That could be remote, in the office, in a coffee shop, with a particular team, or with an individual. It all matters, yet making a plan for the task at hand can be lengthy, and time-consuming. That’s why Kadence wanted to make it easy for you to see at a glance how busy the office is, which teams are there, and your starred colleagues so you can make the best choice for you, and save time.

Facilitate your office spaces during busy or quiet periods

Cutting real-estate costs in 2023 is going to be high up on the agenda for most businesses which is why it’s crucial to know how your spaces are being used. With Kadence’s User Homepage, office managers can quickly see the usage of their spaces enabling them to make the right decisions about cutting costs.

Optimize team performance

Stay up to date with your colleague’s Kadence

By being in sync with your colleague’s Kadence, you’re able to better coordinate your own tasks, and activities to ensure you can be as productive as possible. Getting notified of any last-minute changes, as well as who’s going into the office helps everyone stay on top of their game plan for the week.

Build stronger team dynamics

Wondering how to schedule a team day with a hybrid workforce? The bottom line here is that if companies want to grow, it’s fundamental to realize that fostering a great culture, and community with those working in the office, or fully remote is essential for successful team performance. With Kadence, managers can keep in sync with their team’s schedules, and know when they’re going into the office or not so they can provide the right guidance, and support to help them flourish in their work.

Join your colleagues wherever they’re working that day

Conclusion

The bottom line for 2023 is to optimize at all costs, and companies that do not have a solution in place will soon find it more difficult to grow their business. Giving your people the tools they need to perform well in their work, and knowing how much real-estate savings you could make on unused space undoubtedly gives you the upper hand in managing your hybrid workforce effectively and maximizing team productivity.

To find out how to unlock the power of hybrid through Kadence within Slack, book your demo here.

When it comes to platforms that unleash pure productivity, and space savings, how smart are yours?