OfficeSpace Software
Technocentric Approach to Wayfinding

When a shopper steps into a crowded mall, one of their first objectives is to figure out how to locate the store that they are looking for. This is where a kiosk or a digital signage system comes in handy; it promptly shows the customer the store’s location in its directory.

The same scenario plays out in the modern workplace, where it’s tough for employees and facility managers to track down what they need—resources, meeting rooms, colleagues. Employees that move workspaces without updating the facilities team add to the wayfinding challenge.

This is why OfficeSpace Software launched Visual Directory®: a tool that displays where employees sit, and the location of all resources in the office. Those resources include meeting rooms, conference rooms, training rooms, cafeterias, first-aid, and safety equipment and more.

“With Visual Directory®, everyone in an organization can easily find coworkers and resources, book desks, and pinpoint locations for colleagues,” says David Spence, director of business development of OfficeSpace Software. Another huge driver for the rollout of Visual Directory is for employees to see live free/busy status of meeting rooms, and book them right away. “Meeting room booking is a constant challenge for organizations of all sizes. People book rooms and don’t show up wasting time and resources. But ‘on the fly’ meetings are also challenging to manage. About 25 percent of meetings aren’t planned in advance, so employees need an easy way to find and book a room on their mobile device, desktop and kiosks immediately,” says Spence. “Without a complete view of the workplace and room location this becomes a huge challenge for employees.”

The wayfinding solution is the most favorable for workplace and facilities teams that need an accurate floor plan to effectively manage employee moves and track occupancy reporting among other tasks.

Visual Directory®’s plug-and-play function makes its implementation process very straightforward. At the outset, the client’s facility team sends their floor plans to OfficeSpace. The company then joins forces with the client’s IT team to integrate Visual Directory® into business applications or human resources platforms, after which the product is ready to go.

Visual Directory®’s plug-and-play feature is available across desktop, mobile, and touch-screen kiosks.

On the security front, the company prioritizes the task of keeping their client’s data safe. OfficeSpace accomplishes that by hosting Visual Directory® in secure SSAE 16, SOC 2 compliant data centers, with multiple levels of intrusion detection and security measures in place.

As a precautionary measure to prevent data loss in the case of disruptive events, the company also takes frequent backups and has disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place. For clients that have users around the world, OfficeSpace has implemented data processing agreements compliant with GDPR. For employees and users, the company authenticates its users with SAML 2.0 solutions for single sign-on security as it integrates with solutions of all the major single sign-on providers in the market.

As OfficeSpace continues to enable facility management teams to close the gaps in wayfinding, Spence recalls an instance where they helped a well-known media and technology company with a better navigation solution for their workplace. The client approached them to help digitize their basic, printed floorplans, which they had mounted on the walls in all their locations. OfficeSpace came up with Kiosk Visual Directory®, which allowed them to display the floor plans on touchscreens and enabled users to navigate their workspace on any device. The client chose to implement it in large formats on 55-inch touch screens which have been a huge success for all employees.

Over time, OfficeSpace has observed an uptick in their growth trajectory with integrations into other business applications becoming quicker and easier, and utilization of sensors becoming more affordable, as the technology matured. The company’s multiple development teams are working hand in hand with their clients to build more features around mobile, wayfinding, and other functions.

“We are finally at the place where technology, cost, and the notion of continuing to create a great workplace experience for employees, are finally coming together. It’s a really exciting time in our industry,” says Spence.