Deskbird Review: Simple Desk and Space Management

Flexible work might be the norm for today’s teams, but if you’ve ever tried to manage a hybrid workplace, you’ll know how tricky it can be. With countless team members and guests moving in and out of the office daily, losing track of your resources is easy.

That’s where Deskbird comes in, promising an intuitive and feature-rich solution for desk, meeting room, and space management. Designed for an era of hot desking, office neighborhoods, and changing hybrid work practices, Deskbird doesn’t just help companies get more from their real estate.

The platform helps companies improve employee experiences by providing access to simple portals, powerful analytics and reporting features, and week-planning capabilities.

With this Deskbird review, I’ll introduce the pros and cons of this platform based on my personal experience to help you decide if it’s right for your team.

Deskbird Review: Pros, Cons and Expert Verdict

As someone who spent years in remote and hybrid working settings even before the pandemic, I know a thing or two about the challenges of flexible work. Deskbird addresses some of the core issues today’s businesses are struggling with.

It can help you to drive people back into the office, with insights into what keeps staff happy and engaged and which resources they really need. Plus, it’s a great tool for companies considering a full office redesign. The insights you gain will make it easier to optimize resource allocation, downsize unnecessary spaces, and streamline office management.

Pros:

• Valuable real-time insights into employee and space availability
• Integrations for tools like Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and Slack
• User-friendly admin center, with end-to-end analytics and floor plans
• Great weekly planning tools for hot desking offices
• Integrated security and data privacy settings

Cons:

• Missing some great AI features, like space booking suggestions
• Limitations for companies with very large teams

Deskbird Review: Overview and Key Features

Deskbird started life as a desk booking app for hybrid teams and office neighborhoods. Over time, it’s become a more fully-functional workspace management platform, combining desk and room booking tools, with analytics and reporting tools, and week planning systems.

More than 5,000 companies worldwide already use this toolkit. Although Deskbird isn’t the most advanced workspace management tool I’ve ever used, it is extremely user-friendly, flexible, and intuitive. It can integrate with dozens of apps, such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, and it’s fully certified by GDPR and ISO:27001.

The software is also available online (via a web browser), and through an intuitive mobile app available for iOS and Android – so it’s great for mobile teams.

Here’s a quick rundown of the key features of Deskbird.

Desk and Room Booking

Since Deskbird describes itself as a “hot desking” software solution, I wanted to start with its two core features: desk and room booking. For companies embracing the era of hot desking, Deskbird makes life a lot easier. Its desk booking tools include a range of features intended to help team members and business owners make the most of their space.

For instance, as a business owner, you can apply access restrictions to specific rooms and leverage visitor booking tools to manage your guests. There’s even the option to assign parking spots to individual employees. As an employee, you’ll gain access to a social feed so you can track who might be coming into the office on certain days, and plan your schedule accordingly.

I loved this feature on Microsoft Places, so I was happy to see it available from Deskbird, too. However, while Microsoft uses Copilot to suggest spaces you might want to book, Deskbird doesn’t have a specific AI assistant. It can still make suggestions based on user preferences and past bookings, though, which is a nice touch.

Booking desks and meeting rooms is incredibly easy, with quick links and QR codes. You can even check interactive floor plans to see which amenities will be available nearby.

Plus, you can book multiple spaces for multiple days in a row, book spaces anonymously, and even filter through desks and meeting rooms based on available equipment.

Depending on your plan, there’s also the option to book rooms for entire teams at once, and book catering and services from surrounding companies too. Deskbird even gives business leaders the chance to export data about how their spaces are being used.

Week Planning and Scheduling Tools

Deskbird isn’t a full scheduling tool or calendar app on its own (although it does integrate with plenty of calendar tools). What it does offer, however, is a suite of features that make it easy to optimize your week. The social-media style interface allows users to “follow” their colleagues and find out which spaces they’re booking, so they can find the best times to interact with them in-person.

The interface (available on the mobile app and desktop) also allows team leaders to notify teams about upcoming events, or newly available spaces. Plus, you can share wide-scale announcements in a couple of seconds. Say, for instance, you want to tell all of your in-office team members you’re ordering Pizza for Thursday’s meeting, Deskbird makes doing that a breeze.

Companies can even tailor their announcements to specific groups, creating “segments” of employees based on location or roles. I found a few other week-planning features on Deskbird particularly appealing, starting with the “Hybrid Policies” section.

This allows companies to share guidelines on how often employees should attend the office. For instance, you can require all team members to be present in office for a minimum number of days per week. The “Office functions” is great too, giving you a real-time view of who is actually in the office at any given time. This will be an excellent feature if you need to track your team members in case of an emergency, or make a quick decision about who to invite to a meeting.

The ”Office Channel” feature is handy, too. It gives you an instant Slack channel to communicate with all of your in-office and hybrid workers.

Admin and Analytics Features

Throughout my Deskbird review, I was highly impressed by the number of features designed to help businesses make the most of their resources. While Deskbird has tried to make it easier for employees to make the most of their in-office time, I think this tool will be particularly appealing for overworked business leaders.

The admin interface has everything you need to manage and optimize resource allocation. Through SCIM or CSV, you can rapidly and automatically provision employees with new tools and equipment in bulk. HRIS integrations make it simple to track employees on leave or vacation.

Plus, you can configure office layouts and floor plans in the app directly, so it’s easy to keep your staff up-to-date if your office design changes. On top of that, the admin interface also supports check-ins, calendar syncing, and single-sign-on (depending on your plan).

From an analytics perspective, Deskbird offers some great insights into how well you’re using your space. You can track which rooms and desks are being used and when, monitor adherence to your hybrid policies, and even use heat maps to view your “most active” rooms.

I would have liked to see a few more analytical features, such as a built-in solution for collecting employee feedback. However, since Deskbird integrates with tools like Microsoft Teams, you can always use apps like SurveySparrow to collect “Voice of the Employee” data.

Deskbird Review: Pricing and Fees

For smaller companies, Deskbird does offer good value for money in my opinion. You can get all the basic features of the app, such as the standard desk booking and week planning tools for as little as £1.95 per user, per month on an annual plan.

If you want more functionality, like interactive floor plans, office events and functions, catering and services integrations, hybrid work policies, and meeting room booking, you’ll need the “Business” plan for £3.95 per user, per month. This plan also comes with SSO and more advanced analytics, as well as integrations with Outlook and Google Calendar.

For larger companies, the Enterprise plan comes with tailored pricing, as well as a few extra features. For instance, you can access SCIM, HRIS integrations, custom data privacy configurations, multi-tenancy, and a dedicated customer success manager.

If you’re a beginner, you can test all of the functionality out for 14 days for free, too, with no need to enter credit card details. Still, while Deskbird is relatively affordable, it might not be ideal for larger companies with a higher number of team members, given its per-user pricing.

Deskbird Review: Customer Support and Integrations

During my Deskbird review, I didn’t really feel the need to contact the customer support team. The platform is very straightforward, and you can find plenty of self-help resources on the company’s website to get you started. There’s a blog, webinars, and even whitepapers to review.

If you do need immediate technical help, however, Deskbird does offer both live chat and email, although I couldn’t find a phone option. On the plus side, you can check the software’s status, and experiment with FAQs at any time via the online help center.

If you want to extend the functionality of Deskbird by connecting it to other apps and tools, you also have plenty of options. An API is available for enterprise users. Alternatively, you can check out a range of one-click integrations for things like Microsoft Teams or Slack.

The Biggest Benefits of Deskbird

Based on the time I spent experimenting with Deskbird’s hot-desking software, I think it’s an excellent tool for small to mid-sized businesses struggling with hybrid workplace management. It’s not the most advanced tool around, but it does offer:

• Simplicity: The platform is incredibly easy to use (on any device), for administrators, business leaders and employees. It only takes a few seconds to find a room or space, request a booking, and even plan the rest of your week with Deskbird.
• Boosted collaboration: I love how Deskbird helps companies to create more collaborative workplaces, with instant insights into available colleagues in the app. You can even access handy suggestions on which spaces to book, based on your team needs.
• Convenient management: The admin center makes it simple to manage every aspect of the hybrid workspace, from office capacity, to check-in requirements, seating, zones, and more. You can even import data from calendars into the booking ecosystem.
• Security: Deskbird adheres to various industry compliance standards, and gives you the controls you need to manage access to essential tools and resources. You can also give team members specific permissions and roles, based on their needs.
• Flexibility: With the option to integrate your system with a wide range of calendar, productivity, data and meeting apps, Deskbird is extremely flexible. However, you will need an Enterprise plan to access the APIs.

Deskbird Review: The Verdict

Overall, Deskbird is an accessible, straightforward, and convenient tool for hybrid workplace management. It lacks some of the advanced AI-based features of alternatives like Microsoft Places and the scalability offered by apps designed for larger companies.

However, if you don’t have particularly complex office management requirements and you don’t mind compromising on a few capabilities (like insights into employee engagement), Deskbird has a lot to offer for an affordable price.

I’d recommend giving this toolkit a try if you’re running a small business, and need help making the most of your office resources.