How ecobook works with VergeSense Occupancy Sensors for Meeting Rooms

Workplace occupancy measurement is becoming critically important when it comes to the measurement of utilization and maximizing the usage of office space.

With persistent problems of demand outstripping the supply of meeting rooms, it is essential that occupancy of the meeting rooms is monitored and acted upon.

Some of the most common problems faced with meeting rooms are:

1. 1. Booking of meeting rooms and not using them. This happens very often and across all sizes and industries. meeting rooms are booked and are canceled. However, the requestor fails to cancel the meeting from the booking system.
   2. Over-booking of the meeting room. When a meeting is scheduled but the exact room is not known, some staff book multiple meeting rooms just to ensure that when the time comes, the chosen meeting room is available. Again, once a meeting room is selected, the staff fails to cancel the rest of the spaces reserved for that meeting. This leaves others who need a meeting room without one.
   3. Over/under occupation of meeting rooms. Staff book a 20 seater meeting room for a 2 person meeting. This commonly occurs as a result of a lack of proper meeting room availability. This causes tremendous amounts of waste in terms of utilization and also in terms of electricity consumption.

These common problems are a universal grouse among team members who want to have a meeting but are unable to find the right space.

One such Japanese customer was facing such a persistent problem that they decided to act on it to eliminate the issue once and for all. With ecobook as the central platform for making meeting rooms and desk reservations, the customer wanted to implement occupancy sensors in their meeting rooms.

ecobook recommended VergeSense as the ideal occupancy platform that can help achieve their objectives of ensuring meeting rooms are available when needed and not over or under-occupied.

 

VergeSense Occupancy Sensors

VergeSense provides a complete occupancy intelligence platform that allows organizations to gain insight into their space usage and optimize it for better decision-making and ROI. VergeSense functions on camera sensing technology that can not only help in detecting occupancy but also provide headcount and presence-of-life functions. Presence-of-life indicates passive occupancy where the meeting room may be empty but has the user’s belongings such as a laptop or bag thereby suggesting that it is occupied.

VergeSense’s occupancy sensors come in wired and wireless capabilities and can be easily mounted and set up in a matter of hours. VergeSense is available in more than 50 countries and tracks more than 67 million sq ft of space across the globe.

VergeSense’s comprehensive reporting provides critical insights into the overall occupancy of the space. From heat maps to usage reports filtered by location and period, one can get a complete drill down into the occupancy of the office space.

 

 

ecobook & VergeSense

Once the setup of the sensors is completed, the ecobook’s administrative portal allows for the mapping of the sensors to the right spaces. In addition, ecobook’s business rules allow administrators to set cut-off times for zero occupancy per space.

Once completed, the ecobook receives signals on meeting room status changes that allow the ecobook to take proactive measures to manage the meeting room. For example, for a pre-defined window, the ecobook shall monitor signals from the sensors. If there is no occupancy or signs of life even if the meeting room is booked and checked-in, then ecobook will automatically release the meeting and notify the users while allowing the room to be booked by others.

This seamless integration provides the advantage of making meeting rooms available for others to book if not used, thus maximizing the utilization of the space.

Its headcount information can determine if the meeting room is being over or under-utilized. For example, a meeting room of 20 person capacity is being booked for a meeting with 2 people is a tremendous under-utilization of the meeting space.

In addition to the comprehensive reporting that the VergeSense portal provides, ecobook’s dashboard provides information related to meeting room usage and occupancy.

Information gathered from this report can help management better decide on the usage of the meeting room spaces and make decisions on space re-design that can further optimize the existing space usage.

 

Starting Small

For a start, the customer had implemented the sensors as a proof of concept in a few meeting rooms. Once operational, the results and insights into the usage of the space proved valuable enough for the customer to roll out the sensors across all their meeting rooms.

With the implementation of the sensors, administrators no longer have to worry about meeting rooms being booked and even checked-in but unoccupied. The number of times staff approach them with complaints has significantly reduced. In addition to that, plans are underway to re-purpose some large meeting rooms into small ones that can help fulfill the needs of the staff who do not want large meeting rooms but rather more of them.

 

Getting Started

Getting started is easy:

1. 1. Understand the problem that you are facing. Whether it is a lack of available spaces or under/over occupancy issues.
   2. Get a VergeSense consultant to run through your floor plan to determine the ideal number of sensors needed for meeting rooms.
   3. Purchase the sensor and mount them at the right locations to maximize information capture. This can be assisted by the consultant.
   4. Get VergeSense enabled in ecobook and let our consultants map the sensors to the meeting spaces.
   5. Get the administrator to set pre-defined cut-off times for auto-cancellation upon no occupancy.
   6. Get ready for ecobook to manage the bookings and spaces automatically.
   7. Periodically, login to ecobook’s reporting interface to generate and capture occupancy and utilization reports.
   8. Login to VergeSense’s own portal to capture information on usage and heat maps for non-bookable spaces as well.

Conclusion

Having an occupancy sensor can provide tremendous benefits to maximize the usage of the office space. With ecobook and VergeSense, customers get a powerful tool to help achieve this seamlessly.