Microsoft Places Implementation

Cubicle and Office Hotelling Space Management Software integrated with Microsoft 365 and Teams

Microsoft Places is the all-in-one solution for hybrid workspace management—offering desk and room booking, interactive floor maps, and seamless integration with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 to simplify return-to-office planning and optimize space utilization.

Return to Work with Microsoft Places

microsoft places implementation for return to office mandates

Why a Business Needs Microsoft Places to Manage Office Space

Microsoft Places helps organizations manage hybrid work effectively by turning office space into a flexible, data-driven resource. It ensures employees can easily book desks and rooms, find colleagues, and comply with return-to-office policies—all within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem they already use.

Maximizing Meaningful In-Office Connections

Eliminating Employee Regret and Coordination Friction:

Best suited for organizations where collaboration is critical, but employees struggle to meet the people that matter to them when they commute. Places solves this by centralizing coordination and providing AI-driven suggestions.

Organizations with Limited Space and High Resource Demand

Efficient Management of Shared Resources:

Ideal for organizations that have implemented a hot-desking model, where there are more staff than available desks, and struggle with conference room waste (no-shows). Places provides intelligent booking and automated recovery for limited physical assets.

Large Enterprises Focused on Real Estate Optimization and Cost Reduction

Data-Driven Real Estate Investment:

Designed for leaders and Real Estate Portfolio Managers who need actionable insights to justify physical space investments and reduce operational expenditures. Places provides the data to compare intentions with reality.

How Microsoft Places Transforms Your Office Space Management

Microsoft Places is built upon three primary functional pillars that help organizations manage flexible work environments.

Coordinate Where Work Happens

Remove friction by focusing on collaboration and maximizing in-office connections.

Hybrid Scheduling & Work Plans
Employees set a recurring schedule showing when they plan to be in the office or remote. This schedule leverages data from Outlook and Teams to show when co-workers are planning to be in the office.
Team Guidance (Premium):
Leaders can seamlessly create hybrid policies for their teams (e.g., suggesting collaboration days) and communicate norms across the organization to drive alignment.
In-Office Recommendations (Copilot Required):
Copilot can advise individual employees on the best days to visit the office based on scheduled meetings and planned colleague attendance.

find desks and see where staff is working from in Microsoft Places

find a room and use wayfinding in map view of office floorplan with Microsoft Places

Modernize the Office with Intelligent Technology

Microsoft Places ensures employees have the right experience in the workspace when they come in, providing amenities for collaboration or focus work.

Places Finder (Premium):
This is an enhanced experience to book rooms and desks, offering rich metadata, including pictures, floorplans, A/V capabilities, and accessibility information.
Wayfinding:
Mobile maps guide staff directly to the right desk or conference room, eliminating time wasted searching or following outdated signs.
Unified Booking:
Desk booking, room booking, and Desk Pool Booking are integrated directly into the natural flow of work through apps users already know, like Outlook and Teams.

Optimize the Workplace Based on Changing Employee Needs

Provide data-driven insights for effective space management.

Space Analytics (Premium):
Real Estate Managers gain access to a unified dashboard that visualizes intended and actual occupancy data for buildings, rooms, and workspaces.
Intent vs. Actual Comparison:
Analytics compares user Intent Based Utilization (from work plans and reservations) against Actual Utilization data (from sensors and network signals) to understand adherence and user behavior.
AI-Powered Optimization (Premium + Copilot):
Copilot can analyze and explain key data points and trends in utilization graphs, helping users analyze performance and drive informed real estate decisions.

analyze office space utilization with Microsoft Places

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Who Benefits from Microsoft Places?

Microsoft Places provides different tools tailored to key organizational roles:

Stakeholder	Key Benefit in Hybrid Office
HR & Company Management	Maximizes investment in physical space by ensuring employees connect and align with hybrid policies via Team Guidance.
Employees & Team Leaders	Eliminates friction and regret by enabling real-time coordination of schedules and providing In-Office Recommendations.
Facilities Management	Uses Unified Space Analytics to identify supply-demand imbalances, justify investment, and reduce costs through data-driven space optimization.
IT Administrators	Deploys a unified platform (in Teams/Outlook) and manages the infrastructure required to aggregate diverse data sources, including occupancy sensors, badge systems, and network signals.

Getting Started: Prerequisites and Microsoft Places Implementation with 360 Visibility

As Microsoft Places is integrated into the existing Microsoft 365 environment, technical readiness is critical. Working with a Microsoft Places Implementation team is crucial to a smooth deployment.

Technical and Licensing Requirements

Core Feature Access: Requires a Commercial Microsoft 365 Plan (e.g., E1, E3, E5, F1, F3, Business Standard/Premium).
Premium Feature Access: Requires a Teams Premium license to unlock features like Places Finder, Space Analytics, Auto Release, and Team Guidance.
AI Feature Access: Features like Managed Room Booking and Space Analytics with Copilot require a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription.
Exchange Online Mailbox: Places features are only available to users with a mailbox managed in Exchange Online. Users with an on-premises mailbox cannot access the Places app or features like work plans.
Hierarchy Configuration: A fully established hierarchy of buildings, floors, and rooms/workspaces is essential. Initial administrative configuration is often performed via Powershell.

Implementation Step: Data & Mapping

The IT deployment team must configure the environment to feed data into the system:

Data Aggregation: IT ensures signals from Exchange (reservations), Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) usage, Occupancy Sensors, Badge Signals, and Network Signals are aggregated for accurate Actual Utilization data.
Maps and Wayfinding: For advanced features, IT must onboard building maps. This requires obtaining or creating maps in the Indoor Mapping Data Format (IMDF) and linking Exchange resources (rooms and desks) to the map overlays.

The 360 Visibility Difference: Be Confident in Your Microsoft Places Investment

Our Microsoft Places Implementation Services provide comprehensive, tailored advisory and managed support to help you navigate technical requirements, IMDF development, and PowerShell scripting with confidence.

Frequently Asked Questions about Microsoft Places

Q: How can we ensure employees who commute to the office successfully connect with the right colleagues, preventing the feeling that their time was wasted?

A: Microsoft Places is a platform that solves coordination failure by using employee Work Plans and data from Outlook and Teams to show when co-workers and close collaborators are planning to be in the office. This visibility allows employees to adjust their schedule to maximize valuable in-person connections, directly countering the finding that nearly 49% of global knowledge workers miss key collaborators in the office. Leaders can further drive alignment by using Team Guidance (Premium) to create and communicate hybrid policies.

Q: In our hot-desking model, how can we efficiently manage limited desks and automatically recover reserved but unused meeting rooms?

A: Microsoft Places manages desk scarcity using Desk Pools, which allow multiple people to reserve space within a shared cluster of desks, effectively guaranteeing a seat in a hot-desking environment. For meeting rooms, IT Admins can enable Auto Release (Premium), which automatically returns reserved rooms to the booking pool if occupancy or activity is not detected, solving the "no-show" problem. This automated management maximizes resource availability and prevents wasted capacity.

Q: What data can we use to prove our hybrid policies are working and justify real estate costs by comparing planned office usage versus actual physical occupancy?

A: Microsoft Places provides Space Analytics (Premium) which aggregates employee intentions (from Work Plans and reservations) with Actual Utilization data from sensors, badges, and network signals. This allows decision-makers to compare user intent with actual utilization to understand adherence and identify supply-demand imbalances. This advanced knowledge of occupancy patterns enables optimization and facilitates dynamic space adjustments to save energy expenditures.

Q: How can team leaders easily communicate and enforce desired in-office collaboration days without resorting to manual tracking or mandates?

A: Leaders can use Team Guidance (Premium) in Microsoft Places to seamlessly create hybrid policies for their teams, such as suggesting specific collaboration days or norms. This feature helps leaders drive alignment and communicate expectations across the organization. Team members can then update their work location to align with the guidance, which shows up as an all-day calendar invite.

Q: What steps can our IT team take to deploy a centralized booking system that integrates existing M365 tools and sensor data without requiring staff to learn a new application?

A: Microsoft Places deployment is led by the IT administrator and involves setting up the workspace hierarchy (often using Powershell) and integrating data sources like Exchange and occupancy sensors. Microsoft Places is integrated into the natural flow of work through existing applications like Outlook and Teams, minimizing the need for staff to learn a new, separate application. Functionality is only available to users with a mailbox managed in Exchange Online.

Microsoft 365 Services from 360 Visibility

Ready to Transform Your Workplace? Partner with 360 Visibility.

Implementing Microsoft Places involves configuring the organizational hierarchy, integrating complex data sources, and enabling user features across Outlook and Teams. Successfully leveraging Space Analytics and Places Finder requires specialized deployment knowledge, especially regarding IMDF map creation and linking Exchange resources.

To ensure a seamless, secure, and effective deployment that maximizes your hybrid ROI, partner with Microsoft Places implementation experts.

Microsoft Places Implementation

Cubicle and Office Hotelling Space Management Software integrated with Microsoft 365 and Teams

Why a Business Needs Microsoft Places to Manage Office Space

Maximizing Meaningful In-Office Connections

Eliminating Employee Regret and Coordination Friction:

Organizations with Limited Space and High Resource Demand

Efficient Management of Shared Resources:

Large Enterprises Focused on Real Estate Optimization and Cost Reduction

Data-Driven Real Estate Investment:

How Microsoft Places Transforms Your Office Space Management

Coordinate Where Work Happens

Hybrid Scheduling & Work Plans

Team Guidance (Premium):

In-Office Recommendations (Copilot Required):

Modernize the Office with Intelligent Technology

Places Finder (Premium):

Wayfinding:

Unified Booking: