Configure office hotels

Available with the ArcGIS Indoors Spaces extension.

Office hotels are workspaces that can be reserved for temporary use for hours, days, or weeks. As an alternative to the traditional permanently assigned spaces, this approach allows an organization to efficiently manage space and reduce costs. Office hotels can be assigned to workspace areas, which can be created to organize the occupants and the bookable spaces managed by your organization.

Prerequisites

ArcGIS Indoors includes Indoor Space Planner, which allows you to plan the activity of occupants in an indoor space, including assigning occupants to individual workspace areas with individually assigned spaces or reservable office hotels. You can book office hotels using Indoor Viewer or the Indoors mobile apps, and bookings are managed using the Reservations layer in the ArcGIS Indoors Information Model or Microsoft 365.

You can create restricted workspace areas in Space Planner. To book an office hotel in a restricted workspace area, an occupant must be assigned to that workspace area. If a workspace area is configured as unrestricted, no occupant assignment is required, and anyone from your ArcGIS organization can book a unit in that workspace area.

Note:

If a workspace area is configured as restricted, the portal user who is signed in to Indoor Viewer or the Indoors mobile apps must have an associated email address that matches the EMAIL field value of a record in the Occupants layer to book office hotels in that area.

Configure office hotels using the Reservations layer

This workspace reservation method requires an indoor map with the Reservations layer included. Office hotel bookings are managed in the Indoors data model and can be used to visualize real-time availability of workspace area units and can also be used for space usage analytics.

Add layers

Your organization must have the web map that was prepared and shared for use in Space Planner and the editable Reservations layer before you configure office hotels in workspace areas so that the feature layer associated with that web map can be added to the map to enable visualization of up-to-date information.

To prepare a map for workspace areas, complete the following steps:

  1. Open an Indoors project in ArcGIS Pro and activate the map prepared for Indoors mobile apps.
  2. Add or update the source for the Occupants layer in the map from the occupants feature layer that is associated with the Space Planner web map.
  3. Add or update the source for the Units layer from the units feature layer that is associated with the same Space Planner web map.
  4. Add the Reservations layer.

    This editable layer is used for managing workspace reservations and visualizing them on a map.

    Note:

    To enable recurring bookings, you must include the RECURRENCE_ID and RECURRENCE_CONFIG fields in the Reservations layer.

  5. Configure the Floors property for these layers to enable the floor filter in the app.

    Set the layer's LEVEL_ID field for the Floors property. You can then use the floor filter to visualize real-time occupancy of the rooms per floor for a facility in the floor-aware map.

  6. Add the Areas table from the feature layer that is associated with the same Space Planner web map.
  7. Optionally, add the Area Roles table from the feature layer that is associated with the same Space Planner web map to enable reservation managers.

    Reservation managers can book and manage office hotel bookings for other people in the workspace areas for which they are configured as reservation managers.

    The following is required to configure reservation managers:

    • Include the Area Roles table when preparing a map for Space Planner. If the Space Planner map has already been shared to the ArcGIS organization, add the Area Roles table to the map and overwrite the existing layer that contains the Occupants and Units layers and Areas table.
    • Set one or more reservation managers for workspace areas in Space Planner and merge the plan.
    • Include the Area Roles table when you prepare a map for mobile.

    If you created the Reservations feature class using a previous version of ArcGIS Pro, it is recommended that you review the Indoors workspace for any potential updates to the Indoors model. You can use the Upgrade Indoors Database tool to update an Indoors workspace to the current version of the Indoors model schema available for the installed version of ArcGIS Pro, to enable additional functionality in the Indoors apps.

    It is not required to update the Indoors workspace to use workspace areas if only the workspace area domains are missing.

  8. Save the project.
  9. Create and share the mobile map package.
Note:

If you're using an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, ensure that the layers are sourced from the default version. All changes made to the plans in Space Planner are merged to that version.

Configure office hotels using Microsoft 365

Using this workspace reservation method requires that your organization define resource mailboxes in Microsoft 365. The Indoors app sends a booking request through the Microsoft Graph API. The following permissions are required:

  • Sign in and read user profile—To confirm whether a user has access to resource mailboxes
  • Read user calendars—To get available times for rooms
  • Full access to user calendars—To create an event for the new bookings
  • Read user mailbox settings—To get mailbox settings such as time zone and locale

Depending on how your organization has set policies in Microsoft Azure, you may require administrator consent for the requested permissions before the organization starts using Indoors to book rooms. Availability of this feature may be limited if your organization restricts access to company-managed devices through Microsoft Intune.

If your organization restricts access or protects apps using Microsoft Intune for mobile application management (MAM), you must use the ArcGIS Indoors for Intune app, available from the Apple App Store.

Add layers

To prepare a map for workspace areas, complete the following steps:

  1. Open an Indoors project in ArcGIS Pro and activate the map prepared for Indoors mobile apps.
  2. Add or update the source for the Occupants layer in the map from the occupants feature layer that is associated with the Space Planner web map.
  3. Add or update the source for the Units layer from the units feature layer that is associated with the same Space Planner web map.
  4. Configure the Floors property for these layers to enable the floor filter in the app.

    Set the layer's LEVEL_ID field for the Floors property. You can then use the floor filter to visualize real-time occupancy of the rooms per floor for a facility in the floor-aware map.

  5. Add the Areas role and Areas table from the feature layer that is associated with the same Space Planner web map.
  6. Save the project.
Note:

If you're using an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, ensure that the layers are sourced from the default version. All changes made to the plans in Space Planner are merged to that version.

Add email IDs

Your organization must have resource mailboxes in Microsoft 365 for each space that can be reserved so that a unique email address is associated with the space. Resource mailboxes can be room mailboxes or workspaces.

Note:

Ensure that the scheduling options, particularly the maximum duration, are set based on the requirements of your organization. If a resource mailbox is a workspace and has a defined capacity, you can book the space multiple times until the capacity is reached.

To associate units with email IDs, complete the following steps:

  1. Right-click the Units layer and click Attribute Table.
    Tip:

    You can filter the records to show only the rows with a hotel value as the ASSIGNMENT_TYPE by adding the following display filter: ASSIGNMENT_TYPE = "Hotel".

  2. Update the SCHEDULE_EMAIL field with the unique email IDs for each hotel unit.
  3. Click the Edit tab.
  4. In the Manage Edits group, click Save.
    Note:

    Ensure that the USE_TYPE column has appropriate values for each hotel unit. These values are presented as options when booking workspaces.

  5. Save the project.
  6. Create and share the mobile map package.
Note:

You need to sign in to your Microsoft account in the ArcGIS Indoors mobile app to book office hotels.

Book an office hotel

The hotel option appears on the quick access menu for maps that have workspace reservations configured for office hotel booking. If a custom name is configured for the hotel option, it is displayed instead. The panel displays a list of available office hotels based on location and duration. You can filter the list based on workspace area, location, site, building, floor, duration, and choose daily or weekly recurring office hotel bookings. If an equipment filter is configured, you can filter the listed office hotels by available equipment. You can book any available room that suits your needs.

When a bookable office hotel is selected on the map, the Book option appears on the info card. Click the Book option to display a schedule of existing bookings for that room. To book the office hotel, click an available time slot to prepopulate the start and end times, use the time fields to set the times, or use the Repeat booking toggle button to create recurring bookings.

Note:

The Indoors mobile apps enforce scheduling limits configured in Space Planner when a user attempts to book an office hotel.

If office hotels are configured using the Reservations layer, users that are assigned the Indoors User user type or higher in your ArcGIS organization in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise can create bookings.

If the map was configured for hotel booking using Microsoft 365, the Indoors app sends a request using the Microsoft account that the user signed in with in Indoors. Users receive an automated email specifying whether the request was accepted or declined, and an event is added to their calendar. This experience is similar to using Microsoft apps such as Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Teams when booking rooms. You can also view, edit, and cancel the acceptance status of office hotel bookings on the Booked tab.

Book an office hotel for someone else (Reservations layer)

You can configure reservation managers in Space Planner who can create and manage office hotel bookings for other occupants, including recurring bookings, when using the Reservations layer. If a user is configured as a reservation manager for a workspace area, the Reserve for someone else toggle button appears in the Hotel panel to enable booking an office hotel unit for someone else in the Indoors mobile app. If the workspace area is configured as restricted, reservation managers can only book units in the workspace area for people who are assigned to it.

If feature editing for the Reservations layer is set to Editors can only edit their own features when reservations are made by a reservation manager, the options to check in, check out, or cancel a reservation are only available to the reservation manager who made the booking.

View an office hotel booking

You can view your booked rooms on the Booked tab in the Hotel panel. Actions include editing or canceling the reservation and adding a reminder to your preferred calendar app if office hotel bookings are configured using the Reservations layer. An indicator appears for all bookings that are part of a recurring series.

When you search for an occupant, the app displays their assigned offices, home office assignment, and any current or upcoming office hotel reservations. You can review the details of the unit they have reserved, get directions, and route to it. You can also access other assignments for an occupant using the Locations option in the info panel.

If the map was configured for hotel booking using Microsoft 365, the Indoors app sends a request using the Microsoft account that the user signed in with in Indoors. Users receive an automated email specifying whether the request was accepted or declined, and an event is added to their calendar. This experience is similar to using Microsoft apps such as Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Teams when booking rooms. You can also view, edit, and cancel the acceptance status of office hotel bookings on the Booked tab.

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