The term took hold with flexible and hybrid working. When every employee had an assigned desk there was little to manage beyond moves and cleaning. Once attendance varied by day, the questions changed: how many people will be in on Tuesday, are there enough rooms for them, and which floors can close on Friday. Workspace management software answers those questions from bookings and check-in data rather than guesswork, and flexible workspace operators use the same category of tool to run space across several sites.
The category goes by several names, including workspace management platform, hybrid workspace management software and flexible workspace management, and the shortlist is the same under any of them. What separates products is whether desks, rooms, parking and visitors sit in one system with one set of reports, how the booking flow fits into Outlook, Google Calendar and Teams, and whether the utilisation data is good enough to support a decision about the lease. See the shortlist of the best workplace management software and the guide to enterprise workplace management software.
Common questions
What is workspace management software?+
Workspace management software is the system an organisation uses to run its bookable space: desks, meeting rooms, parking bays and the visitor and attendance record around them. In facilities and office operations it means the same thing as workplace management software. In IT it can mean digital workspace management, which is a different product category.
Is workspace management software the same as workplace management software?+
In office operations, yes. Both describe one platform for desks, rooms, parking, visitors and utilisation reporting. The one thing to check is that a product using the workspace label is about physical space, not an IT tool for delivering apps and desktops to devices.
What should workspace management software include?+
Desk and room booking, parking and visitor management in one system, a booking flow that works inside Outlook, Google Calendar and Teams, and utilisation reporting that is reliable enough to plan space against. Products that cover one of these and bolt on the rest usually leave the data in separate places.