Sign In App

How to pick the best desk booking app

With the return of employees and visitors and many lessons learnt from the pandemic, organisations have been reimagining their workplaces to get smarter with the use of their space. We’re seeing the introduction of hot desking, cool and quirky breakout areas, meeting pods and more. As a result, many organisations have turned to desk booking solutions to help them manage these changes to their workspace.

Desk booking apps enable organisations to introduce and manage hot desking/hoteling policies by allowing employees to book a space, be it a desk, meeting room or breakout area, on the day or in advance. There’s a lot of solutions in the market at the moment, so…

How do you choose the best desk booking app?

You’ve probably found yourself on this blog because you’re thinking about introducing hot desking or want to improve your current desk booking process. Here’s just a few things to consider when choosing the best desk booking app for your organisation:

1. What do you need it to do?

First things first, what do you need your desk booking solution to do? No organisation is the same; so the best desk booking solution for your organisation will depend on your specific requirements.

  • Would you like employees to be able to book in advance or do you simply just need them to book a desk when they arrive?
  • How do you want employees to book? On a system in your office / a mobile app on their smartphone / web-based app on desktop?

2. Can you make anything bookable?

Leading on from what you need it to do, you should also consider what you want to make bookable in your office. As mentioned earlier, many organisations are introducing desk booking apps to help them get smarter with their office space. Do you simply just need to be able to book desks or could it also be helpful to book meeting rooms, breakout areas and parking spaces?

3. Can you add extra info to bookable spaces?

Do only certain desks in the office have a phone? Do some have a monitor? Extra information like this can be really useful to add to help employees choose where they want/need to sit depending on what equipment they need. Some desk booking solutions will allow you to customise this information so you can add whatever notes you like e.g. by a window or radiator.

4. Can you try it for free?

The best desk booking app will give you a no-obligation free trial so you can test it out to see if it works well for your organisation’s requirements. Compare how long each company’s free trial is and what you get included within the trial. Do you get full access to the features and support? Do you have to provide payment information to access the free trial?

5. What’s the cost?

You’ve finished the free trial and you’re ready to take out a full subscription - what is this going to cost? Cost can be a make or break when it comes to choosing desk booking software and each solution may have a completely different pricing structure. Some apps price per site, some are per desk, others price per employee and some might add in a cost for extra spaces such as meeting rooms.

This is why we suggest choosing an app with a simple, transparent (no hidden cost) pricing structure. As an example, the best desk booking app for you might have a simple annual cost per site, offering unlimited bookings for all spaces.

6. Is it easy to implement and use?

Are you able to set up the software yourself or does it require on-site set up? How quickly can you get set up and start using the solution? Once it’s set up, is it straightforward for employees to start booking desks or is it going to require some training?

7. Could you implement it with other workplace management solutions?

Nowadays, there’s digital solutions to streamline all areas of workplace management. Visitor management and employee sign in are particularly common in a variety of industries to streamline the management of people on-site and improve health and safety processes. Does the company you’re researching for the best desk booking app also offer solutions for visitor and employee sign in and could this all come under one subscription cost and be managed from one portal?


Have you considered Spaces? Spaces is our flexible desk and meeting room add-on for Sign In App and is perfect for managing reduced site capacity or reassessing how you use your office space, allowing you to introduce hot desking easily. There’s no expensive consultancy fees, and you can be up and running in minutes, plus we offer a 15-day free trial which includes our visitor management and employee sign in solutions too. Ready to get started? Start your trial here, or if you’d like to find out more get in touch with the team.