It’s time to check in!
Many of you have been waiting for this feature. We’re glad to announce that it’s finally here: employee check-in.
When an employee makes a desk or parking spot reservation in advance, there’s always a possibility that plans will change, and the reservation might not be needed anymore. If the company policy uses the check-in feature, the employee must check in within a specified time frame. Certain companies can also enable the auto release option, meaning that a booking can get automatically cancelled if a check-in is not performed.
Checking in: how it works
No matter if the employee has one booking (desk or parking spot), or two bookings (both desk and spot), the check-in is performed once.
When an employee goes inside the Tidaro app, and there’s a booking made for that day, they will see a check-in section in the main home screen (both in the web app and the mobile app)
All a user needs to do is to click/tap on the Check in button to announce the arrival at the office.
Checking in: reminders
Whenever someone books a spot or a desk inside Tidaro, and the day of the booking comes, they can receive three types of check-in reminders:
- App notification
When the check-in notification shows up, the user can choose to close it or to check in.
- Push notification (for mobile only)
- Reminder email
Employees can also receive check-in reminder emails.
A click/tap on one of the buttons in the email will automatically check in the employee or release the booking. Signing in won’t be needed.
The check-in message shows up once, no matter if the employee has a spot booked, a desk booked, or both.
Checking in: understanding the check in window
Now, with Tidaro, employees can book a desk for a full day, or they can book a parking spot for a few hours or the full day.
When it comes to check-in reminders, there are some tiny differences when Tidaro works in daily mode, or hourly bookings mode.
How check-in works when hourly bookings are enabled (Parking module only)
Let’s assume you are working the night shift, and you have booked a spot starting with 4 p.m.
You will see a check-in message in the app, as well as receive a notification informing you that you can check-in between 3 and 5 p.m. This means that there is an interval of two hours available for check in. The interval starts one hour before the booking starts and ends one hour after the booking has started. This is called the check-in window and can be personalized by the company.
How check-in works when dealing with daily booking only
Each tenant has a default time range for a full working day. Let’s assume that the default is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The check-in window will be from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. (2 hours).
So, the rule for the check-in window is as follows: 2 hours check-in window, beginning one hour before the booking starts, and ending one hour after.
Important: If an employee wants to check-in later, he won’t be able to do it, because there will be a message in the Tidaro app saying that check-in time has passed.
Checking in: group exclusions
Some tenants might want to exclude certain groups of employees from checking in. For example, a company might choose to exclude the customer care team, or managers.
This is a setup that we will handle, at the request of tenants.
Checking in: reports
If tenants want to see the status of check-ins, they can do it inside reports, both at the parking reports level, as well as at the desk reports level. Tenants will be able to generate reports for all bookings, checked in bookings, and not checked in bookings.
Auto-release and check-in
On top of check-in, employers can also enable the auto-release option.
This means that when an employee has a booking, but does not check-in during the check-in window, the booking is automatically released (cancelled). The desk or parking space will become available for booking.
This means that the user will see a message in the app saying that check-in needs to be performed during a specific time frame, else the booking will be cancelled.
As previously mentioned, the employer can choose which types of reminders should be sent to the users.
If the check-in window has passed, the employee will be informed via email or push notification that their bookings have been cancelled because the time for the check-in has passed.
Checking in: use cases
When an employee reserves a workspace in Tidaro but then decides to work from home and fails to cancel the reservation, it can lead to inaccurate reports for the employer. This is how the need for a check-in feature was born.
Now, it is important for tenants to know that the check-in feature won’t solve all the problems that might arise.
Here are some scenarios:
- If an employee forgets to check in, the employer will see some gaps in their reports: they will see a higher number of bookings than check-ins.
- If an employee reserves a workspace but fails to check in, the reservation can be automatically cancelled (when the auto-release function is enabled), making the space available for others to book. However, if the original employee arrives later at work and finds that the desk/parking spot is no longer available, it can cause an inconvenience.
- Imagine this situation: an employee reserves a desk but forgets to check in upon arriving at the office. The company also has the auto-release option enabled on top of check-in. Now, the employee chats with a coworker at their desk and then goes to get coffee. After an hour, the employee still hasn’t checked in, so the desk is automatically released. Consequently, someone else books the desk.
What does this mean for the employers?
Checking in to a reserved workspace is a manual process performed by the employee. This manual process introduces potential risks, such as forgetting to check in. This means that the check-in feature alone may not fully address occupancy issues unless the company fosters a culture where employees are more responsible for their actions.
By analyzing the gaps between the number of bookings and the number of check-ins in a given time frame, the employer can make some decisions related to their workplace policy.
Next steps for admins that want to introduce check-in
If a tenant wants to enable check-in, they can contact us at support@tidaro.com, and we will do the setup.
The check-in window can be personalized, as well as the exclusion groups and reminder timings.