In a typical workplace utilisation study we carry out, an average of approximately 30% of booking information held on an organisation's booking system is inaccurate.

This error rate results mainly from staff making bookings and then forgetting to cancel them when their plans change. This results in empty meeting rooms and unusable booking slots - these 'no-shows' result in considerable frustration for all those staff who can rarely get a convenient meeting room or time.

Addressing this problem is like having 30% more meeting rooms in your workplace - for free! (well, cheap anyway!).

Like in a hotel, performing a check in at around the time of your reservation confirms your booking and holds the room for you. If any of your colleagues have forgotten to cancel a meeting room they no longer need then their failure to check in will result in their booking being cancelled automatically and the booking slot will be returned to the available pool for others to use.

Most leading systems support touch screens which can be installed next to meeting rooms to make it easy (and to remind staff) to check in.

You would think they would be, but the problem comes because booking a room is a completely different approach from booking a desk.

With room booking what you're actually looking for is room availability. Because - in the real world - the chances of the room you want (or any room) being free at the time you and your colleagues want it, is pretty small. Instead, you have to look for the gaps between others' bookings and compromise.

With desk booking - the number of desks provided should be planned around your maximum demand. This means, that in all but the most unusual occasions, you should be able to find an available desk for your required time slot. So, with desks, your search is for the time slot you want in the location you want.

Designing a system to help staff intuitively and quickly book their room and desk requirements is not trivial. Two completely different interfaces are required - one optimised for availability searches (e.g. for rooms) and one for time slot searches (e.g. for desks).

So a room booking system which is capable of searching for gaps - won't suit your expansion into desk booking!