Managing Locations

This chapter describes how you can manage the creation and assignment of locations, that is, workspaces and offices that are allocated to individual employees.

About Assigning Locations

As an administrator, you can assign certain locations to employees as their fixed desks. These workspaces or offices are meant to be exclusively used by the employees to whom they are allocated, that is, no other employee is allowed to reserve or check into the fixed desks.

Employees who are assigned a location, will be unable to avail themselves of the automatic extension mobility feature which is provided on check-in. They can log in to or log out of the extension mobility on the IP phone at the fixed desk provided that this feature is configured in CUCM.

The assigned locations and details of the employees to whom the locations are allocated are shown in the floor maps that are displayed on the kiosks, but these locations are not available for reservation or check-in.

Creating/Editing Locations in the SDP

Before you assign a location to an employee, you need to add a workspace or office in the SDP and then specify the location property as non-reservable. For more information, see the “Adding Locations” section in the Cisco Smart+Connected Spaces Installation Guide.

Changing the Reservation Property

You can change the location from non-reservable to reservable and vice versa any time that you want by editing the location property in the SDP. For more information, see the “Editing Locations” section in the Cisco Smart+Connected Spaces Installation Guide.

Exporting Location Details

You can export the fixed location details for a floor as an Excel sheet. Once the file is exported, you can fill in the location assignment details and import it back to the application.

To export the location assignment data, perform the following steps:

Step 1 In the home page of the Smart+Connected Spaces portal for managing workspaces, choose Admin > Assign Location.

Step 2 Choose the required options from the Select Country and Select City drop-down lists.

The country that you have chosen is displayed with an arrow button next to it.

Step 3 Click the arrow buttons next to the country, city, and building name to expand the location hierarchy to view the list of fixed locations.

Step 4 Click the floor for which you want to export the data and then click Export.

Step 5 Save the file to a desired location.

The downloaded file contains the following columns:

    • Location ID, and Location Name columns

These columns always display the location details whether the locations are assigned to users or not.

    • User ID, First Name, and Last Name columns

These are the columns where you provide the details of the employee to whom you want to assign the location.

Note The exported file will be populated with user data, that is, display the user details if some of the locations are already assigned to users. This happens when you have assigned locations to users directly through the portal or have imported the location assignment details. For more information, see the “Importing Location Assignment Data” section, and the “Assigning Locations” section.

 

Importing Location Assignment Data

You can import the location assignment data for a floor from xlsx files. Once the file is imported, you can view the details before saving it to the application. After the import process is complete, the user ID, first name, and last name of the employees to whom these locations are assigned will appear in right pane for each of these locations in the admin portal. This indicates that the locations are assigned to these employees.

If the exported file contains only the user ID, the first name and last name are retrieved from LDAP and imported into the application. In case you enter a wrong first and/or last name, the correct data for the specified user ID is imported into the application from LDAP.

Note Ensure that you enter the exact user ID as contained in LDAP. If the user ID provided for a location is found to be incorrect during the import process, the location assignment data for that location is ignored and data for the other locations is imported.

To import the location assignment data, perform the following steps:

Step 1 In the home page of the Smart+Connected Spaces portal for managing workspaces, choose Admin > Assign Location.

Step 2 Choose the required options from the Select Country and Select City drop-down lists.

The name of the country that you have chosen is displayed with an arrow button next to it.

Step 3 Click the arrow buttons next to the country, city, and building name to expand the location hierarchy to view the list of fixed locations.

Step 4 Click the floor for which you want to import the data.

Step 5 Click Browse and choose the file that you want to import.

The file is displayed next to the Browse button.

Step 6 Click Import.

The Import Data dialog box appears and displays a preview of the data, which will be imported, as separate columns.

Step 7 Verify that the data is correct and click Save.

(Optional) If you want to make any changes in the location assignment, click the icon next to the name of any user. The User Name field becomes editable and you can enter the name of another user. To remove the location assignment, click the icon next to the name of any user. The user name is removed and the location becomes available for reassignment. Click Save.

Note If a location is assigned to a user but the Excel sheet being imported does not contain any data for that location (the user ID field is left blank), the existing location assignment is removed after the import. The location is available for reassignment.

Step 8 Click OK in the dialog box that appears informing you that the import process is started.

The locations are assigned to the specified persons. The first name, last name, and user ID of the employee are displayed along with the Remove and Change buttons for each of the assigned locations.

Step 9 (Alternatively) Click Cancel to cancel the import process and close the Import Data dialog box.

 

Assigning Locations

To assign a location to an employee, perform the following steps:

Step 1 In the home page of the Smart+Connected Spaces portal for managing workspaces, choose Admin > Assign Location.

Step 2 Choose the required options from the Select Country and Select City drop-down lists.

The name of the country that you have chosen is displayed with an arrow button next to it.

Step 3 Click the arrow buttons next to the country, city, building, and floor name to expand the location hierarchy to view the list of fixed locations.

Step 4 Click the fixed location that you want to assign.

Step 5 Enter the first three alphabet characters of an employee’s company ID, first name, or last name in the Search People field.

The Search People Result dialog box appears. It displays the first and last name of the users who match the search criteria along with the Add button.

Step 6 Click Add for the required name in the list.

The location is assigned to the employee. The first name, last name, and User ID of the employee are displayed along with the Remove and Change buttons.

 

Viewing Location Assignment Details

To view the names of the employees to whom the locations are assigned, perform the following steps:

Step 1 In the home page of the Smart+Connected Spaces portal for managing workspaces, choose Admin > Assign Location.

Step 2 Choose the required options from the Select Country and Select City drop-down lists.

The name of the country that you have chosen is displayed with an arrow button next to it.

Step 3 Click the arrow buttons next to the country, city, building, and floor name to expand the location hierarchy and to view the list of fixed locations.

Step 4 Click the location for which you want to view the location assignment.

Note You can also view the names of the employees to whom the various locations have been assigned by viewing the exported file, if some locations are already assigned to employees. For more information, see the “Exporting Location Details” section.

The first name, last name, and user ID of the employee are displayed along with the Remove and Change buttons.

 

Changing Location Assignment

To change the user to whom a location is assigned, perform the following steps:

Step 1 In the home page of the Smart+Connected Spaces portal for managing workspaces, choose Admin > Assign Location.

Step 2 Choose the required options from the Select Country and Select City drop-down lists.

The name of the country that you have chosen is displayed with an arrow button next to it.

Step 3 Click the arrow buttons next to the country, city, building, and floor name to expand the location hierarchy to view the list of fixed locations.

Step 4 Click the location for which you want to change the location assignment.

The first name, last name, and user ID of the employee to whom the location is assigned are displayed along with the Remove and Change buttons.

Step 5 Click Change.

The Search People field appears.

Step 6 Enter the first three alphabet characters of an employee’s company ID, first name, or last name in the Search People field.

The Search People Result dialog box appears. It displays the first and last name of the employees who match the search criteria along with the Update button.

Step 7 Click Update for the required name in the list.

The location is reassigned to the selected employee. The first name, last name, and user ID of the employee are displayed along with the Remove and Change buttons.

 

Removing Location Assignment

You can remove the name of an employee to whom a location is assigned. Once this is done, the same location can be assigned to another employee whenever required. Also, before you convert a non-reservable location to a reservable location you need to remove the location assignment.

To remove a location assignment, perform the following steps:

Step 1 In the home page of the Smart+Connected Spaces portal for managing workspaces, choose Admin > Assign Location.

Step 2 Choose the required options from the Select Country and Select City drop-down lists.

The name of the country that you have chosen is displayed with an arrow button next to it.

Step 3 Click the arrow buttons next to the country, city, building, and floor name to expand the location hierarchy to view the list of fixed locations.

Step 4 Click the location for which you want to remove the location assignment.

Step 5 Click Remove.

The user details and the Remove and Change buttons are removed. The location is unassigned and available for reassignment. The Search People field appears.