Overview of Cisco Spaces
Cisco Spaces is a powerful location services platform that leverages the existing wireless as well as Internet of Things (IoT) and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) infrastructure to provide actionable insights and drive business outcomes through built-in applications in Cisco Spaces.
These insights include:
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Location Analytics: Provides the capability to slice and dice location data by time or location and get a deeper visibility into the behavior of users who are connected to your network.
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Right Now: Provides a real-time count of the number of visitors (identified by the devices connected to Wi-Fi) within your physical space, and how this number compares with the historical average. Based on the authentication method that is in use, Right Now reports can detect multiple devices belonging to a single user and count them as belonging to one visitor. The Right Now app also provides reports based on the cameras deployed in customer locations, and whether these cameras are connected to the Cisco Spaces Cloud.
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Business Insights: Provides the capability to measure how frequently people visit your physical locations, and how much time they spend at these locations. This data is benchmarked monthly across all the locations. It also provides the capability to compare and benchmark the performance of your locations historically, by group or by industry.
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Impact Analysis: Provides the capability to measure the impact of at-location events, campaigns, and layout changes on the behavior of users who are connected to your network. It is easy to create an Event using the Cisco Spaces application and measure its impact based on the following:
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The time spent by a user at a given location
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The frequency during specific timelines, such as Before, After, and During the occurrence of an event
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The Cisco Spaces application includes customer experience management apps such as Captive Portals, Location Personas, and Engagements that allow you to connect with your customers in real time when they are at your physical location. Additional applications include an Asset Tracking app, a service manager to manage and configure IoT services (BLE), if any, as well as an open API framework for extracting this data and correlating or integrating it into other enterprise systems.
Cisco Spaces provides a single dashboard interface to avail these multiple services through various location-based technologies and intelligence. Cisco Spaces also enables you to connect and engage with visitors at your physical business locations. It can be used in various industries, such as retail, manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare, education, financial services, and so on. The asset-tracking application in Cisco Spaces provides solutions for monitoring and managing the assets in your premises. Cisco Spaces offers variety of toolkits, apps, and APIs to turn these insights into actions.
Through its partner program, Cisco Spaces offers businesses access to various partner applications across verticals.
Cisco Spaces is compatible across Cisco Catalyst, Cisco AireOS, and Cisco Meraki infrastructure.
In addition to the services specified, the scope of the Cisco Spaces apps is extended to meet the business requirements that have risen due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Extensions are built in existing applications, and newer applications are added to meet specific requirements that have risen because of COVID-19. Extensions to apps, such as Impact Analytics, Location Analytics, Behavior Metrics, and Right Now, allow you to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on your business locations and enable you to take appropriate actions. For example, you can now create a rule based on the device density at your location, and be automatically notified if the number of people at your location exceeds a specific count or density (people per area). The Location Analytics app also allows you to share executive summary reports with your colleagues within your organization. Additionally, COVID-19-based trend analysis for individual or group locations can now be done using the Behavior Metrics app. This enables the comparison of specific business locations with that of the overall organization as well as with your specific industry.
The Proximity Reporting app in Cisco Spaces provides a quick way to review the location history as well as device proximity history of an impacted device. Based on the user ID or MAC address, a report for a device location in a building for the last 14 days is generated along with the proximity of other devices. You can export the report and also share the same using the Share functionality. For more information about the Proximity Reporting app, see the Cisco Spaces Proximity Reporting App Configuration Guide.
Similarly, the Detect and Locate app allows you to cluster devices into specific counts to check and report on areas that might be violating social distancing guidelines. For more information about the Detect and Locate app, see the Cisco Spaces Detect and Locate Configuration Guide.
Cisco Spaces: IoT Services is a platform service within Cisco Spaces that enables you to claim, manage, and monitor IoT devices using Cisco's wireless infrastructure. IoT Services is designed to enable the management of IoT devices across vendors, form factors, and technology protocols. BLE is the first technology available for management using IoT Services. For more information about IoT Services, see the Cisco Spaces IoT Services Configuration Guide.
Cisco Spaces enables you to integrate third-party apps - Partner Apps to Cisco Spaces. The third-party apps are listed as partnership apps in the Cisco Spaces dashboard.
For additional information about Cisco Spaces, including setup and configuration, see the Cisco Spaces Configuration Guide.