Analytics Coding

Office Dashboard

by Diego Soares

Office Dashboard

Real Estate Market

Over the last several years the economy has help to keep the commercial real estate market really hot. Companies were growing at a fast pace, expanding and updating office space has being one of the ways to attract and retain talent. No one wants to work on an office that looks like the 70’s or that big cubicle with high walls that isolates you and prevent you from interacting with colleges. According to CBRE, projections for 2020 are that Demand for office space will remain strong in 2020. Flexible space inventory will continue to increase, but at a slower pace.

(UPDATE) I wrote this post on the early days of COVID-19 and it was unclear what the outcomes would be. By now remote working and collaboration became the “NEW NORMAL” and companies are questioning how and when we will send people safely back to the office. At this point no one can really predict how the corporate real estate market will come out of it. The only certainty is that will not look like it was in the past.

When you look at the big tech companies like Google and Facebook that have cool offices with open spaces, designed to promote creativity and productivity among employees. They are investing in technology not only because it’s what they do, but because decisions are taken based on data and data shows that a more modern approach to the work environment with smaller more collaborative meeting rooms and open space pays off. Another big player in this market are the flexible space companies like “WEWORK” and “REGUS” that are huge tenants in the large cities markets and promote an open, more collaborative workspace.

Productivity and a better employee sentiment are not the only drivers for all that change Smart Building technologies and new “Green” regulations are also influencing how companies re-imagining their workspace. Examples are an increase on demand for PoE lighting to save cost and adhere to regulations on a reduction of carbon footprint.

What is the problem?

The challenge that most facility teams have, is to understand how employees use their office space. What is working? What is not working? What is the utilization status of my different services like quite rooms, Video Conference rooms, cafeteria, etc…

Today there is no real means to have that information without deploying a bunch of different sensors throughout different spaces and hope for the best (that the data is going to be meaningful). This task presents its own challenges like integration of systems, analytic tools that can bring some meaning to the data, also who is going to support all of that?

Teams within companies that are responsible for the workspace usually do not have an IT background, so tools that can provide all the data needed to answer some of the questions above and improve decision making are scary and sometimes ignored.

How analytics can change the game?

Data is changing everything; data is the new digital gold. So many industries are transforming with it, digital transformation is here to stay. Look at companies like Google and Facebook that became giants on Ad industry utilizing data and what they know about you to have more effective ads. Or how about Uber example, being able to surcharge for rides because they know there is a momentarily increase on demand. Don’t forget about Netflix, Amazon and so many others that use date to make decisions and have transformed the way we do things.

So why we are still in the past when it comes to data and workspaces? Do you really need to add 2000 sqft to your office for desk expansion? How many people are in and out of your office every day? Do you know what is the meeting room utilization over a day or a week? Where do employees congregate and are more productive?

Those are some questions that a lot of companies have with no answers. That is the reason why Office Dashboard was created, to help customer answer these questions.

(UPDATE) Imagine if you could tell how many employees are on the 3rd floor of your main office? How about understand where you should intensify cleaning because there is a higher concentration of people? Or just know, who was in close contact with John Doe last Friday while he was in the Office?  Those are probably difficult questions if you do not have sensors and an analytic tool monitoring your office environment. This is a current example why having an Analytics Dashboard of your office space can help.

What is Office Dashboard?

Office Dashboard is a web tool for data visualization of Key Performance Indicator (KPIs) related to your workspace environment. It was built to be flexible enough to intake data from any sort of device/sensor, with pre-built integrations for your Cisco Infrastructure allowing you to leverage your network as a sensor.

Written in Python, Office Dashboard is modular allowing connection to specific cloud services for data collection, it also uses open source tools like InfluxDB and Grafana, for data retention and visualization. With this analytics dashboard companies will be able to answer questions like:

  • How many people I have in my workspace throughout the day?
  • What are the most used spaces within my office?
  • What is the meeting rooms utilization throughout the day?
  • How many people are inside a meeting room?

Office Dashboard modules

As mentioned before OFFICE Dashboard is a modular application written in Python. Below is the description of each module:

  • Meraki: this module is responsible to collect and receive data from the Meraki Cloud (If you need to know more about what Meraki is click here). Within the Meraki Cloud you will configure it to share location data and Camera alerts with OFFICE-DASHBOARD and will also use the API Key so Client and Network data can be collected. With the collected data you will be able to have statistics about:
    • Clients (Employee Devices)
    • Location of Clients
    • Image Alerts from MV cameras
    • Image analytics using AWS Rekognition service.
  • Webex: this module is responsible to collect data from Room Devices registered to WEBEX Cloud (If you need to know more about what WEBEX is click here). WEBEX Cloud works as a proxy to communicate with Video Conference devices (Room Devices) to retrieve data from them, like:
    • Is the video conference being used?
    • What are the room environmental conditions, like noise, temperature and light levels?
    • Is the room empty?
    • How many people are inside the room?
  • DNA Spaces: this module is responsible to collect and receive data from the DNA Spaces Cloud (If you need to know more about what DNA Spaces is click here). DNA Spaces Cloud is responsible for receiving location data from Cisco on-prem Wi-Fi and overlaying analytics on top of that data do build dashboards about your Wi-Fi utilization and location analytics. Office Dashboard collect that location information to enable similar data analysis to what is possible with Meraki location information.
  • Data Retention: This module is responsible to save the data on log files or the InfluxDB. For later visualization.

Resources

References

Copyright © All rights reserved. Theme: Blog Elite by Themesaga