This blog is a deep dive into the new features released on February 2, 2023 for Workplace Service Delivery (WSD).
Please note: this is not a comprehensive list. For full details, refer to the Product documentation and release notes on the ServiceNow store.
New features:
- Workplace Lease Administration
- Workplace Maintenance Management
- Space recommender
- Neighborhoods
Enhanced features:
Indoor Mapping:
- Map Studio
· Copy direction graphs from one floor to multiple floors
· Highlight direction modes in Map Studio
· Automatically compute campus boundary
· CAD preview enhancements
· Display CAD file errors
· CAD properties extract
· New limited Map Editor role
- Other utilities
· A new interface for data synchronization between Indoor Mapping locations and WSD
· Migrate Indoor Mapping and WSD data from one instance to another
- User experience
· Share links to Places in Location Directory
· Patterns on map view to assist with accessibility
· Integration with Indoor Atlas (third party solution) for the blue dot experience
Reservation Management
- Employee privacy
Space Management
- Scenario approvals
Health and Safety
- OSHA Report Generation
- Injury/Illness List
- Related Assets
- Compliance role
- Standalone injury/illness records
Workplace Lease Administration
Persona: Lease Manager
Plugin: Workplace Lease Administration (sn_wsd_la)
Workplace Lease Administration is a new capability to help lease managers and administrator managers track all workplace lease contracts. This new feature is available through Workplace Central.
Lease Managers, can create and track all workplace contracts along with spaces, workplace assets, services, and associated costs that are part of the contracts.
Creating a new contract: main details are required to define the lease contract
Financial information can be detailed:
Renewal terms of the contract can also be indicated to trigger notifications when the lease is up for expiry or renewal:
Once the lease is created Lease Managers can define which locations and/or assets are assigned to the specific contract.
Receive notifications when leases are coming up to expiry or renewal.
Workplace Maintenance Management
Plugin: Workplace Maintenance Management sn_wsd_maintenance
Workplace Maintenance Management is a new capability available through Workplace Central, which provides maintenance managers with a central spot to view and manage workplace maintenance cases and plans.
A workplace manager can:
- Create preventive maintenance plans for workplace assets and locations. The latter can be used to do maintenance planning for soft services like house-keeping.
- View preventive maintenance cases, as an outcome of preventive maintenance planning, in the overview tab. The overview tab is a focus area for maintenance planners, allowing them to view key information in one interface.
- Assess preventive versus corrective maintenance cases for the current month in the personalized landing page for maintenance planners.
- Use maintenance cases to log any issues for maintenance, messes, or breaks.
From this homepage, maintenance managers can view key information and get a high-level view of created, active, and draft maintenance plans.
Two types of maintenance cases can be created: corrective or preventative.
The creation of maintenance plans is done by following the 3 following steps:
- Create a new plan, add details (name, start and end date of plan, description)
- List assets and/or locations that need to be maintained
- Define the schedule
Space Recommender
Persona: System admin and end users
Plugins: Workplace Safety Management, Workplace Space Management, Workplace Case Management, Workplace Central
This new capability will help automate space recommendations to ensure efficient use of space, while reducing space planner workload.
The Space Recommender allows end users to submit a ‘Space assist request’ on Employee Center to get recommendations for space allocation plans based on input parameters, including space quantity, department, cost center, locations, move-in/move-out dates, and more.
Space recommendation rules can be created to suggest space allocation plans based on configurable space recommender rules. These rules can be defined via a table condition builder or advanced scripts. or advanced scripts.
Once the request is completed, the system auto generates three space recommendations based on the criteria entered and rules defined by the workplace team.
- Create a Space Recommender rule.
- Complete your request using Space Assist Request from Employee Center.
- Three options are offered to you based on your request and rules.
- Use the view on map capability to visualize the layout of the proposed option on a floor plan.
Neighborhoods
Persona: System Administrator
Plugins: Workplace Reservation Management, Workplace Space Management
Neighborhoods provide additional flexibility to both space planners and employees to accommodates the strategic move from single user desk assignments to neighborhoods.
Using Neighborhoods
Neighborhoods are a group of spaces assigned to employees within an organization.
Space Admins/ Space Planners can:
- Create/ update neighborhoods
- Associate employees with neighborhoods
- Associate spaces with neighborhoods
Space Planners can define neighborhoods, which can span across multiple floors, buildings and/or sites. Just like other space hierarchy elements, they are defined in the Workplace Safety Management module. Start by creating a neighborhood with a name and choose whether it will be restricted (meaning spaces assigned to this neighborhood can only be reserved by employees assigned to it) or whether it is open to all employees.
Bulk assign spaces and employees to the newly created neighborhoods. Spaces and users can be assigned to multiple neighborhoods.
Space Planners can assign spaces to the neighborhood by creating a space assignment task. Filters can be applied to the spaces to be added. After submitting, spaces are assigned to the neighborhood. Space Planners can also look up past space assignment tasks for historical purposes.
User assignment to neighborhoods is done via user assignment rules. Space Planners can define separate rules for different groups of employees. The rules are executed via a scheduled job which runs daily by default.
Additional details on these can be found here.
Neighborhoods can be used for:
- Reservation Management :
When making a reservation, employees can browse by neighborhood to search for available spaces to reserve. If the created neighborhoods are restricted to only users assigned to them, only those users will be able to view them and reserve spaces within them.
- Location Directory:
Users can also easily get directions to a specific space or neighborhood using the location directory. To do so, they can either search for the name of a space or for a neighborhood, in which case, the spaces assigned to the neighborhood will appear highlighted on the map view. Users will only be able to search for neighborhoods they have been assigned to. When selecting a space, employees can view information about the space, request directions, or raise an inquiry (case).
- Scenario planning
Space planners can create scenarios to set up a neighborhood and assign spaces.
Space planners can create new what-if scenarios for space optimization based on configured neighborhoods, giving them more data to make informed decisions. Get detailed information on Neighborhoods in Scenario planning here.
Indoor Mapping
- Copy direction graphs from one floor to multiple floors
Persona: Map Admin
In addition to the copy directions from one floor to another capability released in November 2022, enhancements have been made to enable Map Admins to copy directions from one floor to several floors in one click. This feature will be useful to speed up configuring directions for wayfinding where several floors share a similar floor plan.
- Highlight direction modes
Persona: Map Admin
To prevent wayfinding issues, you can now detect gaps between segments more easily in a dedicated Direction mode. Select a Direction mode, all linked segments will appear in blue while none linked segments will be grey. This way, it is easier to detect orphan segments in the floor direction graph.
- Automatically auto-adjust campus boundary
Persona: Map Admin
Now, if you save your campus with a new building outside the campus current campus boundary, the boundary will be automatically adjusted to include all the building. Previously, if your building was outside the boundary of your campus you weren’t able to see it inside WSD.
- CAD preview enhancement
Persona: Map Admin
Instead of seeing the entire contents of your CAD file as a preview before importing, you will see your building as you go, checking or unchecking the layers you want to import inside the studio.
Note that you can still view the entire contents of the CAD file as it was in previous releases. A counter of the number of elements in the file is also available. Thanks to those new features the CAD files configuration and import will be easier than before.
- Display CAD file errors
Persona: Map Admin
New error messages are available during an import in Map Studio to help you solve import issues specify why a CAD file can not be imported. Three types of error messages will display, depending on the issue:
- Georeference
- File Warnings
- Layers
- CAD properties extract
Persona: Map Admin
A binding rule in the Indoor Places Properties Mapping table now allows for the extraction of properties from objects in CAD files, like a measurements values, to populate fields in Workplace Service Delivery space fields.
According to the values in the importede CAD file, examples of values that could be extracted include:
'name_of_the_place' | 'name_of_the_property' | 'value_of_the_property'
gymnasiume | has shower | no
bathroom | has shower | yes
gymnasiume | size | 1291.67pi2
- New limited Map Editor role
Persona: Map Admin
A new Map Editor role allows Admins to grant users limited access to the Map Studio and relevant tables. For example, this allows access to only to certain campuses.
- Improvements to the sync script between Indoor Mapping and WSD
A new synchronization capability allows you to select which data should be synchronized between Indoor Mapping and WSD. This new feature replaces the previous feature known as “GetBuilding” and its associated business rules with a more flexible and customizable way to bind WSD Spaces with Indoor Mapping Places.
- Migrate Indoor Mapping and WSD data from one instance to another
To move your campuses from one instance to another, we added a feature called Snapshot.
Snapshot will save your campus and reload it later in another instance as a backup with all your campus data. It also allows you to copy your data from a sub production instance to a production instance for example.
- Share URLs to Places in Location Directory
A new “Copy URL” button in Location Directory now makes it easy to share a location with a co-worker. The recipient will get direct access to the selected space in the location directory.
- Pattern support in Reservation Management
In addition to being able to easily identify if a space is booked or available with red or green colors, patterns can be used, to make this more accessible for color blind users. Two standard patterns are provided, and you can add extra patterns if desired.
- Integration with Indoor Atlas for blue dot experience (Mobile App only)
Workplace Indoor Mapping on the mobile App can now be used in combination with a third-party named Indoor Atlas to provide real-time positioning when using the wayfinding feature. Without this in place, users must manually choose a start location on the map. Note that Indoor Atlas requires hardware components called beacons to be deployed within the premises.
Reservation Management
- Employee Privacy
Plugin: Workplace Reservation Management
Workplace Administrators and employees can now determine whether employee locations, both assigned via workplace profiles and/or via reservations, should be made visible to others using the existing “browse near a colleague” search, the schedule view, on mobile using “Get Directions”, or through the location directory when searching for a space or user.
Workplace Administrators can define their privacy rules for all locations in the organization using system properties, or for individual buildings, reservable modules, workplace profiles, and reservations, within their respective records.
Defining privacy using the new Workplace Reservation Management Properties for all locations (Workplace admin):
- Enable employee location privacy and preference, with the following options:
- Workplace profiles only (e.g. seat assignment without a reservation)
- Reservations only
- Reservations and workplace profiles
- No privacy
- Allow employees to override location privacy on reservations: Yes/No
Note: If enabled, this will allow employees to set their individual preferences on their privacy for their workplace profile or individual reservations.
- Inform employees when location privacy is applied: Yes/No
Defining privacy at the individual building level (Workplace Admin):
Defining privacy at the individual reservable module level (Workplace Admin):
Defining privacy at the individual workplace profile level (Workplace admin):
If the privacy option is set to yes, employees will not be able to see the location of the user when searching for a user via the Location Directory, using the “Get Directions” feature on mobile for that user or location, or using the “Browse near a colleague” search method.
Defining privacy at the reservation level (employees):
If the employee override option is enabled, employees will see the option to make their individual reservation private in their reservation details, or within outlook if the Microsoft Office Outlook Add-in is enabled:
Learn more about location privacy here.
Space Management
Scenario Approvals:
Space Planners can now send their scenarios for approval to obtain buy in from stakeholders before deploying the scenario and generating move requests.
Space Planners and Approvers can:
- Leverage workplace approval framework to configure and manage scenario approval process and performers
- Ability to send published scenario for approval and manage/view approval outcomes
- Ability to review scenarios before taking approval decision
- Show approval table as part of scenario record to capture approval progress and suggested changes
- Manage/view approval status and allow scenario deployment
Users with the ‘sn_wsd_core.admin’ role can configure Scenario Approvers. A delivered “Scenario Plan Approval” Workplace Approval definition is available and can be configured to define the required scenario conditions, as well as the required approvers:
Learn more about defining scenario approvals here.
Once a Space Planner has published a scenario, they can find the summary of all changes made in the Execution Plan tab for their scenario, and they can click on “Send for approval” to request approval from the approvers defined in the “Scenario Plan Approval” definition.
Health and Safety
OSHA Compliance Pack
Requires OSHA Plugin: sn_hs_im_osha
- OSHA Report Generation
Set up the Health and Safety Incident Management OSHA Content Pack application to enable the generation of OSHA forms.
Before you start the OSHA form generation, ensure that you have the Safety Compliance Manager [sn_ohs_im.compliance_manager] role assigned to you.
For those with the compliance role, OSHA report generation plugin allows users to access ‘Generate 300A,” “Generate 300”,” and “Generate 301” log buttons on the injury/illness list.
Once the Compliance Manager selects this, a model will open where they can choose what establishment and year to generate the OSHA report for.
Once reported, the reports will be stored as attachments to the establishment record in the new establishment list and will only be accessible by those with the Compliance Manager role. Compliance Managers would then need to submit manually to OSHA if reporting is required.
- Compliance role: [sn_ohs_im.compliance_manager]
The Compliance Manager role allows users with this role to generate OSHA 300 and 300A reports.
Due to the sensitivity, only specific people should be assigned this role. However, if no one is assigned the role then the customer will not be able to generate 300 and 300A forms.
This role also allows users to access generated OSHA reports that are stored on the establishment record.
- Injury/Illness List
Logged injuries/illnesses can be managed within the injuries/illness list. Safety professional users can then filter by recordability and establishment. Once verified OSHA compliance reports can be generated using the log buttons that are on this list view.
- Standalone injury/illness records
Within the injury/illness list, there is the capability of generating standalone injury/illness records separately from incident records. This allows injuries to be logged and associated with an incident at a later date.
- Related Assets
If an investigator learns that a piece of equipment has injured anyone or has been damaged as part of an incident, Health and Safety investigators can associate those assets with safety incidents.
Information about the equipment is then stored on the H&S incident to help with the investigation. Investigators can then assign corrective actions if the asset has been damaged, or preventative actions to prevent a similar incident from occurring again.
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