This blog is a deep dive into the new features for the May 9th, 2024 release of the Workplace Service Delivery (WSD) Store Apps.
Please note that this is a summary of the most notable items, not an exhaustive list. For full details, refer to the Product documentation and release notes on the ServiceNow Store.
New features:
- Workplace Concierge - Employee Presence
- Workplace Case Management – Workspace for Case Managers
- Workplace Agent for mobile – Agent/Technician experience
- Workplace Connectors – Integration with Occupancy Sensors & Metrikus
Enhancements:
- Workplace Reservation Management:
- Workplace Indoor Mapping
- Workplace Space Management:
- Workplace Move Management:
Workplace Concierge - Employee Presence
Persona: Employee
Roles: sn_wsd_core.workplace_user
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Concierge, Workplace Reservation Management, Proactive Prompts (optional, used to display insights in the calendar view)
The Employee Presence feature available through Workplace Concierge, aims at optimizing in-office attendance based on office policies and your collaborators’ behavior.
Early this year, during the February’24 release the Employee Presence foundations were released to enable employees to define their intended routine of in-office presence and view the routines of their collaborators defined in their collaborator list. For this release, the feature has been enhanced to provide more insights to the employees helping them define and optimize their routine.
This feature can be accessed by employees both through the Employee Portal and via the NowMobile app.
1- When the employee initially opens Employee presence, they need to enter their routine by selecting the days of the week they intend to be in the office. Entering their routines will make the calendar view available. Employees can also leave them all unchecked, and press “save”. This will indicate the employee will be remote. But they can still see when their collaborators are visiting an office near them, or what is happening in a location near them.
2- The Employee will then be able to create a list of collaborators for whom they would like to see their planned routine. They have the option to search collaborators by name. Once the routine and collaborator’s list have been added for the first time, when the Employee wants to make edits to the set information, suggestions will be shown on which collaborators could be added to the list.
3- In the final step, the Employee can define their privacy setting by either choosing to be in public mode, so everyone can see their office status or private mode, where nobody can see their office status.
Once those steps are completed, the Employee will see the dashboard which will display a day-by-day view where the Employee can view insights by the day and decide to edit a specific day’s status from Remote to In office or Visiting another office based on the insights shown.
The information shown to the Employee through the calendar view helps guide them in better understanding when the optimal time to be in the office is.
Workplace Admins can define and control which insights are shown to Employees. The Calendar Widgets which display the Insights are configured via the Proactive Prompts plugin. By default, the following information is delivered in the plugin:
- Presence insights: which could be information on the percentage of the Employee’s collaborators planning on being in the on that day.
- Collaborators: Information on the collaborators that plan on being in the office with the details of whether they will be in your office location or visiting another office. By clicking on the collaborators, the Employee will be able to view each collaborator’s permanent seat assignment and be redirected to the location directory.
- Reservations: The reservation information of the Employee will be shown on the day card if they have made a reservation for that day.
When the status is set to either In Office or Visiting another office, the Make a reservation option is shown for that day and enables the Employee to be redirected to the Reservation Portal to make a reservation.
Workplace Admins can enable employees to be notified while making a reservation if the employee is planned to be in office. This setting is enabled at the reservable module level.
- Exceptions: An exception message will be shown when the Employee decides to change their presence status.
At all times, Employee have the option to adjust their set routine, collaborator list and privacy settings by selecting Manage settings.
Workplace Case Management – Workspace for Case Managers
Persona: Case Manager, Facility Manager
Roles: sn_wsd_case.admin, sn_wsd_case.manager
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Case Management, Workplace Central
The Case Management Workspace is a new capability delivered to improve the usability of the Case Management module by providing a modern and intuitive experience for case managers.
Case Managers can access the workspace via Workplace Central and get an overview of workplace cases which include Maintenance cases, Move Cases, General Inquiries, Service Requests. The overview provides key operational metrics such as:
- All active cases
- Open Critical cases
- SLA Breaches
- Unassigned Cases
- Cases Awaiting Approvals
Along with a couple trends on:
- Opened vs Closed cases in the last 30 days
- Volume of cases by workplace service
By selecting any of the tiles in the overview dashboard, the Case Manager will be taken to the list of all the cases with that status.
The Workplace Case Manager can then select any case or group of cases and easily assign them to Workplace Agents for them to complete the work.
From the workspace, each case can be opened to view all of the case details, enabling the Case Manager to easily understand what needs to be done and how it will be done.
For each case the following information can be viewed, edited and updated:
- Details at a glance: view information on the employee who raised the case.
- Knowledge Articles: view all related articles
- Attachments: view all attachments and add more if needed
- Templates
- Location: the location details will show the detailed hierarchy along with the location pinned on the maps. The location displayed will be different based on the type of case
- Workplace Case: the location on which the case has been opened
- Maintenance Case: depending on the maintenance type either the location which needs to be maintained will be displayed or the asset’s location
- Move Case: will show the location where the move is initiated from, along with the destination location (move from/move to)
- Provide Fulfilment Instructions and Checklist
Workplace Agent for mobile – Agent experience
Persona: Workplace Agent, Technician, Case Fulfiller
Roles: sn_wsd_case.workplace_agent
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Case Management, Workplace Agent for mobile, Workplace Indoor Mapping (optional)
The Workplace Agent for Mobile is a new application delivered during this release to enable mobility and improve productivity by providing a mobile experience for workplace agents.
The mobile application provides a personalized work view that provides an overview of cases, highlights case priority and all details of the case, and facilitates quick action.
Workplace Agents can use the application to:
- View the list of cases and tasks they are assigned
- Get an insight on the criticality of a case
- View approvers, attached knowledge and images
- View fulfillment instructions and checklists
- Add comments to the case
- Update the case’s state
- Create a task for an existing case
- Get directions using the wayfinding capability on the interactive map
- View unassigned cases from the workplace group they are assigned to
More information on the Workplace Agent for mobile can be found here.
Workplace Connectors – Integration with Occupancy Sensors & Metrikus
Persona: Facility Manager
Roles: sn_wsd_wc.admin, sn_wsd_wc.manager
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Connectors, Workplace Central
During this release, the Workplace Connectors application has been enhanced to support integrations with occupancy sensors. Occupancy sensors play a crucial role in providing data to facility managers who seek to better understand space utilization.
To configure Workplace Connectors to provide real-time workplace occupancy data, Facility Managers will need to set up the third-party providers or use the Metrikus Spoke integrated with the Flow Designer Integration Hub to capture the data and have it shown within WSD. For organizations which do not use the Metrikus Spoke, they will need to build their own integration to get the occupancy insights.
- Configure the provider
- Define the connector configurations to retrieve the data and store it in the relevant table
- Ensure the space mapping between the workplace locations and provider’s external IDs is aligned
- Finally, retrieve the Action Configurations data, this will get the information from the occupancy sensors to the correct table by ensuring the space mapping is respected
View the detailed step-by-step process to enable Workplace Connectors for Occupancy Sensors here.
The occupancy data will be used in the following use cases which will be detailed below:
- Provide near-real time occupancy data on floor maps
- Automatically check-in reservations based on occupancy data
Workplace Reservation Management:
- Automatic Reservation check-in
Persona: Employee
Roles: sn_wsd_core.workplace_user
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Reservation Management, Workplace Connectors
The check-in of a reservation can now be automated based on occupancy data. This feature requires occupancy sensors to be set up through Workplace Connectors.
After the reservation starts, WSD checks if the space is occupied:
- If space is NOT occupied, then WSD sends a notification to the Employee who made the reservation with a nudge to either check-in or release the booking.
- If the space is occupied, then WSD automatically check-in and sends a notification to the employee who made the reservation.
- Make a reservation using the location directory
Persona: Employee
Roles: sn_wsd_core.workplace_user
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Reservation Management, Workplace Indoor Mapping
This feature is an enhancement to the existing location directory, providing a new route for employees to be able to submit reservations.
Ensure the map property: sn_wsd_space_map.show_rsv_occ_data_loc_dir is set to Yes.
1- If the organization has integrated with occupancy sensors, both the reservation status and occupancy state will be shown, providing information to the Employee on whether:
- The space is reserved and occupied, and will therefore not be available for reservation
- The space is reserved but not occupied, and will therefore not be available for reservation
- The space is not reserved and occupied or not, the space will be available for reservation
To visualize the occupancy data, the Employee can select the gear icon and select to display space availability.
2- If the organization does not provide occupancy data, the map view will only show the reservation status for each reservable space indicating whether the space is available or reserved.
Once the Employee has selected to reserve a space, they will be led to the space details page to check if the space is available for the duration the Employee sets. Upon search, the Employee will be prompted with spaces nearby in case the selected space is not available for the entire duration.
- Additional field support on reservation widget
Persona: Employee, Reservation Admin
Roles: sn_wsd_core.workplace_user, sn_wsd_rsv.admin
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Reservation Management
The ability to include additional fields on the reservation page provides more flexibility to the Reservation Admin to include a number of additional questions which will be shown to an Employee when making a reservation.
To set up the feature, the Reservation Admin will need to configure a record producer with the additional details fields. Details on how to create a record producer can be found here.
The recorder producer should then be linked through the Reservable Module > Reservation Widget Configuration.
Once configured, the Employee will be prompted to complete the relevant fields under the related information section prior to submitting the reservation for a space within that reservable module.
Workplace Indoor Mapping:
- Display the name of the employee who reserved a space
Persona: Employee
Roles: sn_wsd_core.workplace_user
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Indoor Mapping, Indoor Mapping, Workplace Reservation Management
Display reserved spaces with employee names on the map in the reservation portal facilitates the Employee’s experience when creating a reservation.
To view the names on the map, the Employee will select the eye icon in the right-hand corner of the map and enable the feature. This feature is available for employees using the map on the reservation portal.
To activate this feature, the Workplace Admin should ensure the following property ‘sn_wsd_core.floor_plan.portal.show_reservation_details’ is set to True.
Workplace Space Management
Persona: Facility Manager, Workplace Admin
Roles: sn_wsd_core.admin, sn_wsd_spcmgmt.manager
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Space Management, Workplace Central, Workplace Indoor Mapping, Indoor Mapping
- Neighborhood based scenario planning enhancements
This latest enhancement to the scenario planning feature, enables the Space Planner to visualize neighborhood assignments at both the building and floor levels and provides a simple way to make edits by adding or removing user assignments.
In the Stack Plan view, the Space Planner can get details on the neighborhood assignments such as:
- Profiles assigned: Total number of profiles assigned
- Assignment ratio: Ratio of user assigned to total neighborhood capacity
- Profiles assigned to a space: Total number of profiles assigned to space level
- Unassigned profiles: Total number of profiles with no location reference
By selecting a neighborhood at the floor level, the Space Planner will get the assignment details specific to that neighborhood and will have the option to edit the user assignments.
The neighborhood assignment changes will then be reflected in the User Deployment Plan.
- Scenario planning execution plan enhancements
This enhancement to the scenario planning feature aims at providing Space Planner with a clear view of the different scenario changes that will be triggered once the scenario gets deployed.
As the Space Planner goes about making edits to a scenario, the execution plan details will be split in the 2 following plans:
1- Space Deployment Plan: captures all space allocation and assignment type changes.
2- User Deployment Plan: captures all user moves and assignments changes.
Get more information on Scenario Planning here.
Workplace Move Management:
- Initiate moves and employee assignments using floor maps
Persona: Space Planner, Move Managers
Roles: sn_wsd_spcmgmt.manager
Plugins: Workplace Core, Workplace Space Management, Workplace Case Management, Workplace Move Management, Workplace Indoor Mapping, Workplace Central
This new feature, available through Workplace Central, provides a visual interface for Space Planners to efficiently relocate employees by triggering employee inter and intra floor relocations directly from the map view.
On the Map-Based Space Administration feature, a new tab has been introduced to enable Space Planners to view:
- Permanent user assignments (users names) on the floor map,
- Employee details on the side panel for selected employees
But also allows Space Planner to visualize and perform move actions by surfacing on-going move cases on the floor plan.
The Space Planner can select an Employee shown on the map or use the search bar to search for specific Users and take action to unassign them from their current assigned space or move them to a new location which will generate a move case.
When selecting to move an Employee from one location to another, the Space Planner has the option to define the granularity of the move by selecting to move the Employee to a space, area, floor or building or just unassign them from their current location.
Once the location assignment has been changed, the Space Planner will be prompted to validate the change before a move case gets created to process the change.
By selecting a space with a move case, the Space Planner will be shown information on both incoming and outgoing moves.
To explore further and access detailed technical documentation, we recommend using: https://docs.servicenow.com/.
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