---
title: "Space management"
url: https://doorjames.com/features/space-management/
language: en
updated: 2026-09-22
type: product
section: product
description: "Space management with locations, floors, areas and zones on interactive floor plans. Set capacities, desk-sharing ratios and booking rules per area – and see from real usage whether they hold."
keywords: [space management software, space management system, workspace management, floor plan software, desk sharing ratio, workplace space planning, Flächenmanagement]
translations: de=https://doorjames.com/de/funktionen/space-management/
formats: https://doorjames.com/features/space-management/index.md https://doorjames.com/features/space-management/index.json https://doorjames.com/features/space-management/index.jsonld
bookDemo: https://meet.doorjames.app/public-schedule/99469a6d66d20f7fdd5ee19182a8f8bd (30 min, Microsoft Teams)
---

# Model your space once, steer it every day

> Space management in Door James models locations, buildings, floors, areas and every bookable resource on interactive floor plans. Capacities, desk-sharing ratios, team zones, booking rules and approvals are configured per area, and real check-in data shows whether the model matches reality – the basis for consolidating, reducing or reallocating space.

Space management starts with a model of the building and ends with a decision about square metres. Door James covers both ends with the same data.

## Key facts

- **Hierarchy:** organization, location, building, floor, area, resource
- **Floor plans:** interactive plan per floor with every resource placed
- **Rules:** per area – lead time, duration, quotas, approvals
- **Validation:** planned capacity against real check-ins

## What space management includes

- **Interactive floor plans** – Each floor is a digital plan. Desks, rooms, parking spaces and assets sit where they sit in the building, with live status colours.
- **Areas and zones** – Floors are divided into areas – team zones, quiet zones, project spaces, client floors. Every rule and every report can follow that structure.
- **Capacities and ratios** – Define how many desks an area offers and how many people it serves. The desk-sharing ratio stops being a guess and becomes a configured number.
- **Rules per area** – Lead times, maximum booking duration, quotas per person, whitelists and approval workflows are set where they apply, not globally.
- **Blocking and reallocation** – Areas can be blocked for renovation, events or cleaning, or temporarily assigned to another team – without deleting the underlying model.
- **Multi-location structure** – Several sites, each with its own floors, rules, opening hours and responsibilities, administered from one Admin Panel.
- **Resource attributes** – Monitors, docking stations, height-adjustable desks, accessibility features: attributes make resources findable and make reports meaningful.
- **Evidence for space decisions** – Planned capacity next to real check-ins per area and weekday – the number a lease negotiation actually needs.

## The model is the product

Every workplace tool eventually runs into the same question: what does the building actually look like? Not architecturally – operationally. How many desks are there, which of them are bookable, which are assigned, which belong to a team, which sit in a quiet zone, which have two monitors, which are currently unusable because the floor is being renovated.

Organizations usually hold that knowledge in three incompatible places: a CAD file that is two renovations old, a PDF at reception, and the people who have worked there long enough to know. Space management in Door James turns it into one maintained model – and because the same model drives the daily booking experience, it stays current. A desk that no longer exists is one that nobody can book, so somebody removes it.

## From model to decision

Once the model exists, the interesting comparison becomes possible: planned capacity against measured use. An area with 60 desks that never exceeds 22 simultaneous check-ins is not a capacity problem, it is a 38-desk question. Perhaps the area is in the wrong place, perhaps the teams assigned to it work remotely, perhaps the floor can be sublet.

Door James does not answer that question. It supplies the number, per area, per weekday, over a period long enough to argue with. The decision – consolidate, reduce, resize, relocate – stays a management decision, but it stops being a debate about whose impression of Friday is correct.

## Where space management stops

This is space management for space in use: which areas exist, how they are configured, how full they are. It is not a CAFM system. Maintenance schedules, service contracts, depreciation, cleaning contracts and building technology belong in your facility management system. Utilization data from Door James can be exported into it, and in practice that is the more useful direction of travel.

## How it works

1. **Build the model** – Locations, floors and areas are created in the Admin Panel and the floor plans are placed underneath, with every bookable resource on the plan.
2. **Set capacities and rules** – Each area gets its capacity, its desk-sharing ratio and its booking rules – including who may approve exceptions.
3. **Let it run** – Employees book within the rules. Nobody has to coordinate allocation manually; the model does it.
4. **Compare and correct** – After a few weeks the reports show which areas are permanently empty and which are permanently short. The model gets corrected, not the people.

## Who it is for

- **For facility management** – One place where the building model lives – instead of a CAD file, a floor plan PDF and someone's memory.
- **For real estate and finance** – Occupancy per area against square metres and rent, as the basis for consolidating floors or renegotiating leases.
- **For team leads** – Team zones that are actually reserved for the team, with quotas that prevent the loudest bookers from taking everything.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the difference between space management and desk booking?

Desk booking is what employees do: they reserve a resource for a day. Space management is what administrators do: they define which resources exist, where they are, who may book them and under which rules. Booking is the daily transaction, space management is the model underneath it.

### What is a desk-sharing ratio and which one is realistic?

The desk-sharing ratio expresses how many employees share one desk – 1:0.7 means seven desks for ten people. Which ratio works depends on your actual attendance pattern, not on a benchmark. Door James lets you configure a ratio per area and then shows, from check-in data, whether it holds on the busiest day.

### Can we manage several locations with different rules?

Yes. Locations are independent: each has its own floors, areas, opening hours, booking rules and administrators. Reports can be read per location or compared across all of them.

### Do we need CAD drawings to get started?

No. Floor plans are set up from whatever you have – existing plans, drawings or a simple layout – during onboarding. What matters for the system is which resources exist and where they sit relative to each other.

### What happens to bookings when we reorganise a floor?

Areas and resources can be blocked, renamed or reassigned. Bookings affected by a change are visible beforehand, so the reorganisation can be scheduled for a period with little impact rather than discovered by employees on the morning it happens.

## Help Center articles

- [Locations, Floors & Areas](https://help-center.doorjames.com/hc/door-james/articles/1775573300-admin-panel-overview)
- [Booking Rules & Approvals](https://help-center.doorjames.com/hc/door-james/articles/1775573441-dashboard-kp_is-data-points)

## Related pages

- [Desk booking](https://doorjames.com/features/desk-booking/)
- [Utilization data](https://doorjames.com/features/utilization-data/)
- [Workplace analytics](https://doorjames.com/features/workplace-analytics/)
- [Desk sharing concept](https://doorjames.com/guides/desk-sharing-concept/)

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Door James by CGI · https://doorjames.com · doorjames.support@cgi.com