Booking a deskPro

The Rota is where you book a desk for the days you’re in the office, and see who else will be there.

Book a desk

1. Go to Rota.
2. If your organisation has more than one office, choose yours from the tabs at the top. Folke opens on the one you picked last, or else the one in your country. Rooms that don’t belong to an office are under Other rooms.
3. Select a day in the room you want. You’ll see who’s in, and any notes they’ve left.
4. Choose Full day, Morning, Afternoon or Custom. Custom times need to overlap your organisation’s working hours.
5. Add a note if you like, up to 80 characters. Everyone can see it.
6. Tick Repeat weekly to book the same day every week.
7. Select Book desk, or Book every week if it repeats.

To change a booking, open the day, make your change and select Update booking.

Each day shows how many desks are taken, like “3/8”. The rota opens on this month. The button under it, like Show December, adds the next month, as far ahead as your organisation allows. The one above it adds the month before, so you can look back at who was in.

Mornings and afternoons count separately

Desks are counted per half day, so a room can be full in the morning and free after lunch. A custom time takes up whichever halves it touches.

Weekly bookings

A weekly booking fills in the weeks ahead, as far as your organisation lets the team book (a year, if there’s no limit), and tops itself up each day. You can have one per weekday.

A week is passed over if you’ve already booked that day, you skipped it, you’re on approved leave for any part of the booking, it’s a bank holiday you get off, it’s a day you don’t work, the room doesn’t open that weekday, the office is closed, or the room is full. So a bank holiday Monday never holds a desk you won’t use.

Changing a weekly booking asks whether it’s for This week only or All repeated bookings. Untick Repeat weekly to keep this week and stop the rest.

One place a day

You can be in one room a day, across every office. Once you’re booked, other rooms that day are greyed out. To move, remove your booking first.

Leave comes first

You can’t book a desk for the part of a day you’re on approved leave, though a morning off still leaves the afternoon free. When leave is approved, or a manager books it for you, any desk you’d booked for that time is freed for someone else, so there’s no tidying up the rota before a break. A full-day desk is freed even if the leave is only half the day, so book the other half again if you’ll be in. Leave that’s still pending doesn’t change anything until it’s approved.

Days you can’t book

• Past days are read only, though you can still see who was in.
• Closed days: a room that only opens on certain weekdays shows a door icon on the others. Nobody can book a desk when the office is closed.
• Too soon or too far ahead: your organisation can ask for notice and limit how far ahead you book. The day tells you, for example “Desks can be booked from Monday 2 November.”
• A day you don’t work: it’s greyed out with a calendar icon and “Not working”, so there’s nothing to book.

Removing a booking

Open the day and select Cancel my booking. For a weekly booking, choose Skip just this week or Cancel weekly booking. Days that have passed stay as a record of who was in, so they can’t be removed.

Org admins can also clear someone else’s desk for a day, to get the space back: open the day and select Remove beside their name. For a weekly booking it frees that week only. Folke doesn’t tell them, so let them know.

Your organisation may stop removals close to the day, counted back from the start of the working day. You’ll then see “It’s too close to the day to remove this booking.”

Reminders

You’ll get a reminder the afternoon before a desk you’ve booked, so a seat you no longer need can go to someone else. Turn it off under Rota in Notifications.

Who can see it

Everyone in your organisation can see who has booked which desk, whatever the team calendar is set to show.