Project Description

As employees across all sectors are engaging in hybrid working, this raises the challenge of managing offices with less desk space than the workforce attached to it. Scottish National Investment Bank had this problem and approached Bridgeall to create a Desk & Meeting Room Booking Power App which could help utilise the working spaces across Scottish National Investment Bank’s offices.  

About Scottish National Investment Bank

The Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) is a development investment bank, established by the Scottish Government, focused on supporting businesses and projects in Scotland that align with the Bank’s missions. The Bank operates commercially and provides patient capital to businesses and projects, particularly in areas where the private sector is not providing sufficient investment.

Challenges facing Scottish National Investment Bank

The pandemic sparked a major shift towards hybrid working, and like many others SNIB embraced this change, with employees splitting their time between the office and remote work. 

However, the transition wasn’t without challenges—particularly when it came to effectively managing and predicting office occupancy levels. The new working policy meant that a significant number of employees were opting to work from home in place of the office. With this behavioural shift it was becoming increasingly difficult to determine exactly how many employees were attending the office daily.   

SNIB needed a system that would efficiently capture real-time data to measure occupancy rates and influx periods. The system would need to be user-friendly and accurate, enabling employees to easily manage, schedule and book their desks as desired.

Bridgeall was selected as the partner to develop the Power App for SNIB. We split the project into a discovery, implementation and roll out support. 

 The Desk Booking App solution we created was made up of three main elements:  

  • The main method of interaction for users to book desks was through the Desk Booking App, which was designed through Microsoft Power Apps as a canvas application.
  • When users now submit requests, data is stored on Microsoft SharePoint.
  • Microsoft Power Automate was also used to generate reminders and notifications as part of the application. 

The new Desk Booking solution has unlocked a new level of efficiency and utilisation tracking for SNIB. As a result of our efforts the team were able to realise the following benefits:   

  • The team can now gain real-time visibility into desk and meeting room usage.
  • Optimise office layouts based on employee needs and behaviour.
  • Enhanced employee experience where employees can easily book desks and meeting rooms in advance and eliminating any frustration when planning in office days.

Build your next Power App with Bridgeall

At Bridgeall we have a team of Power Apps and Power Platform specialists. Our consultants are fully certified by Microsoft to build, assess and support Power Apps and have vast experience helping organisations do just that.  

We stay up to date with new features, best practice and are constantly improving our methodology to save you money and help you improve your Power App. We are a 4x Microsoft Solutions Partner and have 20 years’ experience in application development. Contact our team for more information on building your next Power App here.