InnerSpace provides dashboards to help organizations understand how their office spaces are used. The Spaces and People sections offer complementary views of workplace activity, giving valuable insights to workplace strategists, facility managers, and portfolio managers. These dashboards track how many people occupy spaces and how those spaces are utilized, as well as employee attendance patterns over time. This article provides an overview of each metric on the Spaces and People dashboards and tips on interpreting the data. (Note: A separate article explains occupancy and utilization terminology in detail – refer to that resource for definitions of key terms.)
People dashboard
The People Dashboard centers on attendance trends and employee presence data. Instead of focusing on space usage, it tracks how many people come into the office, how often they come, and how long they stay. This dashboard helps organizations understand work patterns: Are employees coming in every day or only a few times a week? How many unique individuals use the office in a given period? What is the typical time spent on site?
People dashboard metrics
Metric | Definition | Usage |
Average people count | The average number of unique people coming into the office each day over the selected time period. | A basic KPI of how many people are using the office. Useful for tracking engagement and space needs. |
Peak daily people count | The highest number of unique individuals detected in the selected buildings on any single day during the selected time period. | Identifies the busiest day in terms of total people present, helping teams understand maximum daily demand across a period. Useful for analyzing extreme cases or planning for service thresholds on the busiest days. |
Peak hourly people count | The highest number of people detected simultaneously in the selected buildings during any hour within the selected time period. | Captures the maximum real-time load on buildings. This is useful in planning for congestion, space limits, and real-time services like network, HVAC, and security. |
Time on Site | The average duration individuals spend in the office per visit. | Short visits could mean people are just dropping in for a meeting or two; long ones can mean the office supports deep work. |
Frequency | The average number of days per week employees came into the office over the selected timeframe. | Helps understand hybrid work habits and gauging RTO patterns. |
Frequency Trend | Shows attendance frequency changes over time. | Tells you if in-office habits are shifting. Great for seeing how well return-to-office plans are working. |
Daily attendance | The number of unique people seen in the building(s) every day over the selected time. | This metric reflects the reach of office utilization across the employee population. It can be used to observe patterns in workplace participation over time. Daily attendance can also help differentiate between broad engagement and concentrated usage, which averages may miss. |
Average session duration per floor | How long people stay on each floor, on average. | This metric helps highlight how different floors are used—some may support longer, focused stays while others see quicker, more transient activity. Comparing durations across floors can provide context for how space is functioning, such as whether a floor is suited to meetings, heads-down work, or circulation. |
Group summary | This Group Summary graph shows the relative prevalence of automatically generated "Smart groups" or cohorts that share work styles such as people who prefer full days in office, vs. those who don't. | Inform real estate decisions, hybrid work policies, and office design by highlighting dominant work styles ensuring the workplace aligns with actual usage trends. |
Spaces dashboard
The Spaces Dashboard focuses on building and space utilization trends. It highlights how different areas of the workplace are occupied over time and how fully they are used. This dashboard helps you answer questions like: Which days is the building busiest? What times of day see the peak traffic? Are meeting rooms being utilized or sitting empty?
Spaces dashboard metrics
Metric | Definition | Usage |
Average Occupancy | The fullness of a space (number of people as a percentage of capacity), when in use. | Helps track how full spaces get when they’re being used. Useful for identifying whether spaces are fit for purpose, and over-crowding. |
Peak Occupancy | The highest occupancy percentage reached in a space during the measured period. | Shows the fullest a space got during the timeframe. Helps with planning for high-demand days or evaluating space capacity. |
Ghost Meetings | The percentage of scheduled meetings where no one attended. (Requires room booking data to be integrated.) | Helps identify wasted space due to abandoned reservations and informs meeting room policy adjustments. |
Average Utilization | The percentage of time a space is in use during business hours. | Helps measure how often spaces are used. A low number might mean a space isn’t needed or could be repurposed. |
Daily Building Occupancy | Tracks the daily fullness of the building over the selected timeframe. | Shows if building fulness is trending up or down. Great for long-term planning and understanding if office attendance is stable or changing. |
Busiest Days of the Week | Identifies which days see the highest occupancy on average. | Helps with planning cleaning, events, and staffing. If Wednesdays are always busiest, plan team meetings then. |
Busiest Hours of the Day | Shows when the building is most occupied throughout the day. | Tells you what times need the most support. Useful for adjusting services like lunch hours or IT help coverage. |
Occupancy by Space Type | Displays usage levels for different types of spaces. | Helps determine if certain spaces are over- or under-utilized and informs space redesign decisions. |
Daily floor occupancy | Tracks the daily average fullness of each floor in the building each day over time. | Useful for spotting trends in office attendance and understanding long-term usage patterns at the floor level. |
Busiest days of the week per floor | Identifies which days see the highest occupancy on average at the floor level. | Like the building level metric, this helps more specifically plan staffing, cleaning schedules, and in-office collaboration days. |
Top 10 Rooms by Occupancy | Identifies the rooms with the highest occupancy rates. | Helps pinpoint which rooms are most frequently used. Facility managers can ensure these popular rooms are well-equipped and consider replicating their features or adding similar spaces elsewhere to meet high demand. |
Bottom 10 Rooms by Occupancy | Identifies the rooms with the lowest occupancy rates. | Highlights under-used meeting rooms. Managers might investigate why these spaces have low use (e.g., location, amenities) or decide to repurpose or redesign them to improve utilization. |
Average meeting size | Displays how many people typically use meeting rooms by size category. | Shows typical people count for meetings in each room category. This helps ensure room sizes align with actual usage – for example, strategists can verify if large rooms are often under-filled or if small rooms are overcrowded, guiding future space planning. |
Vacant Rooms vs. Booked | Shows the percentage of meeting rooms that are booked but remain unoccupied. | Reveals how often booked rooms go unused (“no-shows” or ghost meetings). A high percentage indicates inefficiencies in scheduling – facility managers can use this insight to adjust booking policies or add check-in systems to reduce unused reservations and optimize space usage. |
Use Cases and Insights
Combining the data from the Spaces and People dashboards can lead to powerful workplace insights and inform strategic decisions. Here are a few ways to leverage these metrics to optimize your workplace strategy:
Optimizing Space Allocation – Use occupancy by space type to determine if spaces align with employee needs.
Managing Peak Demand – Identify and address over-crowded days or times.
Enhancing Employee Experience – Tailor workplace amenities to fit attendance patterns.
Informing Portfolio and Real Estate Decisions – Identify underutilized space to consolidate, repurpose or reduce.
Tracking Return-to-Office (RTO) Strategies – Monitor attendance trends to assess workplace policy effectiveness.
Improving Utilization – Identify inefficiencies in space use and adjust workplace design accordingly.
Please reach out with any other questions
The Spaces and People dashboards in InnerSpace provide a comprehensive view of workplace usage. By understanding each metric – from occupancy and utilization rates to attendance patterns and frequency – workplace leaders can make informed decisions to optimize both space and experience. In summary, the Spaces dashboard tells you how your rooms and buildings are being used, and the People dashboard tells you how your people are using the office.
These dashboards turn raw data into actionable intelligence: they highlight trends, uncover inefficiencies, and validate assumptions with facts. Regularly reviewing these metrics helps facility managers, workplace strategists, and portfolio managers create workplaces that are both efficient and engaging.
(For further reading, be sure to check out related articles on interpreting occupancy data and tips for improving office utilization. Or have a chat with our helpful bot, Spatia on the bottom right of your screen when inside the portal.)