Desk Booking Integrations: Slack, Teams, Calendar

A desk booking tool gets used when it meets people where they already work. DeskHybrid connects to Slack and Microsoft Teams for quick booking and attendance checks, to Google Calendar and Outlook so every reservation appears next to meetings, and to Microsoft Entra ID for single sign-on. Every booking made through an integration goes through the same rules as one made in the app, so convenience never becomes a way around policy.

DeskHybrid provides bots for both Slack and Microsoft Teams. After linking their account once with the connect command, employees use a short set of commands:

• **book** shows up to five open desks on the employee's default floor for today, or for a named day such as `book tuesday` or `book tomorrow`. One click on a desk reserves it.

• **whoisin** lists who has booked a desk at the employee's default office, grouped by team, for today or a named day.

• **connect** links the chat account to the employee's DeskHybrid account.

• **help** shows the available commands and tips.

In Slack these are slash commands (`/book`, `/whoisin`, `/connect`, `/help`). In Teams, employees type them in the chat with the DeskHybrid bot, and responses are rendered as Adaptive Cards. The default office and floor come from the employee's DeskHybrid profile.

Bookings made from chat are checked against the booking window, team-reserved desks, and one-desk-per-day rules, and they benefit from the same database-level protection against double booking as any other booking.

Slack setup is a single OAuth step: an administrator clicks "Connect Slack" on the integrations page. The bot requests permission to post messages, handle commands, send direct messages, and look up workspace users so accounts can be matched; it does not request access to channel history. For Teams, the administrator downloads the DeskHybrid Teams app package from the same page and adds it through the organization's normal Teams app process.

Each employee can connect Google Calendar or Outlook from their DeskHybrid profile:

• When a desk is booked, an event is created with the desk, floor, and office. Events are marked as free, so they do not block meeting availability.

• Deleting the calendar event cancels the desk booking, and cancelling in DeskHybrid removes the event.

• Webhook-based sync keeps both sides current, with loop prevention so a cancellation on one side does not bounce back from the other.

Connection uses OAuth with the provider's calendar permission. DeskHybrid writes and tracks only the events it creates for desk bookings.

For organizations on Microsoft 365, sign-in is often the integration that matters most. DeskHybrid supports SSO with Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD). With just-in-time account creation enabled, employees from approved email domains get an account the first time they sign in, so there is no invitation list to maintain. When SSO is configured it becomes the primary sign-in option, SSO accounts have no separate password, and display names are managed by the workspace. SSO works on the web app and the Android and iOS apps.

Available on Web, Android, and iOS.

On the booking floor plan, DeskHybrid can highlight recommended desks, with a legend explaining the highlight. Suggestions draw on the employee's own booking history, teammates who have booked the same day, and colleague affinity -- the people they most often come in with. Administrators switch recommendations on or off in workspace settings, and suggestions only include active desks that are still free on the chosen day.

Employees who link Slack receive a direct message at 8:00 in the company's timezone with:

• How many people are booked at their default office that day

• Which teammates are in, and on which floor

• Their own desk, or a prompt to run `/book` if they have none

The digest answers "who's in today?" before anyone asks in a channel.