The colleague-finding problem in hybrid offices
In a fully in-office environment, finding a colleague means walking to their desk. In a hybrid office, the desk might be empty, the colleague might be on a different floor, or they might not be in the building at all. The simple act of locating someone becomes a multi-step investigation: check Slack status, ask in a group chat, ping them directly, or wander the floor hoping to spot them.
This friction has a real cost. Spontaneous conversations -- the kind that surface problems early, align priorities, and build relationships -- happen less often when people cannot find each other. DeskHybrid eliminates this friction with multiple colleague-finding tools that work across chat, web, and mobile.
/whoisin grouped by team
The `/whoisin` command, available in both Slack and Microsoft Teams, returns a list of employees who have booked desks for a given date. The results are grouped by team, making it easy to see at a glance which teams have strong office presence and which are mostly remote on that day.
Grouping by team is the default view because it matches how most employees think about office attendance. An employee typically wants to know "Is my team in today?" before they care about overall headcount. The team grouping answers that question immediately.
The command supports date parameters. `/whoisin` returns today's attendance. `/whoisin tomorrow` returns tomorrow's bookings. `/whoisin 2026-04-05` returns a specific future date. This flexibility lets employees plan their office days around colleague availability.
For larger organizations, the output can be filtered. Employees can type `/whoisin engineering` to see only the engineering team, or `/whoisin floor-3` to see who is on a specific floor. These filters reduce noise and deliver the specific information the employee needs.
Floor plan presence view
The DeskHybrid web and mobile apps include a floor plan view that shows booked desks with the names of the employees who reserved them. This spatial view makes it easy to understand not just who is in the office, but where they are sitting.
The floor plan presence view is particularly useful for employees who want to find a colleague for an in-person conversation. Instead of messaging the colleague to ask where they sit, the employee opens the floor plan and sees their colleague's desk location. This saves time and avoids the awkwardness of asking someone where they are in their own office.
The floor plan updates in real time as bookings are created and cancelled. If an employee cancels their booking mid-morning, their name disappears from the floor plan immediately. If someone books a desk for the afternoon, their name appears on the plan as soon as the booking is confirmed.
Admins control the level of detail visible on the floor plan. Some organizations show full names on each desk. Others show only team labels or initials. The privacy configuration is set at the tenant level and applies consistently across web and mobile views.
Daily digest colleague list
The daily digest, delivered each morning through Slack, Teams, or email, includes a list of colleagues who are in the office that day. This passive colleague-finding tool means employees start their day knowing who is around without actively checking the app or running a command.
The colleague list in the digest is organized by team and highlights colleagues the employee has high affinity with. If the colleague affinity engine has identified that the employee frequently co-locates with specific people, those names are surfaced prominently in the digest. This personalization makes the digest relevant rather than a generic headcount.
The digest also includes a link to the full floor plan view. Employees who want spatial detail (which floor, which zone) can tap through from the digest to the floor plan. The digest serves as a summary, and the floor plan provides the detail.
Colleague affinity tracking
DeskHybrid's colleague affinity tracking identifies which colleagues an employee frequently co-locates with. This is not based on reporting lines or team membership. It is learned from booking patterns: employees who consistently book the same office days and sit near each other build a higher affinity score.
Affinity tracking powers multiple features. It informs desk suggestions (seat near your frequent collaborators), daily digest personalization (highlight the colleagues you care about most), and the colleague search within the app (colleagues with high affinity appear higher in search results).
The affinity model updates continuously. When an employee's collaboration patterns shift -- for example, when they join a new project and start co-locating with different people -- the model adjusts over a period of weeks. This ensures that colleague-finding tools reflect current working relationships, not historical ones.
Affinity data is private. Employees do not see their own affinity scores or anyone else's. The output is always practical: a sorted desk list, a personalized digest, a prioritized search result. The underlying scores remain invisible, preventing any misuse of the data for performance assessment or social ranking.
Cross-office colleague finding
For organizations with multiple office locations, DeskHybrid shows colleague presence across all offices. The `/whoisin` command and the team presence board include location context, so an employee can see that a colleague is booked at the London office today, not the New York office.
Cross-office visibility is valuable for distributed teams that occasionally need to coordinate in-person meetups. If a team member is visiting a different office, their presence is visible to colleagues at that location, enabling spontaneous meetings that would otherwise require calendar coordination.
The floor plan view is location-specific. Employees select an office and floor to see the spatial layout. Cross-office presence is surfaced at the summary level (the team presence board and `/whoisin`), while floor plan details are available per location.
Internal Link Suggestions
- [Team Presence Visibility](https://www.deskhybrid.com/features/team-presence-visibility)
- [Colleague Affinity](https://www.deskhybrid.com/features/colleague-affinity)
- [Slack Integration](https://www.deskhybrid.com/features/slack-integration)
- [All Integrations](https://www.deskhybrid.com/integrations)
- [Pricing](https://www.deskhybrid.com/pricing)
- [Get Started](https://www.deskhybrid.com/get-started)
- https://officedeskapp.com/pillars/desk-booking-software-guide
- https://officedeskapp.com/pillars/hybrid-workplace-operating-system
Feature Proof Points
- feature:team_presence_visibility
- feature:colleague_affinity
- feature:daily_digest
- feature:slack_integration
FAQ
How do I find which colleagues are in the office today?:
Use the `/whoisin` command in Slack or Teams to see a team-grouped list of colleagues who have booked desks. You can also check the team presence board in the DeskHybrid web or mobile app, or wait for the daily digest which includes a colleague list each morning.
Can I see where a colleague is sitting, not just that they are in the office?:
Yes. The floor plan presence view in the DeskHybrid web and mobile apps shows booked desks with employee names. You can see which floor and zone a colleague is sitting in, depending on your organization's privacy settings.
Does DeskHybrid track colleague relationships?:
DeskHybrid tracks co-location patterns from booking history to identify which colleagues frequently work in the office on the same days and sit near each other. This data is used to personalize desk suggestions and daily digests. It is not based on communication data and individual scores are not visible to employees.
Does /whoisin work across multiple office locations?:
Yes. For organizations with multiple offices, `/whoisin` includes location context, showing which office each colleague has booked at. The team presence board also shows cross-office presence.