Work Share:
Free Desk Booking
Excel Template
Work Share: Free Desk Booking Excel Template
Work Share is a free desk booking Excel template for hot desking and desk sharing, for workplaces of up to 500 desks. Save it to your SharePoint or OneDrive and share the link, and staff can book desks for specific dates and see each other's bookings in real time.
If you've tried to build your own desk booking spreadsheet and found it too hard to set up or too clunky to use, or you don't need expensive desk booking software yet, Work Share could be for you.
A hot desk booking spreadsheet built on what you already have
Work Share is a downloadable Excel template, not a subscription. You save it to your organisation's SharePoint or OneDrive and share the link with staff. Everyone books in the same file, in Excel for the web or the desktop app, and bookings appear for everyone within seconds. There is no new software to approve, no IT project, no per-user or per-desk licence, no extra login, and no macros.
For full or partial desk sharing
Work Share suits any workplace where booking a desk ahead is useful. Hot desks can be booked by anyone. Assigned desks stay with their owner, but the owner or their manager can make the desk available on the days they work from home or for periods of leave, so others can book it on those dates only. A floor can mix both.
Pilot desk booking before investing in software
Enterprise desk booking platforms are useful but can be expensive. Before committing, many organisations want to know whether staff will actually book a desk, how far ahead they book and how many desks they need on their busiest days. Work Share lets you run a pilot for a team, a floor or a whole site for as long as you need, and its Summary tab turns the bookings into booking rates and peak days you can use in a future business case.
How Work Share works:
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Open the month. Each month has its own tab, with today's date marked and past dates greyed out.
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Find a free desk. Free desks are the empty white cells. Filter by level, or check the booked and free desk counts above each date.
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Type your name where your desk meets your date. Excel checks the booking and refuses past dates, dates beyond the booking window and desks that are not available that day.
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Delete your name to cancel.
Colours show the state of every cell at a glance: today, open to book, not open yet, past, not bookable, the same name booked twice on one date, and bookings that need checking.
The Work Share desk booking template
What's in the template
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Up to 500 desks across any number of floors.
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A Summary tab showing booking rates, peak days and average weekly peaks for each level and the whole site, by month or for the year.
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12 monthly tabs from a start month you choose, with a column for every weekday.
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A booking window you set, 14 days by default.
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Four desk statuses: Hot desk, Assigned, Assigned (available) and TBC. An Assigned (available) desk can be booked by others on its owner's work from home days or while they're on leave.
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A warning when one person books two desks on the same date.
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Booked and free desk counts for each date, which follow the level filter.
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A test date, so you can try the file as if it were any day before launch.
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Protected cells, so staff can only type in booking cells.
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A floor plan tab, which you can copy for each floor.
The 500 desk limit covers most single sites. Larger organisations can use a separate copy for each building or group of floors.
Setting up Work Share
Setting up is a job for one person, usually someone in workplace, facilities or office management, or a team manager:
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Unprotect the tab you're working on, using the password shown in the READ ME tab.
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Set the start month, booking window and site name on the Settings tab.
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Enter your desks on the Desks tab: level, desk ID, type, team and status.
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Paste your floor plan onto the Floor Plan tab.
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Change the password if you want to, so only you can change settings and desks.
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Make a note of the password, then delete it from the READ ME tab.
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Save the file to SharePoint or OneDrive and share the link with staff.
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Use the test date to try some bookings before staff start.
The READ ME tab in the template walks through each step.
Your booking data stays in your Microsoft 365
Because Work Share runs in your own SharePoint or OneDrive, your desk list and bookings never leave your Microsoft 365 environment. Work Future does not host the file or see anything entered in it, and there is no third-party system for your IT or security team to assess.
When Work Share is enough, and when it isn't
Work Share suits a single site where staff are happy to book in a shared Excel file, and where you want to know who is sitting where and how busy the office gets.
Work Share is deliberately simple, and it has limits. It records bookings, not attendance, so it cannot detect no-shows or release unused desks. It relies on staff typing their own names: Excel checks typed entries, but it cannot stop someone pasting over or deleting another person's booking, although colour warnings and Excel's change history make this visible. It is designed for one site of up to 500 desks.
If you need check-in, automatic release, calendar or access card integration, or reporting across several buildings, a desk booking platform is the better choice, and a Work Share pilot will help you specify one.
The Work Share desk booking analytics
Case study: rebuilding a client's desk sharing spreadsheet
A recent client occupied two floors of a Perth CBD office building, with 210 workpoints across the two levels. Of these, 45 were used as hot desks, and many assigned desks were already shared informally through team work from home rosters.
The client was managing desk sharing informally and had previously tried a spreadsheet system that wasn't successful. As part of our assignment, we worked closely with the client, looked at what they were attempting, and then overhauled and rebuilt the spreadsheet, resulting in the development of Work Share.
Download Work Share
Work Share is free to download. Enter your details below to receive the template: one Excel file, with a READ ME tab that explains setup and day-to-day use.
Need help rolling out desk sharing?
Work Share is straightforward to set up on your own. If you would like help deciding how many desks you need, which teams should share, preparing your desk list and floor plans, or rolling out desk sharing across your organisation, Work Future can help with our range of tools and expertise across workplace data analysis, strategy, desk sharing and workplace transformation projects.
Work Share frequently asked questions
Is Work Share free?
Yes. Work Future provides a range of free workplace tools that share the knowledge and experience of our founder, Peter Stansfield. If you'd like help setting Work Share up or rolling it out, see our consultancy services in Perth and across Australia.
What do I need to use Work Share?
Microsoft 365 with Excel, and SharePoint or OneDrive to store and share the file. Staff need edit access to the file to make bookings.
Can several people book at the same time?
Yes. When the file is opened from SharePoint or OneDrive with AutoSave on, in Excel for the web or the Microsoft 365 desktop app, bookings appear for everyone within seconds. Staff should always open the shared file, not a downloaded copy.
Does it work in Excel for the web and Microsoft Teams?
Yes. Work Share works in Excel for the web, and the file can be added as a tab in a Teams channel so staff can book without leaving Teams.
How many desks and floors can Work Share handle?
Up to 500 desks across any number of floors. Organisations with more desks can use a separate copy for each building or group of floors.
How far ahead can people book, and can I change it?
Fourteen days (two weeks) ahead by default. The file owner can set the booking window to anything from 1 to 90 days on the Settings tab.
Can two people book the same desk on the same day?
Not at the same time. Each desk has one cell per date, so a second person can only book it by typing over the first booking. Excel can't prevent that, but its change history shows who changed each cell. If one person's name appears against two desks on the same date, both cells turn red.
Can assigned desks be shared when their owner is away?
Yes. Set the desk's status to Assigned (available), then mark the weekdays it is free, such as work from home days, or enter up to three date ranges for leave. Others can book it on those dates only.
Does Work Share measure occupancy or attendance?
No. Work Share records bookings, which show demand for desks, not who actually came in. To measure how your workplace is really used, see Work Data or, more specifically, our Occupancy Analysis engine. Work Share's Summary tab reports booking rates and peak days for bookable desks only. Assigned desks are left out because their use isn't recorded.
What reports does Work Share provide?
The Summary tab shows, for each level and the whole site, how many desk days were bookable and booked, the booking rate, the busiest day and the average weekly peak, for any month or the whole year. It counts bookings, not attendance.
Where is our data stored, and can Work Future see it?
The file and everything entered in it stay in your own SharePoint or OneDrive. Work Future does not host the file or see your desk list or bookings. The details you enter to download Work Share are handled under our privacy policy.
Does Work Share use macros?
No. It is a standard Excel file with no macros, so there are no macro warnings and it works in Excel for the web.
What happens at the end of the 12 months? The file covers 12 months from the start month you choose. For the next period, set up a fresh copy of the template with a new start month and copy your desk list across from the previous file.
Does Work Share work on a Mac or in Google Sheets?
Work Share is designed and tested for Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows and Excel for the web. Excel for Mac with Microsoft 365 is expected to work but has not been tested. Google Sheets is not supported.
Is Work Share a replacement for desk booking software?
For many small and mid-sized workplaces, it can be all they need. It does not offer check-in, automatic release of unused desks, calendar integration or reporting across several sites. If you need those, a desk booking platform is the better choice.
Can Work Future set up Work Share for us?
Yes. Work Future can prepare your desk list and floor plans, set up the file and help you roll it out to staff. Contact us to discuss your workplace needs.