Team, desk, and office administration tools like Eden Workplace Management have become increasingly crucial in recent years. Whether you’re running a hybrid office, working with remote employees, or enabling a new hot-desking initiative, these platforms are crucial.
More than just your basic solutions for booking meeting rooms and desks, platforms like Eden ensure you can make the most out of your spaces, and improve employee experiences.
But with so many alternatives to consider, from Officely to Deskbird, you might struggle to decide if Eden is the right choice for your team.
I dove into the features and capabilities of this platform, to bring you this guide to all of it’s features, as well as the main pros and cons you’ll need to consider.
Quick Verdict, Pros and Cons
The Eden workplace management platform is a convenient, intuitive platform that gives companies everything they need to build a productive and engaged workplace. It combines powerful room scheduling and desk booking tools, with visitor and delivery management apps. Plus, it includes an internal ticketing system to help companies keep track of employee issues.
However, it lacks some of the advanced features offered by other workplace management apps I’ve tried. For instance, you won’t get advanced AI capabilities like you get with Microsoft Places and Copilot, and the pricing is a little complex.
Pros:
- Powerful desk and room management capabilities
- End-to-end visitor management, with advanced security
- Convenient delivery tracking features
- Robust internal ticketing
- Wide range of integration options
- Easy-to-use interface
Cons:
- Complex pricing structure
- Limited AI functionality
Eden Workplace Management: Overview and Key Features
Eden’s workplace management platform promises companies everything they need to build and manage the perfect hybrid office environment. The solution is intuitive and user-friendly and can integrate seamlessly with tools your team already uses, like Zoom and Slack.
However, Eden works a little differently to some of the other workplace management tools I’ve tried. It doesn’t give you an “all-in-one” platform. Instead, you get a “modular” solution that allows you to pick the specific features you need. On the one hand, this means you’re only going to need to pay for the things that matter most to you.
On the other hand, it means paying for Eden can get a little expensive pretty quickly. Here’s a rundown of the key features you can explore.
Desk Booking and Room Scheduling
At the heart of the Eden workplace management ecosystem are its tools for desk booking and room scheduling. Like most similar platforms, Eden makes managing your spaces simple.
You can set up hot-desking systems empowering employees to choose the desk they want to work from each day. There’s also a “desk hoteling” option for booking spaces in advance and even an “hourly” booking feature for more granular office control.
Via the mobile and web app, teams can access tools that allow them to filter through spaces based on their needed amenities. Plus, they can invite colleagues to join them in spaces or “favorite” the staff members they want to keep track of with a single tap. You can even allow teams to book spaces directly from Microsoft Teams or Slack.
Notably, though, there’s no AI tool like Copilot that can “recommend” desks or schedules to employees based on their specific tasks or the colleagues they need to work with.
Admins do get a lot of control, however. They can assign permanent desks for employees or create and assign office neighborhoods to boost team collaboration. Plus, you can send suggestions to employees about the days you want them to visit your office. The room scheduling tool offers a lot of the same functionality.
Here, admins can create floor maps of meeting rooms and assign amenities to specific spaces, and employees can book a conference room from anywhere, even on Microsoft Teams. You’ll also get access to advanced tools for enabling check-in and check-out processes or automatically “releasing” rooms when they’re no longer being used.
Plus, there’s a handy option for setting up live schedule displays on tablets, which can show current and upcoming room reservations to users in an instant.
Visitor and Delivery Management
For companies that need to manage a lot of visitors, such as external remote workers, contractors, and guests, Eden offers a lot of valuable tools. With this workplace management system, companies can register office guests in advance with customizable forms. You can also allow guests to check in remotely through their smartphone when they arrive at an office.
I love that Eden also automatically notifies employees when guests arrive, with notifications on the Eden app, Microsoft Teams, or Slack. Plus, it makes “return visits” easier for your regulars. You can track past guests and automatically prepare for future visits in seconds.
Eden also includes all of the essential features you might need for visitor management, such as badge printing software, digital document signature processing, and visitor logs. Although advanced features like single-sign-on and file storage integrations do cost extra.
Aside from helping you to manage your visitors, Eden also gives you intuitive resources for optimizing your mailroom. With the mailroom tracking software, users can scan an item using their phone’s camera, and automatically capture details about recipients, couriers, and more.
Users can then automatically alert employees when packages arrive, and keep track of how many packages are moving in and out of the mailroom with erase. In fact, the mailroom analytics are pretty impressive. Not only can you view and sort through mail based on location, timeframe, or employee, but you can digitally track delayed deliveries and couriers too.
Internal Help Desk Software and Reporting
The ability to access an internal help desk solution as part of your Eden workplace management system is a great extra, in my opinion. It’s a fantastic way to ensure you’re proactively optimizing the workplace, and improving employee experiences.
With Eden, users can submit requests for support via the web, their mobile app, Slack, or Microsoft Teams. They can even attach specific information about the location of a problem. Plus, with Eden, all employee requests live in a single platform, so it’s easy to sort through tickets and prioritize them based on urgency and staff availability.
You can even track ticket status in real time and measure the average time it takes to complete a request. This is handy if you need help determining whether technical issues are impacting team productivity.
The helpdesk software comes with tools for organizing requests into categories (like IT or HR), automated notifications for employees and helpdesk staff, and you can even assign deadlines and labels to each task. Plus, you can create tickets with “subtasks”. For instance, you might design a ticket setting up a new meeting room with various tasks for configuring software and hardware.
The insights delivered by Eden’s helpdesk system build on the wide range of other insights you can access throughout the platform’s modular tools. Eden offers insights into desk and meeting room booking rates and visitor activity.
I particularly like that you can also send questionnaires and surveys to team members from within the Eden app. This is great for keeping track of employee engagement levels, health, and productivity without relying on metrics alone.
Eden Workplace Management Integrations
I’ve mentioned the fact that Eden integrates seamlessly with various tools a few times in this review. However, it’s worth noting that your integration options extend far beyond connections with solutions like Microsoft Teams and Slack.
Eden’s workplace management platform enables one-click integrations with:
- Access control tools like Brivo and Kisi
- Directory services like Azure Active Directory and BambooHR
- Calendar systems Google and Outlook calendar
- Document storage systems like Box
On certain plans for specific Eden modules, you can also access custom integration options. For instance, the Room Scheduling, Visitor management, and Internal Ticketing enterprise plans all support this option.
Eden Workplace Management: Pricing
Pricing is where Eden’s platform starts to get a little complicated. As I mentioned above, this isn’t an all-in-one solution. It’s a service that allows you to mix and match the services you need.
Plans for the desk booking application, for instance, start at $2.55 per desk per month (paid annually) with a minimum of 25 desks. The room scheduling features will cost you an extra $15 per room per month for the standard “Accelerate” plan. Alternatively, upgrade to the custom-priced enterprise plan for custom integrations, directory syncing, and single sign-on features.
The other modules have different pricing options, too, such as:
- Visitor Management: Starting at $89 monthly for the Accelerate plan or $179 monthly for the Scale plan, with added custom forms, employee directory syncing, and visitor photos. There’s also a custom enterprise plan available here again for custom integrations.
- Delivery Management: The standard plan starts at $149 per month per location, or you can pay a custom price for an enterprise version with single sign-on and directory syncing integrations.
- Internal ticketing: The basic plan starts at $49 per agent per month, or you can choose the enterprise plan for custom integrations and single sign-on features.
This pricing structure means Eden could be an affordable option if you’re just looking for basic things, like desk booking support for a small number of employees. However, if you want to access all of the features of the platform, you could end up spending hundreds, or even thousands of dollars each month, depending on the size of your team.
Ease of Use and Customer Support
If you’re looking for simplicity in your workplace management app, Eden is definitely a good choice. Every feature, from the desk booking application, to the room scheduling system, is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. You get a clean and streamlined interface regardless of whether you’re using the mobile or web app. Plus, integrating Eden with your existing tools only takes a few clicks.
I did find a few things a little tricky with the platform, however. For instance, setting up office neighborhoods and creating automated notification workflows can be a bit complex. Still, once you’ve gotten to grips with all of the different features of each modular system, you should have no problem using Eden to the fullest.
The biggest issue I noticed is that Eden doesn’t offer much from a customer support perspective. There’s a resource page on the company’s website, but it’s really just a blog—it doesn’t offer insights into how to use your tools. You do get tooltips and automated onboarding guides when you’re setting up the software, but they’re pretty simplistic.
If you need direct help from a customer support representative, you’re limited to contacting Eden via email or attempting to reach the team on social media. Although the website has a chat function, this only gives you access to an AI bot that can answer a few basic questions.
Eden Workplace Management Review: The Verdict
The Eden workplace management platform is a fantastic resource for any company looking to optimize its hybrid workplace. It’s packed with intuitive tools that help employees get the most out of their office space and help admins enhance resource allocation.
Plus, it comes with advanced reporting features and insights, tools for tracking employee engagement and health, and unique extras like an internal helpdesk system. The biggest downside, in my opinion, is the pricing, which can be difficult to understand.
If you want to take advantage of everything Eden has to offer, you could end up spending a fortune on subscriptions to different platform “modules.” Instead, you might find it easier to use a more all-in-one solution or alternative add-ons for existing workplace apps like Microsoft Teams.
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