Moving the office to a new location
Posted by King-Maximus@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 21 comments
What tech stuff would be great to add to a new office?
The company i work at is moving the office to a new location and now is a great time to add some new stuff that would make the experience better for the employees
Some things i will be adding
- Info screen that that shows what meeting rooms are available for a quick meeting
- Interactive smart whiteboards in meeting rooms
- Soundproof pods
- Kareoke setup in one room
- Smart lockers that are linked to employee id
- Targeted lighting systems over desk to control the light better
- “war room” multiple screens and whiteboards
- scolia dart setup
What else do you think would be great to add to the office?
Ok_Junket_1951@reddit
desk booking is a must. we use pult and it handles rooms + desks without the chaos
marc1020@reddit
Check out Conferfly
jibmanji@reddit
I just wrapped up an office move.
Conference rooms - 2 TVs in every room that can handle it. - bigger is better with your tv’s. No one ever complained about the screen being to big, but you will hear if it’s small - the stand up 360 table cameras look cool in marketing, but are annoying for actually meeting as they block faces. - wireless casting for teams or using click shares is never as smooth as just a usb-c cable. - make sure your talking with the furniture team and that what your installing works with the tables being installed. Plan your cut outs
Info screens - don’t over think this, some basic tv’s paired with Amazon signage sticks work nicely. People are still going to be asking where rooms are for months.
Desks - new webcams for every desk - we deployed busy lights on monitors. It sounded dumb but now that people are moved in they like it. - get as many monitors as you can. Every desk should have 2 minimum but if you can give your execs more they won’t complain. - spend time finding a good headset that you like. We swapped from dect to Bluetooth and it makes support so much easier
Network - take the opportunity to upgrade as much as you can. - you can probably get away with single lv runs to each desk if you don’t do desk phones. - floor cores look better then power poles, but not a big deal. - plan your subnets. Depending on how far along you are on the segmentation journey this can be a good time to make progress.
Random others - fight early to get as much storage space as you can. Getting those spaces later on is hard so make it easy. Even if you don’t need it all right now. - make sure the hvac in your server room is on a different circuit from building hvac. - if you have to move world ship expect it to break. I hate that software and how hard it was to move to a new machine. - hotel desks with sound proofing are nice. - during move in, stay strict with people or you will have them pirating any open gear they see for their own desks. - if other teams try to put in dumb tech you will end up supporting it. Make sure you are giving an opinion on what they choose - sound masking can be helpful, but it isn’t going to solve all the problems of an open office. - rename your printers when you redeploy them - don’t move any servers you don’t have to. - this project will eat up way more of your time then you expect.
Reverent@reddit
Good list. Emphasis on simple is better for conference rooms. There’s an inverse law that the more a conferencing system costs, the harder it is to use. Everyone understands a usb c cable.
Something not in this list is USB-C monitors. They are infinitely more reliable than docking stations, use less cables, and the good ones will charge and daisy chain to a second monitor. Stock up.
Arudinne@reddit
I wouldn't cut costs here. We've had a few network runs fail over time and having 2 per desk has kept everyone working. The cost of 2 runs vs 1 is often negligible.
syntaxerror53@reddit
Always say have enough power sockets (min four per desk) and network points (difference between single and double was just a tenner at one place).
Fuzzmiester@reddit
things you need:
Storage space
Decent wifi. try and survey what channels are in use.
Decent wired connections
Decent provision of power to the desktop level. (desk mounted power strips)
Decent and simple AV equipment in any meeting rooms. (Something which 'just works' for your primary platform. walk in, and be in the meeting.) plus a cable to plug in (ideally just one) to get control of the screen, camera and audio. (I like Logitech's rally bar for regular meeting rooms. maybe with an extend to get the single cable. if money is no object, a tap ip, and a room scheduler too, but that's another 1200 per room. in a big room, something else is probably worthwhile. like a rally system with a roommate, a swytch, and extra mic pods on the ceiling) Multiple screens are nice, so you can share and still see people.
Proper signage on meeting rooms.
Maps for where meeting rooms are.
Conscious-Arm-6298@reddit
Hear me out, HA for everything.
Altusbc@reddit
The company used to work for acquired another company in early 2019. That company had a karaoke room, a game room, reading room, foosball tables and others. The employees there said no one used any of these. And of course, come COVID, these amenities were all shutdown. After COVID, no one asked for them to be reopened
mdervin@reddit
Whatever you buy, you are going to have to fix and document and maintain.
New fancy chairs and standing desk nonsense. And a pour over coffee system.
Ziegelphilie@reddit
A coffee machine with maintenance/refill contract. Bonus points if the machine supports profiles.
Easily the best thing I've ever introduced to the office and the amount of money it costs is well worth it because we never have to clean the fucker or care about bean supply.
SimpleSysadmin@reddit
Wifi 7 access points with enough overlap that a faulty ap or one that is updated mid day means no loss of connectivity.
Video conferencing that allows you to plugin any laptop with usb c for flexibility, don’t use wireless- they are not reliable unless you spend a lot or they go missing.
Docking stations for all staff laptops, standardise desk cabling, docks so moving around doesn’t need any recalling
Enough small meeting rooms and pods for the video meetings staff need to do in a open plan office
Happy_Kale888@reddit
What kind of business is this that just spends money on crap people do not ask for. I would love some E5 licenses and some updated pc's and laptops.
Hollow3ddd@reddit
Fun fact, if you work with a high enough partner and fully move to E5, having few to no E5 presence. You can get a big discount from MS in working with the vendor to hit a few implementation points
pdp10@reddit
Our startup once got bought out of a lease by an equities firm who wanted to expand into the space. In exchange for an expedited exit, we had a substantial one-time capital budget -- and a new office to fit out.
The majority of the windfall went to a full network refit, both on-premises and datacenter. Most of that worked out, some of it could have gone better in the long run, and one component of it was an expensive vendored-in system that I'd have strongly preferred to refresh in-house.
Some of it went to staff facilities, but just the usual foosball tables, potted plants, sofas, and beer, nothing weird or wasted. We actually made a late change to decrease the original on-site machine space and increase the staff rec space, which was absolutely the right call as it turned out.
CeC-P@reddit
A drone with a tiny speaker so you can fly it to each office and announce "Who has Quickbooks open in Single User Mode?"
Anthropic_Principles@reddit
Someone's got money to burn :)
A decent expresso machine is IT equipment isn't it?
SpotlessCheetah@reddit
Is this a playground? You'll be managing all this stuff if you put it it in. It will get old and tiring dealing with it, and it's a good way to put yourself back in help desk quickly.
Calm_House8714@reddit
Focus on things your users use everyday. "Fast" computers, wifi and APs set up properly so things roam correctly. Comfy chairs.
Would much rather have a big display with screen mirroring that works and is easy to use than a fancy whiteboard.
To me all the other stuff is like when companies have a trendy break room with couches, video games, a basketball goal etc.. I could care less about something something I'll barely use. And it looks silly to have spend money on it.
Nexzus_@reddit
Agreed on the smart board. I don't think I've ever seen one being used properly in my 20 years.
If you're also the network guy, now may be a good time to go over your subnetting.
If you don't need deskphones, perhaps reconsider those?
Make sure your datacenter is workable if you're going that route still.
How's the security system there?
statikuz@reddit
My recommendation is not to search for solutions to problems that don't exist.
Maybe different in your business but I was at a pretty decent sized place and all of a sudden everyone wanted a smart board and absolutely no one used them. Huge waste of money.
Karaoke? Really? Sounds like another thing that nobody will ever use.
The lighting sounds like a good idea.