A good workplace management RFP should make vendors respond against the same requirements, rather than relying on feature demos. Use the following structure to define your requirements and evaluate shortlisted vendors.

RFP template

1. Platform and module requirements

• Desk booking and scheduling
• Meeting room booking and workflows
• Visitor management
• Parking booking and management
• Meal and cafeteria management
• Employee commute management
• Space management and planning
• Analytics and reporting
• AI-based forecasting, scheduling and allocation

2. Employee experience
   Ask vendors to demonstrate how employees can:

• Book desks and rooms through app and web
• Check in through available interfaces such as QR, RFID or email
• Find desks, rooms and parking through interactive floor plans
• Invite and manage visitors
• Book meals in advance
• Access workplace services through existing collaboration tools

3. Admin capabilities
   Ask vendors to demonstrate:

• Interactive floor plans and workplace allocation
• Booking and usage rules
• Office- and employee-wise configurations
• Booking overrides and cancellations
• Utilization tracking and analytics
• Room auto-release and booking restrictions
• Parking allocation and controls
• Visitor workflows and compliance controls

4. AI and space planning
   Ask whether the platform can:

• Forecast future space requirements using growth plans
• Generate and compare different workplace scenarios
• Optimize for utilization, collaboration or a balance of both
• Evaluate scheduling options using different algorithms
• Support AI-based forecasting, scheduling, stacking and restacking

5. Integrations and technology
   Request details on:

• HRMS integrations
• SSO and identity management
• Access management
• Calendars
• Collaboration tools
• Sensors
• MDM
• APIs and custom integrations

The things to evaluate before shortlisting a vendor:

Nine things to evaluate

1. Module coverage
   Does one platform cover desk booking, meeting rooms, parking, visitor management, and meals, or will you be stitching together point solutions? Fragmented tools mean fragmented adoption and no single source of truth on utilization.
2. Admin vs employee experience
   Two different problems, one platform. Admins need control, configs, and cost visibility. Employees need convenience and automation. Ask the vendor to demo both sides, not just the admin console.
3. AI and forecasting capability
   Can it forecast space needs based on growth plans? Does it generate different allocation scenarios you can compare and save? Can it evaluate scheduling options across multiple optimization algorithms (fairness, utilization, collaboration, cost)? A booking tool tells you what’s free today. A planning tool tells you what you’ll need in six months.
4. Security and compliance certifications
   Non-negotiable for enterprise: ISO 27001, ISO 27701 (PIMS), SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR compliance. Ask for certificates, not claims.
5. Enterprise structure support
   Can it handle multi-level org hierarchies, project codes beyond team/department, office-wise configurable rules, and role-based access control? A tool built for a single-office SMB will not survive a 30,000-employee, 15-city rollout.
6. Integration depth
   Check against your actual stack: SSO/IdM (Okta, Azure AD, SAML), HRMS (Workday, SAP, PeopleSoft), collaboration tools (Teams, Slack, Google Workspace), calendars, access control hardware, and MDM. Ask specifically about open API hooks for anything not pre-built.
7. Implementation timeline and support model
   What’s the realistic implementation window? Is there a dedicated account manager, or a shared support queue? What SLAs apply, and are they flexible to your needs?
8. Customization vs core product integrity
   Can the vendor adapt workflows to your business processes without you ending up on a forked, unsupported version of the product? Ask how they balance tailored configuration against long-term scalability.
9. Proof at your scale
   Reference customers matter less than reference customers at your scale. A vendor with only mid-market case studies may not have solved for 25+ offices, multiple countries, or ODC/SEZ-specific rules.