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From sign-up to your first team move, step by step: building and floor, desks, people, seating, moves, QR codes and data protection.
Spoken in English, with captions. The voice is AI-generated (Google AI Studio).
Welcome to Seatline. In this video, I’ll show you how to set up your office, step by step. By the end, you’ll know who sits where, how to move people, and how to plan a whole team move. Let’s get started.
Go to seatline.ch and click “Try it free for 30 days”. You can sign in with your Microsoft 365 work account. Or enter your work e-mail, and click the link we send you. There’s no password and no credit card. Just want to look around first? Click “Try the demo”. It opens a sample office you can change freely, and you don’t need an account. The first time you sign in, Seatline asks for your company’s name. You become the admin of your workspace. If you use Microsoft 365, colleagues from your company join the same workspace automatically.
This is Home. Here you see a “Get started” checklist with four steps: add your building, draw a floor with desks, add your colleagues, and give people their desks. Each step has a button that takes you to the right place. It ticks itself off when you’re done.
Open Map. In the left panel, click the plus next to Building. Enter a name and address. Then click the plus next to Floor. Give the floor a name, like “3rd floor”, and a level number. Desk numbers follow the level: 3.01, 3.02, and so on. A new floor opens with ready-made example offices. Small has 12 desks, Medium 33, and Large 74. They come with meeting rooms, offices, a reception, and a kitchen. Pick the one closest to your office. Then move, rename, or delete whatever doesn’t match. Don’t like it? One click on Undo removes the whole example. Prefer to draw yourself? Choose “Start with an empty floor”.
You’re now in Edit layout. The tools are on the left. The details of what you select are on the right. Drag rooms and desks to where they really are. Resize a room by dragging its corners and sides. Click a room to rename it. All changes save by themselves. Here are the main tools. Press B to draw a rectangular room. Press P to draw a room by its corners: click each corner, then double-click to finish. Press S to add a desk wherever you click. Select a room to set its type: office, open space, or meeting room. For meeting rooms, add how many people fit and what equipment it has. Press K to add a marker for the kitchen, printer, exit, or first aid kit. Markers help people find their way. Desk numbers can follow the floor or the room. Choose under Numbering, then click “Renumber desks”. Select several things with Shift-click, then copy and paste them, even onto another floor. Made a mistake? Happens to all of us. Press Control Z, or Command Z on a Mac. Press the question mark key to see all shortcuts. Have several floors that look the same? Use “Duplicate floor”. You get the same rooms and desks, numbered for the new level.
Do you have a plan from your architect? In the right panel, open “Add plan”, then “Import architect plan”. Choose a DXF, a PDF, or a picture. Seatline suggests rooms and desks from it. Tap any suggestion you don’t want, then import. The plan stays in the background, so you can draw over it. Tip: set the scale with the ruler. Press M and drag along a wall whose real length you know. Desks are then drawn at their real size.
Okay, your floor is ready. Now let’s add your colleagues. Open “People & access”. Click “Add person”. Enter a name and e-mail, and optionally a team and a role. Leave the invitation turned on, and they can sign in right away. Have a list already? Click “Import list” and choose an Excel or CSV file. A name and an e-mail column are enough. Seatline shows you what’s new before anything is saved. Using Microsoft 365? Then people and teams update every night from your directory. Your IT only approves Seatline once. Every person has a role. A Viewer can see the map. An Editor can change seats and layouts. An Admin can also manage people and settings. People with no access can still have a desk.
Back to the map. Green desks are free. Grey ones are taken. Yellow ones are reserved. To give someone a desk, drag their name from the list on the left onto a green desk. That’s it. Or click a free desk and choose “Assign person”. Someone is moving to another desk? Just drag them to the new one. Their old desk becomes free automatically. Every change shows a message with Undo. Click a desk to see who sits there, since when, and everyone who sat there before. The history is always kept. To keep a desk for someone new, click a free desk and choose Reserve. Type who it’s for, like “New hire in May”. To free a desk, click it and choose “Free seat”. Type a name in the search on the left to see where that person sits. Use “Find a free desk” to filter by features, like a standing desk, two screens, or a window seat. Switch “Colour seats by” to Team, and each team’s area shows in its own colour.
In “People & access”, the Teams tab shows each team, how many people are seated, and on which floors. The Changes tab lets you change team, role, or leaving date for many people at once. On the leaving day, the person is marked as left and their desk becomes free. Their history stays.
Want IT or facility management to know about changes? Go to Settings, then Notices. Add their e-mail address and choose what they should hear about: someone joins, leaves, changes team, or a move happens. They get one short e-mail per change.
Now the best part: moves. Open Moves and click “New move plan”. Give it a name, like “Sales to the 2nd floor”. Nothing changes on the real map until the plan is applied. Click “Plan on the map”. You see the floor as it will look after the move. Drag people onto desks as usual, and each move is added to the plan. Use “Move a team” to place a whole team at once. The plan page lists every move and warns you about problems, like a desk that’s already taken. When it looks good, choose Schedule and pick a date. The moves happen overnight, early that morning. No boxes in the hallway during work hours. Or choose “Apply now”. Need to change a scheduled plan? Choose “Back to draft”. For the movers, print the Moving list. It shows every move, sorted by starting place, with a tick box for each one.
Open Export and choose “Desk QR codes”. You get 12 stickers per A4 page. Stick one on each desk. Scan a sticker with your phone, and you see who sits there, their team, since when, and the desk’s history. Only signed-in colleagues can see it. The Export menu also gives you the seating list as Excel, the seat history, and a printable floor plan.
Make Home your own. Click Customize to add, move, or remove widgets, like free desks per floor or people without a desk. Under Planning, enter how many people each team expects. Seatline shows how many desks you’ll be missing. Activity lists every change in plain words. Search for a person, desk, or room to see who changed what.
Seatline works on your phone too, right in the browser. There’s no app to install. The map, people search, desk pages, and even Edit layout all work on phones and tablets.
Your data stays in Switzerland, in Zurich. Seatline is built for the Swiss data protection law. Under Settings, then Data protection, choose how long history is kept: 1, 2, 5, or 10 years. Older history is deleted automatically. You can also download a person’s data or forget someone who left. And you can e-mail yourself the data processing agreement as a PDF.
Seatline costs two francs per active desk, per month. All features are included, with unlimited people and floors. Blocked desks are free. The first 30 days are free, and you can cancel any month. If nobody subscribes after the trial, your workspace becomes read-only. Nothing is deleted.
That’s it. You’ve set up your office, seated your people, and planned your first move. Need help? Click Help in the top bar, or write to hello at seatline dot ch. Try Seatline free for 30 days. Seatline.ch.
Write to hello@seatline.ch.