Designing effective, technology-enabled meeting spaces can be complex. It’s complex because the task is to design an in-room and far-end experience that’s difficult to convey on a traditional 2D planning grid. And implementing high-quality collaboration technology in the room is only half the equation. Design matters as much as the technology deployed. Because workspace design, when done right, should serve both the end user and the service owner while aligning with design standards, policies, and the overall workplace strategy.
Meeting room design is about sweating the small details around camera and microphone placement, table shape, seating arrangement, space around the table, the size of your monitors, ergonomics, and other nuances that can make or break the experience. Details that often get lost in translation when aligning with other stakeholders outside of IT or external contractors. In addition, it’s not uncommon that the consequences of technology choices remain vague in the planning phase, leading to extended decision cycles and costly project delays.
Design effective workspaces at scale
This is exactly why we launched Cisco Workspace Designer a year ago, a tool that brings a paradigm shift in how modern workspaces are envisioned, designed, and delivered. It is built to remove friction from traditional design by giving you a powerful, easy-to-use tool that simplifies complex decisions and accelerates workplace transformation without compromising experience quality.
A web browser-based 3D engine that codifies Cisco’s deep expertise and best practices for modern workspaces. Accessible from any device via our website, it automatically generates device, furniture layout, and AV configurations based on room type and size, prioritizing optimal user experience while incorporating Cisco internal guidelines. With just a few clicks, you can define your workspace type, receive expert design guidance based on best practices, tailor setups with real-time feedback, and instantly generate detailed blueprints and bills of materials for quicker time to value and greater transparency regarding the equipment needed for the deployment.
And we haven’t stopped ever since launching Workspace Designer, introducing more space templates, room features, more devices, and other important considerations for a workspace deployment.
What’s new in Workspace Designer 1.6
Design your desks, open desks and focus rooms
There’s a lot you have to consider when it comes to planning desk spaces, including the kind of technology and functionality your users will need that best fits the desk collaboration use case, ergonomics, installation, and how these align with your workplace strategy.
Going beyond meeting rooms and learning spaces, we’re now introducing standalone desk, open desk, and focus room scenarios in Workspace Designer. Using the tool, you can configure your desk spaces for the best experience with Cisco desk phones, web cameras, headsets, and all-in-one desk collaboration devices. In addition, you can add a secondary screen, adjust the table size, and verify how the technology would work.
Selecting from the wide range of options can be daunting. That’s why you can choose from preset desk scenarios—ranging from essentials and voice-optimized deployments to hybrid and all-in-one video collaboration—check visual head-to-head product comparisons, and get actionable guidance to find the right desk technology for your use case and user types.
Select a switch for AVoIP room peripheral extension
In larger spaces and more complex AV deployments with an array of connected accessories, you may run out of ports or PoE power budget on the video device. Workspace Designer brings peace of mind by automatically adding a network switch to the space whenever there’s a need for extra PoE ports or power capacity for an extended AV over IP accessory network.
For the first time, you will see the fully network-managed Cisco Catalyst 9200CX Switch powering the extended range of IP-based accessories, which signals a new way to scale the conferencing deployment on the network with a compact, fanless switch offering ample PoE budget and physical ports.
Not sure about which switch series suits you best? Worry no more, a new comparison matrix will help you identify the most important features you’ll need, and view the recommended placement in the 3D module.
Visualize your rooms with RoomOS 26
With the new release, you can visualize your spaces with RoomOS 26, the next evolution of our cloud-connected operating system for Cisco devices. It brings a modern, intuitive interface that simplifies workflows and a calming visual look and feel to any workspace.
This complements the earlier addition of whiteboarding and hot desking UI scenarios available from the screen content menu of the 3D experience. You can easily visualize the whiteboarding user experience on touch-enabled Cisco devices, including Cisco Desk Series and Board Pro G2 series, while hot desking mode displays the desk availability status on Cisco Desk Series and Desk Phone 9800 Series devices.
Enable extended cross-view coverage
Earlier this year we introduced the new Cisco Room Vision PTZ camera to Workspace Designer to help you configure standard meeting rooms and training spaces with premium presenter tracking, cinematic cross-view and extended speaker view. Since the IP-based tracking camera now uses motorized pan-tilt-zoom in multi-camera deployments, when selected, the tool will automatically model an extended cross-view coverage, capturing more people around the table.
And with the camera coverage selector in the 3D module, you can easily pick the specific camera overlay you’d like to highlight or show them all at once, to simplify the technical validation of multi-camera configurations.
A range of recent workspace design innovations
These complement the range of other enhancements we’ve introduced to Workspace Designer in recent months to bring you even more value when planning your meeting rooms at scale.
Import your custom room designs
Planning a custom call center, a large townhall space, or an executive office? Workspace Designer has you covered. While the interactive tool offers common space types based on Cisco’s validated design standards combined with a simple-to-use, experience-driven configuration wizard, we recognize that a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t always suitable. That’s why we allow you to import your non-standard and custom room configurations from third-party design tools.
You can now design the most advanced scenarios and bring those designs into Workspace Designer using powerful custom room APIs and industry-standard JSON format. Consider custom room import when you configure a space with a non-rectangular layout, require custom camera placement, need to position your Cisco microphones differently from the default Cisco guidance, or when the goal is to recreate an entire floorplan for your next new build, redesign, or tech refresh program.
Learn how to make the most of custom room import and what limitations apply compared to the default, step-by-step configuration wizard in the tool.
Verify the connectivity requirements
With the cable map, you can leverage a simplified but detailed representation of the system, making it easy to understand how the AV components are connected and how power and signals flow through the system.
In addition to having an at-a-glance overview of the power, network, HDMI, USB, or analog cabling you’ll need for the installation, Workspace Designer also gives you a dynamically updated snapshot of port capacity and real-time recommendations, and helps you easily understand the consequence of setup changes to ease the planning process. And for added convenience, the cable section of the blueprint now shows the Power over Ethernet usage for each connected AV over IP device.
Having such a wiring model in 3D, which is also included in the final blueprint, shows you and all stakeholders what wiring is needed and where it should be placed, removing assumptions and ensuring that the deployment is done correctly the first time, without costly rebuilds and project delays.
Add side monitors in longer rooms
Make sure people at the end of the table in large rooms can also see the shared content clearly by adding extra confidence monitors to the side walls, available in the screen setup step in the sidebar for larger meeting room scenarios.
Add wired content sharing
In addition to the default wireless sharing methods supported on RoomOS, you can now choose from a range of wired content sharing options to enhance the room experience, including active USB-C, Multi-head, or a traditional HDMI cable.
Follow accessibility best practices
By turning on the accessibility view, you can now verify if your workspace design follows inclusive design best practices, with a visual indication and actionable tips to improve your setup.
Your new go-to portal for workspace planning
By putting intuitive, expert-guided design capabilities into anyone’s hands—regardless of technical background—Workspace Designer removes barriers, speeds up decision-making, and drives alignment across functions. The result? A more efficient design process, empowered teams, successful workspace technology implementations, and better room experiences that scale.
Haven’t tested Workspace Designer yet?
Give it a try on our website. Are you already an expert user? Check out the above new innovations. And if you want to see more functionality in the tool, we are looking forward to receiving your ideas via the ‘Feedback’ menu and directly in our beta community.
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