Yes. Several workplace/desk-booking platforms explicitly support seeing colleagues’ locations before choosing a desk, which is exactly the workflow you’re describing.
| Platform | Can employees see colleagues before booking? | How it works |
|---|
| envoy.com | Yes — very directly | Employees can search for coworkers on the office map, see where they’re sitting, and use “Sit nearby” to find available desks next to them. Envoy changelog Envoy Help Center |
| skedda.com | Yes | Its interactive floor plan shows which colleagues are coming in and where they’re sitting, letting employees select a desk near teammates. Skedda Skedda |
| officespacesoftware.com | Yes | The floor plan provides live desk status and a Visual Directory for finding desks and colleagues; its workplace experience product also explicitly supports seeing who is onsite and where they’re sitting. OfficeSpace OfficeSpace |
What I'd look for in your situation
The important distinction is between “show available desks on a map” and “show people on that map.” All three above address the latter, but Envoy is particularly explicit about the workflow of find coworker → see their desk → find nearby availability → book.
Skedda is also geared toward team neighborhoods, so it can be useful if your problem is less “find Alice's exact desk” and more “make sure our engineering team sits together on Tuesdays.”
OfficeSpace combines colleague wayfinding with broader workplace-management features, including live occupancy and integrations with tools such as Slack and Teams.
One privacy consideration: these systems can generally let employees control whether their schedule/location is visible. For example, Envoy documents an employee setting to hide their schedule from coworkers.
If you tell me your approximate team size and whether you use Microsoft 365/Teams, Google Workspace, or Slack, I can narrow these down based on integrations, pricing model, and how well each handles “sit near my team” workflows.