Managing shared spaces with Planner

Starting point – challenges in booking shared rooms

In the family centers of the wellbeing services county of Western Uusimaa  (LUVN), several services and professional groups operate under the same roof. These include maternity and child health clinics, family counseling, child protection services, family social work, child psychiatry, rehabilitation services, service counseling, and administration. Each unit has its own background systems and room needs, yet the facilities are shared.

Before Planner was adopted, room bookings were handled in several separate systems. This led to confusion, overlapping bookings, and situations where an employee would arrive only to find that the same room had been reserved twice.

The common denominator was clear: they needed a solution that would give all parties visibility into room usage and eliminate double bookings and conflicting bookings.

"Planner ensures that the overall reservation process stays seamless. Double bookings and overlaps simply cannot occur."

Solution – Axel Planner brings visibility and makes room booking easier

Axel Planner was chosen as the master system for room reservations in LUVN's family centers. It ensures that shared spaces remain controlled and predictable in all situations. Planner's strength lies in its ability to connect different systems and users into one unified whole.

Smooth integrations

Planner integrates bidirectionally with the systems in use, such as the AVPH system for social services and Microsoft Outlook, through which a large share of reservations are made. These integrations were designed from the ground up to meet the needs of the family centers.

A social services employee can schedule an appointment for a client in the AVPH system and reserve a room for the meeting at the same time. Behind the scenes, AVPH queries Planner to check which rooms are available, and the employee can choose a suitable one. The Outlook integration also makes daily work easier: employees can make reservations directly from their own calendar without signing in to Planner separately.

Across the LUVN area, more than 200 rooms in several locations can be booked. In addition to the Niittykumpu and Espoo Center family centers, rooms in Hanko, Vihti, and Kirkkonummi are also available. Planner makes it possible to define which rooms can be booked through Outlook and which remain reserved for internal use. This ensures controlled shared use while keeping sensitive rooms protected.

Controlled use of shared spaces

In practice, Axel Planner brings together the room-booking needs of different service areas and delivers real-time information to everyone. Users can make bookings directly in Planner, through Outlook, through the AVPH system, or even from door displays. All reservations become visible instantly, everywhere. If a room is already booked, the system automatically prevents overlapping reservations.

This is particularly important in an environment where employees may not know one another or where each person works. Thanks to Planner, the days of "colorful notes on doors" are gone, and shared rooms remain truly shared.

The system also supports flexible management: units can define which rooms are available to others and which are reserved exclusively for internal use. For instance, child protection units can restrict their own rooms from Outlook bookings without breaking the overall setup.

"I dare say it would be quite a chaos without Planner."

Outcome: Smoother and clearer space management

Planner has brought clarity, transparency, and predictability to room management in the family centers. Since deployment, booking processes have run smoothly without major disruptions. On the rare occasions when an integration has been temporarily offline due to network issues, its importance has become evident: daily work slows down immediately.

This year, more than 94,000 hours of room bookings have already been made through Axel Planner. Operations run smoothly, and the staff can focus on what truly matters: meeting clients and supporting families.

Planner has shown that shared spaces can function without confusion when the system ensures consistent synchronization and visibility for everyone.

"When the integration was down for a moment, things got messy fast. It was clear how much we rely on Planner."