Consulting firm speedily solves space issues with innovative workspace scheduling app, enhances its culture

Sometimes it’s not how much you have, but how you use it. Leading consulting firm Armanino wanted to apply that notion to office space. Like a lot of successful professional services providers, Armanino—one of the 20 largest independent accounting and business consulting firms in the United States—is caught between the need for a traditional office model and for an agile workforce. It uses office space for teamwork and client meetings in 16 office locations in 15 major urban centers where it has bases, yet it also deploys specialized professionals wherever they’re needed. The firm wanted to make sure office space is always available for its highly mobile workforce but avoid overspending on underutilized space. So Armanino created the Workspace Scheduler mobile app using Microsoft Power Apps. To do so, the firm worked with its own dedicated team of Microsoft Dynamics experts—a long-standing member of the Microsoft AI Inner Circle program and a Gold Certified Partner.

Seeking the perfect equation to predict space needs

Armanino brings inventive thinking and entrepreneurial, empowered consultants to help clients embarking on digital transformation, addressing compliance needs and other business goals. The firm views its innovative people as its biggest asset. Armanino drives its growth by matching its consultants’ skills with specific client needs. That often means sending those people from their home office to another location, providing workspace for them in some of the most expensive cities in the country. “Our second largest cost after labor is rent,” says Tom Mescall, Partner-in-Charge of Consulting at Armanino. “But like a lot of my peers, I probably only use my office for two to three days a week.” 

Remote executive Carmel Wynkoop, Partner in Technology Consulting at Armanino, is frequently on the road. She needed a place to work within Armanino offices while on the road. But although she would arrive and find a space that appeared unoccupied, she had no way to know that it would be available all day, and she worried about inconveniencing its regular occupant if they showed up unexpectedly. She and Mescall attest to the valuable time they lost by seeking a landing place in a new office in a new city. “We had an incidental squatter’s culture,” adds Megan Manrique, Senior Marketing Manager at Armanino. “And it affected efficiency all down the line. For example, someone who had to leave a space that wasn’t vacant after all might end up in a conference room, affecting the meeting schedule there. That disruption could ripple throughout the office that day.”

Office space is available only in large increments, and leases often last for 10 years—a model that doesn’t reflect increasingly agile work styles. It wasn’t simply a matter of controlling expenses. Armanino’s collaborative culture values teamwork to make every employee successful, not competitive. For Ron Larsen, Director of Emerging Technology in Technology Consulting at Armanino, that’s a big part of the firm’s success. “We have a sense of community and support that encourages innovation,” he says. “We’re empowered to try new ideas and find new ways to succeed.” Armanino applied that thinking and Microsoft solutions to solve its space problem creatively. 

Crafting a low-complexity, high-value answer

Larsen used Power Apps to quickly create Workspace Scheduler. The mobile app gives every staff member fast, accurate space availability and reservation capability enhanced with Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft 365 Users, and SQL Server connectors. 

As the partner in charge of Power Apps development, Wynkoop was keen to use it for her own biggest work challenge. “When Power Apps came out, we dove in headfirst to take new, inventive solutions to clients. And we could easily build the front end to an app so that users could see how the tool would work before we connected it to the back end,” she says. “We used that same agile approach to create our Workspace Scheduler app in a matter of weeks.”

Once Wynkoop and a team of other beta testers signed off on the app interface, Larsen built the back end using Microsoft Azure SQL Database, hosting images of office layouts with Azure Blob storage. (See Figure 1.) “Having worked with a lot of database platforms, I felt that Azure SQL Database was the best resource for this app,” he explains. “Using it with Blob storage and standard Office connectors, we’ve created an app that is flexible, easily customized for any space, and simple to use.”

Now every Armanino worker willing to share office space can indicate when their space is free on Workspace Scheduler, and any worker on the road can find and reserve that space ahead of time. The app is already improving the firm’s space utilization stats, with an expected 15 to 20 percent saving on rent across the firm. Armanino also values the lift to morale. “By using Microsoft technology, we developed an enormously high-impact yet low-complexity answer that delivers a high rate of return,” says Mescall. “Plus, while our rent investment is significant, the productivity gains we make with Workspace Scheduler benefit our bottom line.”

Humans naturally settle in and become attached to their workspaces. Even given the previous informal system of reserving space on an inventory list, Mescall reports that people often felt uncomfortable using someone else’s office. Now, Workspace Scheduler personalizes the experience, making it a cooperative partnership between the lender and borrower. For Wynkoop, it’s about a deeper work community. “We used to worry about interrupting someone’s mojo by taking over their space, but the app makes both parties comfortable with sharing that going into the office takes on a totally different tone.”

Making the most of Microsoft partnership

Armanino turned to Microsoft solutions to build the best app possible to answer a critical need. Based on its historical relationship, the firm knew it was making the best choice. “We’ve been a Microsoft partner for more than 15 years, and it’s been invaluable. Microsoft’s technology capabilities, technology stack, and acceptance across the world is very high,” says Mescall. “When we help an organization with business challenges and they use Microsoft technology, all we need to do is bring the solution to life.” 

Wynkoop agrees. “It’s so valuable when we can share with clients what we’ve done with Microsoft tools. We can help them implement because we’ve done it ourselves. When we show them the value that we’ve gotten, it brings a level of credibility to what we’re doing that our clients appreciate.” 

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