SpareBank 1 Hallingdal Valdres has brought its desks, offices, meeting rooms and pool cars into Awaio Workplace. Employees across 11 locations now book what they need in one app, and check in with a tap of the phone.
A regional bank spread across two valleys
SpareBank 1 Hallingdal Valdres is a Norwegian savings bank with its head office in Gol. Its branches sit in the mountain communities of Hallingdal and Valdres: Ål, Nesbyen, Flå, Geilo, Hemsedal, Fagernes, Beitostølen and Heggenes. The group also has offices in Bergen and Oslo.
The project started in spring 2026 with a simple request from the bank's technology and digitalisation team: a way to book workplaces at the head office, and a better way to share the group's pool cars.
The needs grew quickly. Some employees have their own office that should stay theirs, but be free for others when they are away. Some offices are shared by two colleagues on fixed days. Users sit in several Microsoft tenants across the group. And employees should not, by default, be able to see each other's bookings.
As a bank, SpareBank 1 Hallingdal Valdres also needed the solution approved by the SpareBank 1 security community before signing. Awaio supplied security documentation, an SLA and a data processing agreement, and the bank got the go-ahead in June 2026.
One app for desks, rooms and cars, rolled out in three steps
The bank started at the head office and then expanded:
- June 2026, Gol head office. Awaio Workplace with desk management, 17 meeting rooms, office maps of two floors and the parking area, 6 pool cars, and community setup and onboarding.
- September 2026, the rest of the group. Room booking extended to 36 meeting rooms at 10 more locations, from Hemsedal and Ål to Bergen and Oslo.
- October 2026, more tags. 15 extra TapCards and 15 TapDots for meeting rooms at the other locations.
The setup follows the bank's own rules:
- Fixed offices are assigned to named employees, who can release them when they are out
- Shared offices are split between colleagues on recurring schedules
- Booking details can be hidden per resource or per user, to protect privacy
- Gol is shown on an interactive office map; the other locations are simply bookable in the app
Awaio Desk Management: fixed offices that can still be shared
Awaio Desk Management handles fixed desks, hot desks and team zones in one system, with booking rules set per zone and a live office map. Unconfirmed bookings can be released automatically.
For SpareBank 1 Hallingdal Valdres, the deciding factor was flexibility. Employees keep their own office, but an empty office is no longer wasted: it can be released in the app and booked by someone else.
Awaio Room Booking: every meeting room in the group, in one place
Awaio Room Booking shows live room availability, prevents double bookings and releases rooms when nobody shows up. Rooms can also be booked from Outlook.
The bank wanted an overview of all meeting rooms in the group, not just at the head office. Today 53 rooms at 11 locations are bookable in the same app.
On site, the bank chose NFC instead of QR codes. Awaio TapCard and TapDot are small passive tags on doors, desks and in meeting rooms. Employees tap their phone to check in or book, with no batteries or wiring.
Pool cars with a short form on every booking
The same app handles the group's 6 pool cars. With Awaio Parking & Mobility, a car is booked like any other shared resource, and admins follow the returns in one dashboard.
Each car booking comes with a booking form. The driver answers a few questions in the app: the odometer reading, the battery level and whether the car was left tidy. Every answer is tied to the booking and the car, so the next driver gets a car that is ready to go, and the bank has the mileage for each trip.
The first results
By late September 2026, every office at the Gol head office had been assigned to its owner in Awaio. The rollout to the other locations followed in the autumn.
Do your offices, rooms and cars live in different systems?
Awaio brings desks, meeting rooms, parking and pool cars into one app, for one head office or a whole branch network.
Book a demo to see how it would work in your office.
