Microsoft Places Integration

Overview

Microsoft Places is a workplace intelligence platform within Microsoft 365. This integration pushes real-time occupancy data from Haltian IoT sensors into the Microsoft Graph API (Places resource), where it surfaces as sensor-verified room and desk availability in Teams and Outlook.

Architecture

The integration connects Haltian’s physical sensor infrastructure to Microsoft’s workplace intelligence platform. Occupancy data can originate from two sources:

• Single device — A standalone sensor (e.g., PIR or desk sensor) directly reports the occupancy state of a single room or desk.
• Occupancy Data Engine — Multiple sensors within a space are combined into a device group. The Occupancy Data Engine aggregates their raw events (motion, directional movement, entry/exit counts) and produces a unified occupancy state for the space. This is the recommended approach for larger rooms or zones with multiple sensor types. See Occupancy Data Engine for details on device groups and the Occupancy Data Engine.

Sensors form a Wirepas mesh network — each device routes data through neighbouring devices to the Haltian IoT Gateway, which forwards it to the cloud. IoT Studio’s map view shows the live mesh topology for the entire installation:

Components

Sensors are grouped into device groups in IoT Studio — one group per room or zone. Each device group maps to a Microsoft 365 room resource:

Data Flow

Occupancy Event Lifecycle

1. Measurement — One or more sensors detect occupancy changes and transmit messages via the Thingsee gateway.
2. Ingestion — The Haltian cloud backend receives the measurements, validates them, and persists the events.
3. Processing — The system resolves the occupancy state through one of two paths:
   • Single device — The sensor event is evaluated directly against the sensor-to-resource mapping.
   • Occupancy Data Engine path — Multiple sensor events within a device group are fed to the Occupancy Data Engine, which applies algorithms (motion aggregation, entry/exit counting, count corrections) to produce a unified occupancy state for the space.
4. Delivery — The resolved occupancy state is pushed to the Microsoft Graph API (Places resource), updating the resource’s availability in near real-time.
5. Presentation — End users see updated room/desk availability in Teams and Outlook via Places Finder, calendar cards, and space analytics dashboards.

IoT Studio shows the live occupancy status computed by the Occupancy Engine before it is pushed to Microsoft:

Sensor-to-Resource Mapping

Haltian maps physical sensors (or device groups) to Microsoft Places resources:

Next Steps

• Integration Guide — Step-by-step setup for connecting Microsoft Places with Haltian IoT
• Supported Sensors — Which Haltian sensors work with Places and how they map to rooms, desks, and zones
• FAQ — Common questions about latency, ghost bookings, licensing, and deployment