Part 5 · People and team

Floor plans

Each floor's plan drawn from records: zones, workstations, devices and cables, with the occupant of each workstation and the device behind each shape.

Symbifox 18.0 (September 2026 catalogue) · Modules: Floor plans, Floor plans: hosting · Revised 2026-09-12

The Plans d'étage (floor plans) application replaces the plan image stored in a folder with a living plan. Each room, each workstation and each device placed on it is a record, with its own chatter and photos. The chatter is the message thread at the bottom of a form. You can see who sits where, what is connected to what and, with hosting management, which device needs attention. The application serves the person who manages the premises or the IT equipment, for drawing, and the whole team, for looking things up. The result: a printable and exportable plan, always up to date because it is the database itself.

Overview#

Four objects make up a plan.

• The plan: one floor, at its real dimensions in centimetres, on an optional PNG or JPEG background image. A plan also works on a white background.
• The zone: a named rectangle of a given kind: closed office, meeting room, open area, technical room, storage, reception, kitchen, washrooms, circulation. Each zone has a number of seats, and its occupancy is computed.
• The element: anything placed on the plan, such as a workstation, table, printer, wall screen, switch, Wi-Fi access point, server, rack, network outlet, phone or camera. An element knows which zone it is in without being told, and who occupies it.
• The link: a cable between two elements of the same plan (copper network, fibre, electrical, other). It is the start of a cabling diagram drawn in the same place as the plan.

The plan is read and drawn in Symbifox, in the Plan tab of its record. The editor has six tools: Consulter (view), Déplacer (move, with a resize handle), Poser (place), Tourner (rotate), Lier (link) and Retirer (remove). Each action writes to the records, and a dragged shape snaps to the grid. A frozen plan can no longer be changed until someone reopens it.

Workstations are tied to the people in Employees. From an employee's record, Sur le plan (on the plan) leads to their workstation, highlighted. With Hosting management, a shape can represent a device from the fleet or a server, and the plan colours whatever needs attention.

The Boréal demo provides an 18 m by 12 m floor: seven zones, eight workstations in an open area, a wired technical room and a background plan drawn for the occasion.

Configuration#

Access and permissions#

Every internal user reads the plans: a plan first serves to find someone or something. A single group is added, in the Plans d'étage section of a user's form (Settings › Users & Companies › Users).

Each company sees only its own plans. On the demo, Camille Tremblay has the Gestion group.

Settings#

Plans d'étage has no settings in Settings and no configuration menu. The kinds of zones, elements and links are fixed.

Base data#

A plan, with its dimensions and, if you have one, its background. Nothing else: zones, elements and links are placed afterwards, directly on the drawing.

Getting started#

This walkthrough runs on the Boréal demo, signed in as Camille Tremblay.

1. Go to Plans d'étage › Plans. The card of the demo's only plan shows its thumbnail and its counters of zones, elements and links.
2. Open the plan. The Plan tab draws the floor: the seven zones, the eight open-area workstations, the technical room and its cables.
3. With the Consulter tool, select a workstation. Its tooltip gives its label, its zone and the person who occupies it.
4. Open the Zones tab. Each zone is listed with its seats and its occupied workstations.
5. Go to Employees and open the record of a person seated on the plan. Select the shortcut button Sur le plan: the plan opens with their workstation highlighted.
6. Go back to the plan and select Imprimer (print). The letter-size landscape PDF comes out with the legend and the inventory by zone.

Common tasks#

Create a floor plan#

Create one plan per floor, before any drawing. Gestion group only.

1. Go to Plans d'étage › Plans, then select New.
2. Enter the name in Plan, the Bâtiment (building), such as “Head office”, and the Étage (floor), such as “Ground” or “2”.
3. Optional: choose the Site, the organization or the address of the building.
4. In the Fond et dimensions (background and dimensions) tab, enter the real Largeur (cm) (width) and Profondeur (cm) (depth). Also enter the Pas de la grille (cm) (grid step) that shapes will snap to.
5. Optional: upload the Fond de plan (background plan), as PNG or JPEG.
6. Select Save.

The Plan tab shows the empty floor, or the background, ready for zones.

Place a zone#

Zones are drawn in the editor or entered in the Zones tab.

1. Open the plan, Plan tab, and choose the Poser tool.
2. Choose the zone kind, then draw the rectangle on the plan.
3. Open the new zone and enter its name in Zone, a Code (“B-204”, “SR-1”) and its Places (seats).
4. Optional: choose a Couleur (colour) and write Notes.
5. Select Save.

The zone appears on the plan with its name. An L-shaped room is placed as two zones.

Place an element#

Workstations, printers, outlets, devices: anything that has a record.

1. Open the plan, Plan tab, and choose the Poser tool.
2. Choose the element's Nature (kind), then place it on the plan.
3. Open the element and enter its Étiquette (label), the text written on the plan (“P-12”, “HR printer”).
4. For a workstation, choose the Occupant.
5. Select Save.

The element's Zone is deduced from its position: the zone that contains its centre, or the smallest one if there are several. The element has its own chatter and photos.

Move, resize or rotate a shape#

You correct the plan by hand on the drawing, without retyping coordinates.

1. Open the plan, Plan tab, and choose the Déplacer tool.
2. Drag the shape: it snaps to the grid.
3. Drag its handle to resize it.
4. To rotate it, choose the Tourner tool and select the shape, or select Tourner d'un quart (quarter turn) on the element's record.

On the record, X (cm), Y (cm), Largeur (cm), Profondeur (cm) and Rotation reflect the change. Shapes rotate by quarter turns.

Assign a person to a workstation and find them#

The plan answers the question “where does this person sit?”

1. Go to Plans d'étage › Éléments (elements) and open the workstation.
2. Choose the Occupant, then select Save.
3. To find the person, open their record in Employees and select Sur le plan.

The plan opens with the workstation highlighted. If the person has two workstations on two plans, a list lets you choose. The plan's counter Postes occupés (occupied workstations) and the zone's Occupés (occupied) update.

Draw a link#

A link is a cable between two elements of the same plan.

1. Open the plan, Plan tab, and choose the Lier tool.
2. Select the starting element, then the ending element.
3. Open the new link and choose its Nature: copper network, fibre, electrical or other.
4. Enter an Étiquette (“A-12”, “Cat6”, “20 A”), then select Save.

The link is drawn between the two shapes. Each element's counter Liens (links) includes it.

Remove a shape#

1. Open the plan, Plan tab, and choose the Retirer tool.
2. Select the shape.

The record is deleted along with its links. To keep the history, archive the element from its record instead.

Freeze and reopen a plan#

An approved plan should not move by accident.

1. Open the plan and select Figer (freeze).
2. To resume drawing, select Rouvrir (reopen).

A frozen plan can be viewed, printed and exported, but no longer changed: Plan figé (frozen plan) is checked.

Print the plan#

1. Open the plan and select Imprimer.

The PDF comes out letter-size landscape, with the legend of kinds and the inventory by zone.

Export the plan#

Two outputs are available, depending on what you want to do with the plan.

1. Open the plan and select Exporter (.drawio) to get a diagrams.net file. It uses the shapes of that tool's “Floorplans” library, with one layer per kind. Finish the walls, doors and windows there.
2. From the Plan tab, export the drawing as SVG, background included, to insert it in a document.

The file downloads; the plan in Symbifox remains the reference.

Duplicate a plan#

Use this for two identical floors, or for a new layout to try without touching the current plan.

1. Open the plan and select Actions › Duplicate.
2. Rename the copy and select Save.

The copy takes the zones, elements and links along, rebuilt on the copies.

Place a fleet device on the plan#

With Hosting management, a shape represents a real device or server.

1. Open the element (a server, a switch, an access point) from Plans d'étage › Éléments.
2. Choose the Appareil du parc (fleet device) or the Serveur (server) it represents, then select Save.
3. Alternatively, start from the device's record in Hosting management and select Sur le plan. The plan opens on its spot, or asks you to choose one.

On the plan, selecting the shape opens the device's record. The tooltip shows who has it, its operating system and its state. The outline turns red for an end-of-life system, a device under repair or retired, or a decommissioned server. It turns amber for an expired warranty or a server in maintenance. A device is placed in one spot only.

The menus, one by one#

Plans d'étage › Plans: the plans as cards (one per floor, with thumbnail and counters), as a list or as a form. One plan on the demo. The empty screen, in French on screen, invites you to draw the first plan: one plan per floor, at real dimensions. It adds that rooms, workstations and devices placed on it each become a record, with its own chatter and photos.

Plans d'étage › Zones: the demo's seven zones as a list, with plan, name, code, kind, seats and occupied. Group by plan or by kind. Each record has Sur le plan and the Éléments tab.

Plans d'étage › Éléments: the demo's 21 elements as a list, with plan, label, kind, deduced zone and occupant. Filter by kind to inventory the outlets or the workstations. Each record has Sur le plan and Tourner d'un quart.

Plans d'étage › Liens: the demo's five cables, with plan, start, end, kind and label.

Reference#

Fields of the Floor plan form#

Fields of the Zone form#

Fields of the Element form#

Fields of the Link form#

Reports and exports#

The Plan d'étage (floor plan) report prints as a letter-size landscape PDF, with the legend and the inventory by zone. Exporter (.drawio) produces a file for diagrams.net, and the Plan tab exports the drawing as SVG. Zone, element and link lists export to a spreadsheet through the common export action.

Automations#

• An element's zone is deduced from its position at each move.
• A zone's occupancy and a plan's occupied workstations are recalculated at each assignment.
• The server redraws the whole plan after each editor action.
• With the hosting module, a shape's outline colour and tooltip are read from the device's record at each display; the plan stores nothing about the device.
• No scheduled task.

Public pages and portal#

Plans d'étage has no public page and no portal.

Modules that extend this application#

Understanding#

Why records rather than an image. A plan image does not know who sits where or what is connected to what, and it goes stale on the first move. Here, the architect's image stays what it is, a background. What lives on it is in the database, with its chatter, photos and history.

What the module does not draw. Walls, doors and windows are not drawn here: they come from the background plan, or are finished in diagrams.net after export. The module handles what has a record, not the masonry.

Why the background is a raster image. An architect's vector file can contain a script; serving it as is would serve that script too. Convert it to PNG before setting it.

Rectangles, rotated by quarter turns. Zones and elements are rectangles. An L-shaped room is placed as two zones, and a workstation at an angle is placed as closely as possible.

The grid. A dragged shape snaps to the grid step, set on the plan. A 50 cm step is enough for offices; draw a technical room with a finer step.

The server is always right. Each editor action writes to the records, then the server sends back the whole plan. The drawing computes nothing on its own side, and two people looking at the same plan see the same thing.

The device record remains the truth. With the hosting module, the plan stores no facts about the device: it reads the device's record. A device is placed in one spot only; placing it elsewhere moves it.

A frozen plan. Freezing protects an approved plan against an accidental drag; reopening it is a deliberate act.

Troubleshooting#

See also#

• Employees: the people assigned to workstations, and Sur le plan.
• Hosting management: the devices and servers placed on the plan.
• Process maps: the other use of diagrams.net in Symbifox.
• Common actions in every application: duplicate, archive, export a list.