Frequently Asked Questions
Questions
General
What is Cisco Spaces?
Cisco Spaces is a cloud platform that connects people and things within buildings turning them into Smart Spaces. By leveraging Cisco’s network infrastructure and collaboration devices ‘as sensors’, Spaces helps organizations reimagine people experiences, maximize operational efficiency, optimize energy, and utilize space effectively.
Explore the Spaces platform and solutions for more details.
What Cisco hardware is compatible with Spaces?
Spaces is compatible with the full stack of Cisco networking hardware (Catalyst and Meraki), collaboration devices (Board series, Desk series, Room kits and devices) as well as Meraki sensors (MT 10, MT11, MT14, MT15).
Does Cisco Spaces support third-party IoT sensors?
Yes. Cisco Spaces’ multi-vendor IoT device marketplace has a diverse set of IoT devices (occupancy sensors, environment sensors, asset tags, beacons and more) from 50+ pre-integrated vendors. Cisco Spaces leverages your Catalyst access points and switches as a gateway for wireless and wired IoT devices, eliminating the need for additional hardware gateways. Visit our IoT device marketplace to view the devices.
What use cases does Spaces enable?
Spaces enables industry-specific business outcomes and use cases for IT as well as business teams such as asset tracking, indoor wayfinding, Wi-Fi onboarding, customer acquisition and loyalty programs, environmental monitoring, space analytics, infant tracking, staff duress, energy optimization and more.
What industries can benefit from Cisco Spaces?
- Healthcare
- Retail
- Education
- Offices
- Hospitality
- Airports
- Stadiums
- Manufacturing & Warehouses
- Financial Services & more.
What teams can benefit from Cisco Spaces?
- IT Teams
- Facilities
- Workplace Resources
- Real Estate
- Operations Tech
- Marketing & Loyalty
- Data Analytics
How can I try Spaces?
You can experience Cisco Spaces in following ways:
- Virtual Experience Center: Spaces end user journeys tailored to industry verticals and job functions.
- Interactive Product Tour: An interactive self-serve Spaces dashboard fully configured for users to explore.
- Free Trial: A 30-day trial for IT users to deploy Spaces and test basic platform capabilities in their own environment.
What level of data granularity is supported by Spaces?
Spaces provides accuracy varying from presence to hyperlocation, depending on the density of your Cisco access points and sensors and the location technology (Wi-Fi, BLE, UWB). Real time location is computed based on the location hierarchy defined in Cisco Spaces.
What are the user roles and access available for Spaces?
Cisco Spaces comes with a default admin user account and password. An admin user can define role-based access for other users in your enterprise and invite, edit or delete user privileges. When adding new users to your account, the admin can assign location specific (access to one or multiple buildings, group/brand/category-based access, etc) and read-only privileges.
Free Trial
Who is eligible for a Cisco Spaces free trial?
Any existing Cisco customer is eligible for this trial, for IT teams.
Is the free trial available in all countries?
If you are a Cisco customer, the trial is available to you no matter where you are.
How do I sign up for the Cisco Spaces free trial?
You can sign up for the free trial here.
What do I get when I sign up for the trial?
You get access to the ACT license (minus IoT Services) for 30 days, which includes apps like Behavior Metrics, Right Now, Impact Analysis, Captive Portals, Engagements, and more.
How long before I can start seeing insights on Cisco Spaces?
Spaces starts collecting and processing data from the date of activation. You’ll begin to see your data being populated within 24 hours. But it is recommended that you wait for at least three weeks for our cloud engine to start cleansing the raw location data and churning out meaningful business insights.
Do I need to provide any payment information when I sign up for the trial?
No. We offer a no obligations free trial to help you fully explore the benefits of our platform.
What happens upon expiry of the trial?
We will send you an email notification a week before your trial ends. This will include next steps and licenses you can consider, if you wish to continue using Cisco Spaces.
Do you offer any benefits or discounts if I wish to continue with Spaces after the free trial?
You can reach out to us or contact your account manager for details on promotions or discounts applicable to you.
Licensing
How can I buy Spaces?
There are two ways to buy Cisco Spaces:
Bundles with Cisco: The Cisco Spaces Extend subscription (base version) is included with all Cisco DNA Advantage subscriptions (Catalyst Wireless and Switching). Spaces in bundles with Meraki MR and Unified Licensing will be launching in FY25.
A-la-carte: For advanced capabilities, business and IT to business use cases, Spaces solutions are available as a-la-carte software subscriptions. Customers can purchase either Spaces ACT or Smart Operations or Smart Venues licenses per device, per year, or Smart Spaces Suite licenses per sqft.
What are the different tiers of licenses offered by Spaces?
Cisco Spaces currently offers three license tiers – Extend, ACT and Smart Spaces. Extend is part of Cisco bundles, while ACT (Venues, Operations, ACT) and Smart Spaces are sold a-la-carte.
How can I try the features of the Cisco Spaces ACT package?
Recorded and live demos of ACT can be made available on request. If you want to try out a specific use case, we are open for PoV’s (Proof of Value). Please contact us to discuss your requirements.
Activation
How do I check if I have Cisco Spaces licenses?
You may have Cisco Spaces licenses if…
- You have purchased Cisco DNA Advantage subscriptions OR
- You have received an email from spaces@cisco.com with instructions on activating your Cisco Spaces account.
If you’re unsure, you can reach out to us on spaces@cisco.com for assistance.
How can I activate my Cisco Spaces license?
To activate your Cisco Spaces licenses, please send an email to spaces@cisco.com with the subject line: “Request for Account Activation.” Our team will help you get started with the next steps.
How do I login to my Spaces Account?
To log in to your Cisco Spaces account…
- Go to the appropriate Cisco Spaces portal based on your region: ciscospaces.io for global access, ciscospaces.eu for Europe, ciscospaces.sg for Singapore.
- Enter your email credentials and password to access your account.
If you are having trouble remembering your password, use the ‘Forgot Password’ option on the login page to reset it.
Deployment
What are the deployment options?
Deployment options include cloud plus on-premises or completely cloud. On-premises is required for hyperlocation compute functionality.
Do I need help from my IT team to configure Cisco Spaces?
Spaces comes with a complete self service Setup Guide to help you configure your account. This guide is designed to help network administrators, engineers or anyone who is interested in learning how to quickly deploy Spaces.
Since the setup requires network access, you must be familiar with your network infrastructure details. The dashboard allows you to invite a team member to set up your account for your organization.
How can I connect to the cloud? Does Cisco Spaces work with Meraki, Wireless LAN Controllers (WLCs) and CMX On-Prem?
Yes. There are four ways to connect to the cloud…
- Cisco Spaces connector
- WLC direct connect – AireOS WLC version 8.8MR2 or later/Cisco Catalyst 9800 WLC version IOS-XE 16.10 or later
- On Prem tethering (CMX version 10.6)
- Meraki: Built in support. No connector needed
How long will it take to configure my account?
This will depend on your network infrastructure. Deployments that require the installation of Spaces connector on a virtual machine can take between 60 and 90 minutes. Meraki deployments can be completed in under 30 minutes.
Technical
Where does Cisco Spaces store my data?
Your data is stored in the Cisco cloud hosted by AWS, with data centers in the United States, Europe and Singapore. The stored data is encrypted at rest.
How many users can Spaces servers handle?
The architecture of Cisco Spaces is built to handle dynamic scaling. Based on incoming traffic, we can dynamically scale to accommodate any number of users.
How long is data stored in Spaces?
Data is stored as long as your Cisco Spaces account is active.
Data Security
What happens to the data collected during the trial period?
Trial accounts are offered the same security as our production accounts. Upon the expiry of the trial period, the data is marked for permanent deletion.
Who owns the data that is processed by Cisco Spaces?
Our customers have absolute ownership of their data. View our privacy and data protection whitepaper here.
What security measures does Spaces take to protect user data?
Data is protected through encryption authentication and authorization.
Does Spaces comply with data security laws in China and EU?
Yes, we have different data centers for EU and China, adhering to their respective local laws.
Is Spaces GDPR compliant?
Yes.
What data does Spaces collect?
Personal data collection and its purpose is solely determined by the customer (data controller), who provides the data to Cisco (data processor) for processing. Cisco collects and processes the non-sensitive personal data on behalf of the customer.
Please note that Cisco Spaces…
- Does not collect any special category of personal data, such as race, ethnic background, political opinions, genetic data, biometric data, health data, etc.
- Does not intentionally collect any personal data from minors, as minors are disallowed from using the Cisco Spaces solution.
- Collects only non-sensitive personal data through the wireless network (MAC address). This data collection is optional and in certain cases, the customer may decide to collect additional data from users.
What does Cisco Spaces do with the data that’s collected?
The non-sensitive personal data collected via the Cisco Spaces platform is essential for implementing the customer’s solution, such as report generation, trend and data analytics, etc. The underlying restrictions on the purposes of the collected data are applied as per the agreements with the data controller. Restrictions are bound by the commitments provided to the customer (data controller) with respect to the use and retention of the non-sensitive personal data. The data retention activity is based on the agreements with the customer, and as governed by local laws and compliance with prevailing regulations.
Rebranding
Cisco Spaces was formerly Cisco DNA Spaces
Did the rebranding change anything for existing customers? All the features of Cisco DNA Spaces including existing login credentials, existing data and licenses remain the same. Nothing changes for existing customers.
Did the rebranding change anything in DNA Center? Cisco DNA Center and Cisco Spaces (previously DNA Spaces) are different products. Cisco Spaces still enables you to integrate with Cisco DNA Center.
For more on the rebranding, you can read the announcement blog https://blogs.cisco.com/networking/a-tale-of-people-things- spaces
Can't find what you're looking for?
Please submit your question below and we will reply as soon as possible