This free new office IT setup checklist is for IT managers, MSPs and the IT lead on an office project, whether the site is a first office, a new branch or a move. It covers the building survey, internet circuits and other long-lead orders, the comms room and structured cabling, the network, Wi-Fi, phones and meeting rooms, testing and a go-live approval. When servers or comms equipment are coming from another site, a relocation path appears for the shutdown, the move and the power-on. The output is a working office before staff arrive and an as-built pack you can trust.
An office project runs two plans side by side. Facilities owns the lease, fit-out, furniture and staff announcements. IT owns everything that must be live before the first person sits down: the circuit, the cabling, the comms room, the Wi-Fi and the phones. Most day-one failures happen where one side assumed the other had it covered.
This page is the IT plan. It starts as soon as the address is likely, because the circuit order is the longest lead time on the project, and ends with the network handed to operations. Moving existing servers is a conditional phase here rather than a separate checklist, since the comms room, the cabling and the power-on depend on each other.
Owner: operations or the office manager.
Covers: the lease exit, furniture, staff communications and address updates.
Template: Office Relocation Checklist.
Owner: the IT lead or the MSP.
Covers: circuits, cabling, comms room, network, Wi-Fi, phones and building systems, tested and approved before move-in.
Optional: moving servers and comms kit from another site.
Owner: the network team.
Covers: swapping switches, firewalls or circuits inside a maintenance window, with a rollback.
Template: Network Upgrade & Cutover Checklist.
Seven phases run from the first building survey to the handover. It is run once per office opening or move. Two answers on the first task decide whether the building-systems task and the relocation phase appear, and a named approver signs off go-live before staff move in.
The first task records whether servers or comms equipment are moving from another site, and whether building systems will use the IT network. Those answers show or hide later tasks.
The building-systems task appears only when the first task says access control, CCTV or other building systems will use the IT network.
These tasks appear only when existing servers or comms equipment are moving from another site, and go to the relocation lead named on the first task.
The go-live approver named on the first task records a decision, and the checklist halts until they do.
Most new-office problems were decided in the specification, months before move-in. These are starting points for the documents Phases 3 and 4 hand to installers. Where a standard sets the figure it is named; the rest is common practice to tune.
| Item | Sensible default | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Copper cable runs | No more than 90 m of fixed cable, 100 m including patch cords | TIA-568 permanent link and channel limits |
| Cable category | Category 6A for new installations | Common practice; carries multi-gigabit to access points with headroom |
| Access point positions | Two Category 6A cables to each one | TIA-568.1-E-1 (2023) |
| Cable acceptance | A certification report for every permanent link | Installer handover; keep it in the as-built pack |
| Comms room temperature | 18–27 °C at the equipment air intake | ASHRAE TC 9.9 recommended envelope |
| UPS runtime | Long enough to ride through short outages or shut down cleanly | A judgement; size to the load plus growth |
| Wi-Fi coverage for calls | About −67 dBm or stronger in every working area | A widely used design target for voice over Wi-Fi |
| Internet resilience | Two connections on physically separate routes | Common practice for any site that cannot close |
Two items cause most late surprises. The first is the circuit. Business fibre usually needs a provider survey, and often a signed landlord access agreement before engineers can run cable through shared areas. UK government guidance describes wayleaves as the most common form of that agreement. Ask the landlord who signs them on the day you order.
The second is moving existing servers. If Phase 5 appears, treat the move as a planned outage with a rollback point: the backup proven before shutdown is the way back if a disk does not survive the journey. A server with a year of support left can cost more to pack, insure and rebuild than to replace with a cloud service or new kit built through the Server Setup & Provisioning Checklist.
Conditional logic reads the first task. A greenfield office sees no relocation tasks at all. A move with a rack of servers gets the full shutdown, transport and power-on sequence, assigned to the relocation lead picked in a members field.
Dynamic due dates count each task from the day the project opens, so the circuit order is due in the first week rather than whenever someone remembers. Overdue orders show on the owner’s own task list.
Test reports, rack photos and the IP plan attach to the tasks that produced them. The go-live approval halts the checklist until the approver decides, and the activity trail shows who tested what and when.
Run this alongside the Office Relocation Checklist, which covers the lease, fit-out, staff communications and address changes, and agree the move-in date between the two. Network changes at an office you already occupy belong in the Network Upgrade & Cutover Checklist. Servers left behind at the old site leave through the Server Decommissioning Checklist, and the IT Asset Management Checklist keeps the register in step with what moved.
Once the office is open, each new starter’s laptop and accounts follow the new hire IT setup checklist.
As soon as the address is likely, and before the lease is signed if you can. The internet circuit sets the timetable: dedicated fibre needs a provider survey, sometimes new ducting and a landlord access agreement, and quotes run to weeks or months. Three to four months before move-in is a sensible minimum for the order.
A lockable space with dedicated power circuits, cooling for the heat the equipment gives off, a UPS, a rack with room to grow, and no water pipes overhead. ASHRAE’s recommended range for IT equipment intake air is 18–27 °C, which a closed cupboard full of switches can exceed quickly. Add a temperature sensor that alerts someone.
Plan it as an outage with a way back. Take full backups and prove a restore before shutdown, keeping one copy apart from the servers in transit. Write the shutdown and power-on order around dependencies, photograph and label every cable, and use movers who specialise in IT equipment with insurance that covers its real value. At the new site, bring each layer up and check it before the next.
A predictive design from the floor plan is worth doing for almost any office, because it decides where the access point cables go before the ceilings close. After installation, a validation walk with a survey app or tool confirms coverage in every room. Glass meeting rooms, lift cores and kitchens are where prediction and reality most often differ.
Category 6A is the usual choice for new installations, because newer access points use multi-gigabit uplinks and cabling outlasts several generations of switches. Keep fixed runs within 90 m so the full channel stays inside 100 m, ask for two cables to every access point position, and do not accept the installation without a certification test report for each link and labels that match the floor plan.
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