Getting your dog used to being in a crate has uses other than housetraining, such as making it easier to travel with your dog or making life easier for your dog it they need to be hospitalized. But for housetraining, crating your dog when you can't supervise them is strongly recommended - remember that every accident causes them to unlearn their housetraining.
Some dogs may take naturally to their crate. We can certainly aid the process by a few simple steps such as feeding the dog in the crate and rewarding them for entering the crate on command. Putting a pad or blanket in the bottom may help (or not - it depends on the dog). The crate should certainly have toys in it. Dog books will go to great lengths to talk about how happy a place the crate can be and how dogs naturally seek out a den and so on.
If your dog is like mine, he may not have read those books. If you have a dog who doesn't like being crated, the solution is not to abandon crate training, but instead to try to make it as tolerable as possible. One of the best things you can do is to make sure the crate is near the people. At night, put the crate in your bedroom, with the door facing the bed. During the day, a high-traffic area like the living room or kitchen might be good. Take your dog out of the crate from time to time. Generally you will want to take them directly from the crate outside to their potty spot. If they go, then you probably have a half hour or more in which you don't need to worry quite as much about getting them back into the crate or supervising them closely. When you are supervising rather than crating your dog, generally I'd suggest leashing them (yes, indoors), and tying the leash to your waist. Most dogs will follow you around the house, happy to be with you all the time.
On the one hand, you should try to introduce your dog to the crate gradually and teach them to go into it voluntarily (rewarding them for doing so). In the first few days, it may be hard to reconcile this with your need for housetraining now. Therefore, if you can arrange to take home your dog at the start of a weekend or other time when you can spend more time with them, do so.
Before letting your dog out of the crate, try to wait until they spend 30 seconds without actively whining or barking. You don't want to reward whining or barking, so try to remember to stick to a schedule, and if you are lucky, you won't have to spend a lot of time counting to 30 hoping your dog calms down.
Of course there is such a thing as crating your dog too much. Dogs need exercise and human interaction, and if you can arrange to spend more outdoors with your dog during the housetraining process, that is great. And of course once you have successfully housetrained your dog (and dealt with other issues like chewing), you won't need to use the crate as much.
