About workforce management

Understand the foundational requirements to use Workforce Management. This section explains the permissions required to access and manage Workforce Management features, and outlines the supported configuration limits to help you plan effectively within system constraints. Review these resources before setting up business units, management units, and planning groups to ensure a smooth and efficient experience.

• Workforce management permissions overview
• Workforce management and divisions overview
• Workforce management supported configuration
• View workforce management details in the audit log viewer

Business units group management units that share common operational objectives. They are segments of businesses that are forecasted and scheduled as one unit to share resources. Users who handle the same queues and skills are typically grouped in the same business unit so their work can be forecasted and scheduled together.

• Business units overview
• Business unit key principles
• Add a business unit
• Manage a business unit

Management units are groups of agents within a business unit. They can represent a department, site, or geographic location within the same business unit. They follow the same rules for start day of the week, labor constraints, shift trade rules, adherence rules, and time-off allowances.

• Work with management units
• Add a management unit
• Move a management unit
• Manage a management unit

Service goal templates are reusable templates that are defined at the business unit level. It specifies a service goal in terms of service level, average speed to answer (ASA), and abandonment rates. Use the service goal templates to create and manage service goals.

• Service goal templates overview
• Service goal templates key principles
• Navigate the service goal template page
• Add a service goal template
• Manage a service goal template 

Planning groups define a workload of a specific media type and one or more route paths that can be grouped for forecasting and scheduling purposes. A planning group usually includes only one route path but low volume route paths can be grouped to optimize resources and enhance scheduling efficiency.

• Planning groups overview
• Planning groups key principles
• Add a planning group
• Add interaction route paths to a planning group
• View agents in a planning group
• Manage planning groups

Staffing groups are a group of agents within a business unit who have similar skillsets. They can handle the same workload and share a pool of absence allowances and absence types.

• Staffing group overview
• Add a staffing group
• Manage staffing groups 

Planners can create capacity plans to understand the contact center staffing levels (over and under staffing) and determine hiring needs.

• Capacity Plans overview
• Create a capacity plan
• View results of capacity plans
• Modify a capacity plan
• Manage capacity plans 

Employees who belong to a management unit are configured here. They are added to the management unit before they can be added to a work plan or a schedule.

• Work with agents in a management unit 

Activity codes represent a specific activity type that can be placed on the schedule and define how that time is handled. It also indicates to the agent what to do during the specified time. The activity codes have a fixed length and further define if the activities are counted as paid time, work time, shrinkage time, are interruptible by other activity codes, or if the agent can select that time for time-off requests.

• Add an activity code
• Configure activity codes
• Manage activity codes

Work plans define the shift types (listed after this) along with weekly, multi-week, and weekend scheduling rules to align with labor contracts, all in a central place and associated with a specific set of agents. 

• With Work plan configurations, you can set:
  • Shift definitions to specify shift patterns, including shift start and end times, incorporate activities like back-office work, breaks, and meals to create structured and predictable schedules.
  • Weekly constraints to define parameters such as minimum and maximum paid hours per week, maximum consecutive working days, and required non-working time between shifts to ensure compliance and agent well-being.
• With Work Plan Assignments, you can:
  • Assign work plans to agents. You can allocate specific work plans to agents, either permanently or for designated periods, to align schedules with operational requirements and agent availability.
  • Manage overrides and temporary work plan changes. You can implement temporary adjustments to work plans to address short-term needs or agent requests. This ensures flexibility and responsiveness.
• With Work Plan Rotations, you can:
  • Create rotational patterns, which allows you to develop sequences of work plans that rotate on a weekly basis. This provides variety and balanced workload distribution among agents.
  • Assign agents to rotations. You can place agents into established rotation patterns and facilitates predictable scheduling cycles and equitable shift assignments.
• Work Plan Bids enable employees to range and bid on the work plans and constraints that they prefer to be scheduled by for future schedule periods. With work plan bids, you can:
  • Set up bidding processes that enable you to establish procedures, which allow agents to bid for available work plans. This promotes employee engagement and satisfaction.
  • Manage bid assignments. This helps you to evaluate agent bids and assign work plans based on criteria such as seniority, performance, or operational needs. This ensures that a fair and transparent process is in place.

• Work plans configuration overview
• Add a work plan configuration
• Set up the work plan’s weekly configuration
• Configure the work plan’s daily shifts
• Set up shift activities
• Add agents to the work plan
• Validate and save the work plan
• Work plan assignment overview
• Navigate the work plan assignment page
• Manage work plan assignments 
• Work plan rotations overview
• Add a work plan rotation
• Add work plans to the rotation
• Preview the work plan rotation
• Manage a work plan rotation
• Work plan bids overview
• Manage a work plan bid 

Forecasts enable administrators and supervisors to create forecast trends for efficient workforce planning in the future. There are different methods (listed after this) from which you can create forecasts.  

• Automatic Best Method analyzes historical data to select the most accurate forecasting model, automating the process for efficiency. 
• Weighted Historical Index allows users to assign importance to specific past data periods, creating forecasts that reflect anticipated trends.
• Weighted Historical Index with Source Data Import enables importing external historical data via CSV files, useful for new users lacking internal data.
• Import Forecast supports uploading externally generated forecasts into Genesys Cloud, integrating with existing forecasting systems.
• Main Forecast provides comprehensive data views. The main Forecast is based on the continuous forecast method and is calculated every night to ensure that planning is based on the latest data and trends. 

• Work with forecasts
• Navigate the forecast
• Forecasting metrics
• Work with the forecast editor
• Add a new forecast
• Automatic Best Method forecast method overview
• View historical data for automatic best method forecasts
• Forecast modifications
• Add a forecast modification
• Manage a forecast modification
• View and manage forecast source data
• Export a forecast
• Work with Change Daily Values and Distributions modification 
• Main forecast overview
• Navigate the main forecast page 

Capacity planning allows administrators and supervisors to view the staffing requirements based on a specified forecast with no schedule required.

• Navigate the staffing requirements page

• Time-off limits: Administrators can set daily maximum hours available for agent time-off requests to ensure adequate staffing. These limits are defined per management unit and adhere to the business unit’s time zone.
• Time-off plans: Administrators can create time-off plans that link specific time-off activity codes to the established limits that streamline the approval process. This association allows automatic evaluation of requests against predefined criteria, which promotes consistency and efficiency.
• Time-off requests: Agents can submit time-off requests through the using the My Schedule section. The system assesses each request based on the relevant time-off plan and limit. The system auto-approves the requests that meet all conditions and others require manual review via the My Schedules page.

• Work with time-off limits
• Navigate the time-off limits page
• Set the time-off limit for one or more dates
• Work with time-off plans
• Navigate the time-off plans page
• Add a time-off plan
• Work with time-off requests
• Navigate the time-off requests page
• Add a time-off request
• Approve a time-off request
• Filter and sort time-off requests
• Add a full day off to an agent in the schedule
• Synchronize time-off request
• Workforce Management an HR system integration for time-off overview

Schedules allow administrators to:

• Generate load-based schedules. This is an automated scheduling method based on the forecasted workloads to meet service goals efficiently.
• Create manual schedules. This allows administrators to create and adjust schedules without a forecast, which can be useful if the agents always work at the same time.
• Create and manage schedules. Schedules can be adjusted in real time. You can overlay historical adherence, late explanations, and more to help adjust schedules more accurately.
• Create and manage activity plans. Activity plans enable you to schedule recurring or ad hoc activities—such as training sessions, team meetings, or compliance briefings—at optimal times that align with business objectives and employee availability. This functionality ensures that essential activities are integrated into agents’ schedules without disrupting service levels.
• Manage shift trades. Shift trades allow agents to exchange entire shifts with colleagues. You can configure rules and criteria to ensure that trades align with operational requirements, such as matching skills or queue assignments. Shift T=trades can be automatically or manually approved depending on the management unit configuration.

• Work with workforce management schedules
• Navigate the schedule editor
• Generate a schedule from a forecast
• Generate a schedule without a forecast
• Add a blank schedule
• View schedule generation messages
• Copy an existing schedule
• Delete a schedule 
• Choose forecast for an existing schedule
• Select work teams or management units in the schedule editor
• Activity plans overview
• Add a new activity plan
• Manage activity plans
• Navigate the activity plans page 
• Shift trades overview
• Enable and configure shift trades
• Approve or deny a shift trade
• Filter and sort trade requests

• Real-time adherence emphasizes tools for tracking whether agents adhere to their schedules in real-time, allowing immediate corrective actions.
• Historical adherence highlights the importance of analyzing past adherence data to identify trends and improve future scheduling accuracy.
• Adherence explanations allow agents to submit late requests that, if approved, take the explained time period of out adherence calculations, improving the agent’s adherence score.

• Real-time adherence overview
• Real-time adherence view
• Navigate the real-time adherence view
• Historical adherence overview
• Configure historical adherence
• Access the historical adherence view
• Navigate the historical adherence view 
• Calculate adherence and conformance
• Historical adherence constraints
• Manage adherence explanations requests
• About workforce management for agents

• Real-Time Data Comparison: Monitor metrics such as the number of interactions and average handle time per Planning Group, comparing forecasted data with actuals in intervals of 15, 30, or 60 minutes.
• Visual Indicators: The system highlights differences between forecasted and actual data, with red values indicating areas that may require further investigation.
• Customizable Display Options: Administrators can adjust display intervals, time formats, time zone, and set target percentages for answered, abandoned, and completed interactions to align with specific monitoring needs.

• Intraday monitoring overview
• Work with the intraday monitoring view
• Manage the displayed metrics
• Workforce management metric definitions

Historical shrinkage records both scheduled and actual shrinkage, which is the time agents were scheduled to take interactions but were unable to do so. This data helps managers refine staffing models and improve scheduling accuracy.

• Historical shrinkage overview
• Access the historical shrinkage view
• Navigate the historical shrinkage view 
• How Genesys Cloud calculates historical shrinkage

• Schedules: Agents can view their schedules through desktop and mobile interfaces.
• Manage time-off requests: Agents can request time-off through desktop and mobile interfaces.
• Shift trades: Agents can swap shifts, both with other agents and with the house using the Alternative Shifts feature, through desktop or mobile interfaces.

• About workforce management for agents

Administrators can use the:

• Historical data import to upload historical interaction data from another system. Forecasts generated using the Automatic Best creation method uses this data. This data is also used when generating the continuous forecast.
• Decisions data download to export data into our legacy Decisions application.

• Historical data import overview
• Navigate the historical data import view
• Prepare the historical data import .csv file
• Download the historical data import example .csv
• Import historical data
• Purge historical data
• Historical data import validation errors
• Download Genesys Cloud agent data for Decisions 

Refer to our detailed documentation of APIs powering Genesys Cloud Workforce Management. Reach out to our community if you do not find answers to your queries. If your question is not answered here share it with our Community.

• Genesys Cloud developer center
• Workforce engagement management community