Alternative shifts for agents overview

Prerequisites
  • For agents to participate in shift trades: Workforce Management > Agent Shift Trade Request > Participate permission
  • For agents to submit alternative shift trades: Workforce Management > Agent Alternative Shift > Submit permission

Use the alternative shift trading feature to select alternative trade shifts that workforce management generates. These alternative shifts are not assigned to any agents. You can participate in an alternative shift trade in the same way as a shift trade. For more information about shift trading and alternative shift trading, see Navigate the shift trades panel.

Note: Alternative shifts are provided only if the schedule can accommodate the change without compromising the service goals defined by the administrator. If you do not receive any alternative shifts consistently, contact your administrator to discuss possible configuration changes that improve the availability of alternative shifts. For more information about configuring workforce management to increase the number of alternative shifts offered, see Configure workforce management.

Date range limitations

Click the following sections to view the date range limitations set by workforce management.

Like shift trades, workforce management offers alternative shifts only in the six-week window, starting with the current work week. For example, if today is July 5 and the current work week starts on July 2, alternative shifts are available only in the weeks with the following start dates:

  • July 2 (current week)
  • July 9
  • July 16
  • July 23
  • July 30
  • August 6

You cannot create an alternative shift trade when any shifts of the trade are in the past. For example, if today is July 5 and the current work week starts on July 2, you cannot create an alternative shift trade with your shift on July 3.

In addition to preventing trading for past shifts, your administrator can enforce a minimum duration before the earliest shift start time. The shifts involved in the alternative shift trade must start at least this far ahead in the future. This duration gives you and your supervisor enough time to respond to schedule changes. The duration is configurable by your administrator.

For example, your administrator has configured the minimum duration as four hours and it is 9:05 a.m. on July 5. This means:

  • You will not be offered alternative shifts starting before 1:05 p.m. on July 5.
  • You cannot create an alternative shift trade to receive any alternative shifts starting before 1:05 p.m. on July 5.
  • You cannot create an alternative shift trade to trade away any of your shifts starting before 1:05 p.m. on July 5.

If you want to trade a shift, workforce management offers alternative shifts only in the same work week as the shift you want to trade. Similarly, if you browse and choose an alternative shift, you can only trade away one of your shifts in the same work week. From a workforce management perspective, each work week starts at midnight on the day of the week configured by your administrator. The time zone used to determine midnight is also configured by your administrator and may be in a different time zone than you.

Examples

  • If the work week starts on July 9 and you want to trade away your shift on July 12, you will not receive any alternative shifts on July 18 because it is in a different work week.
  • If the work week starts on July 9 and you want to browse and select an alternative shift on July 11, you cannot offer any shifts in the week of July 16 for the trade.