Workforce management and divisions overview

This article describes how divisions work in workforce management.

Key concepts of divisions and workforce management

This section describes how divisions work in workforce management, the entities and where they belong in business unit levels or management unit levels, and user access within divisions.

Understand how divisions work 

  • Use divisions in workforce management to divide access control. For example, think of divisions as controls that you use to limit which business units and management units appear in the list in the upper right corner of workforce management pages.
  • In workforce management, the division that a user belongs to only matters in the context of moving users between management units. After the user is associated to the management unit, it is important to understand the divisions in which the management unit or business unit belong.
  • All supervisor permissions are associated with divisions, but all agent permissions are not. Agents can view the pages or entities that belong to them, regardless of divisions.
  • Business units can only belong to one division. By default, this division is Home. Management units can only belong to one division. By default, this division is also Home. However, the management unit does not have to belong to the same division as the business unit.
  • A division can contain multiple business units and multiple management units.

User access in the context of divisions

  • You give users access to certain permissions in the context of a division building block.

For example, when you grant a user the Workforce Management > Schedule > View permission in Division 1, this user can view all of the schedules in all business units and management units that are associated with that division, regardless of the division to which those scheduled users belong. As another example, you can give a supervisor the Workforce Management > Schedule > Edit permission in Division 3, which is the supervisor’s division, but you can grant only the Workforce Management  > Schedule > View permission in the company’s other divisions.

  • You need a unique division for every unique access control building block you need.

 For example, if some users only need access to schedules for people in Management Unit 1, then create a division that only includes Management Unit 1 and no other management units or business units. Anything else in this division has no impact on workforce management. Or, if you only want to separate access control at the business unit level, then just create one division per business unit. You can use these divisions for separating queues, flows, and so on, because you don’t need divisions for workforce management only.  

Divisions and workforce management notifications

Only supervisors that can act on an object receive notifications about it.

For example, time-off request approval notifications route to supervisors or users who have the Workforce Management > Time Off Request > Edit permission for the management unit to which the requesting agent belongs. The same scenario applies for shift trade approval notifications.

The division to which the submitting agent or supervisor belongs has no impact on these notifications. The two key points are a) the management unit to which the agent belongs and b) whether the approving supervisor has a role with the Workforce Management > Time Off Request > Edit permission for the division that contains the agent’s management unit.

Examples

This example includes two business units, Sales and Support, and a schedule lead for each management unit.

Business unit Management Unit Schedule lead for management unit
Sales Sales East Sal Easterly
Sales Sales West Sal Westerly
Support Support West Hal Easterly
Support Support West Hal Westerly

The company also includes the following employees:

  • Sal Global, the schedule lead for the Sales business unit
  • Hal Global, the schedule lead for the Support business unit
  • Joe Global, the schedule lead for the entire company

In this example, the goals are as follows:

  1. Each management unit schedule lead must have access to edit schedules in their own management unit.  
  2. Each management unit schedule lead must have access to view the management units in their business unit that they do not lead.
  3. The business unit leadership, Sal Global and Hal Global, must have access to edit their business units.
  4. Joe Global, the schedule lead of the company, must have edit access to everyone.

Because we want management unit level access control building blocks, we need a division per management unit. Configure this scenario as follows:

Division Management units in division Business units in division
Sales East Division Sales East (MU) None
Sales West Division Sales West (MU) None
Support East Division Support East (MU) None
Support West Division Support West (MU) None

And finally, assign the following roles to users in these divisions:

  • Schedule Editor role with the Workforce Management > Schedule > Edit, Add, and View permissions
  • Schedule Viewer role with the Workforce Management > Schedule > View permission
User Role Divisions
Sal Easterly Schedule Editor Sales East Division
Sal Easterly Schedule Viewer Sales West Division
Sal Westerly  Schedule Editor Sales West Division
Sal Westerly Schedule Viewer Sales East Division
Hal Easterly Schedule Editor Support East Division
Hal Easterly Schedule Viewer Support West Division
Hal Westerly Schedule Editor Support West Division
Hal Westerly Schedule Viewer Support East Division
Sal Global Schedule Editor Sales East Division, Sales West Division
Hal Global Schedule Editor Support East Division, Support West Division
Joe Global Schedule Editor Sales East Division, Sales West Division, Support East Division, Support West Division

This example includes two business units, Sales and Support, a schedule lead for each business unit, and a global lead.  

Business unit Management Unit Name of schedule lead for management unit
Sales Sales East, Sales West Sal Global
Support Support East, Support West Hal Global

In this case, because we use larger access control building blocks, we simplify and only use two divisions.

Business unit Management units in division Business units in division
Sales Division None Sales (BU)
Support Division None Support (BU)

And finally, assign the following roles to users in these divisions:

  • Schedule Editor role with the Workforce Management > Schedule > Edit, Add, and View permissions
  • Schedule Viewer role with the Workforce Management > Schedule > View permission
User Role Divisions
Sal Global Schedule Editor Sales Division
Hal Global Schedule Editor Support Division
Joe Global Schedule Editor Sales Division, Support Division

In this example, we use the same setup as Example Two, but let’s suppose that the Sales team grows and the company hires Sal Westerly and Sal Easterly. These two leads want to split the schedule edit access for the Sales business unit, but not the Support business unit. 

Business unit Management Unit Name of schedule lead for management unit
Sales Sales East Sal Easterly
Sales Sales West Sal Westerly
Support Support East, Support West Hal Global

In this scenario, we want management unit level control for the Sales unit, but business unit level control for the Support unit. We want MU level control for Sales but BU level control for Support. Here, we offer two setup options. Which option you prefer depends on the existing divisions that you have and how you use them to divide access to other non-workforce management entities.

Division setup option 1

Division Management units in division Business units in division
Sales East Division Sales East (MU) None
Support West Division Sales West (MU) None
Support Division none Support (BU)

Division setup option 2

Division Management units in division Business units in division
Sales East Division Sales East (MU) None
Support West Division Sales West (MU) None
Support Division Support East (MU), Support West (MU) None

And finally, assign the following roles to users in these divisions:

  • Schedule Editor role with the Workforce Management > Schedule > Edit, Add, and View permissions
  • Schedule Viewer role with the Workforce Management > Schedule > View permission
User Role Divisions
Sal Easterly Schedule Editor Sales East Division
Sal Easterly Schedule Viewer Sales West Division
Sal Westerly Schedule Editor Sales West Division
Sal Westerly Schedule Viewer Sales East Division
Sal Global Schedule Editor Sales East Division, Sales West Division
Hal Global Schedule Editor Support Division
Joe Global Schedule Editor Sales East Division, Sales West Division, Support Division