Talkdesk Workforce Management™ (WFM) uses data and information from what happened in the contact center in the past to forecast what will happen in the future, help determine the required staffing, create schedules, and predict/project key Contact Center performance metrics.
Table of Contents
WFM Workflow
The next image depicts the workflow, inputs, and outputs for WFM processing cycle:
Workflow Steps
|
Step |
Description |
| Agents |
Agents are retrieved using APIs from the Talkdesk platform. All WFM-specific agent-related information is stored on WFM. |
| Queues |
Queue (ring groups) are retrieved using APIs from the Talkdesk platform. For queues that are not managed on the Talkdesk platform (e.g., queues managed on Zendesk), dummy ring groups need to be created prior to WFM account creation. |
| Queue History |
Contact center history and live metrics. |
| Event Types |
Event types to be managed by WFM. |
| Open Hours |
Open (or business hours) for the queues or teams. |
| Service Objectives |
Configure shift templates, that can then be added to agents. |
| Special Days |
Forecasting special days. |
| Shift Templates |
Configure shift templates, that can then be added to agents. |
| Break Rules |
Configure break rules, that can be added to agents. |
| Agent Scheduling Rules |
Configure agent scheduling rules. Assign shift templates, break rules and define agent-specific information. |
| Shrinkage |
Define expected shrinkage for each queue. |
| Forecast Workload |
Based on historical data for each queue (date, Contact Volume Offered - CVO, and Average Handle Time - AHT), WFM performs a forecast of what will happen in the contact center in the future, calculating CVO and AHT for a time period using multilinear regression and Box Cox. |
| Edit Forecasts |
Once the forecasts are created, WFM Resource Planners can edit and adjust the forecast. This adjustment is based on Resource Planners’ experience and business knowledge that is not modeled by WFM (eg, new product launches, marketing campaigns, etc). Once the forecast is edited for a particular date, it will be locked, i.e., it can be further edited by Resource Planners, but will not be modified by WFM. |
| Calculate Staffing Requirements |
WFM calculates the staffing required to address the forecasted workload at the configured service levels, considering the open hours, patience and shrinkage for each queue, using Erlang-A. |
| Generate Schedules |
WFM determines each agent’s schedule based on previously calculated staffing requirements, agent rules (including shift templates, break rules, agent-specific settings, and other restrictions), event types, and teams. Periodic discrete event simulation is used to evaluate agent contributions based on their skills. WFM evaluates potential schedules using simulated annealing and an objective function to optimize the schedules. |
| View Scheduling Results |
Resource planners can view the predicted/projected performance metrics for WFM, considering the forecasted workload and calculated schedules. |
| Release Schedules |
WFM automatically releases the draft schedules, making them available for Agents. Draft schedules can be modified by Resource Planners, while published/released schedules cannot be modified. |
| Surge Response | |
| Edit Schedules |
Resource Planners can adjust the schedules produced by WFM. They can create, modify or delete events of any usage type (shifts, breaks, time offs and meetings), to fine-tune the schedule to the business needs. |
| View Schedules |
WFM Resource Planners and Supervisors can review the draft schedules for each team and make changes and adjustments. WFM Agents can only view their definitive (published or released) schedules. |
| Request Schedule Changes |
Agents can request schedule changes (such as change shift start/end time, pick up extra hours, extend or move breaks, trade shifts with other agents, etc), time off (holidays, sick leaves, etc) or meetings. Supervisors and/or Resource Planners will approve or deny the requests, and WFM will automatically update the schedules. |
| Schedule Adherence | |
| Insights |
Tracks key operational metrics so you can take corrective action right away. This intra-day functionality provides a real-time, graphical view of forecasted, actual, and predicted contact volume, handle time, service-level statistics, and other critical information. |
Forecasting
Forecasting in Talkdesk Workforce Management includes three core statistics:
- Contact volume offered (CVO) is predicted for each 15-minute interval.
- Average handle time (AHT) is predicted for each 15-minute interval.
- Required staffing is calculated for each interval based on the predicted CVO and AHT.
CVO and AHT predictions use similar methods, so they will be described together below, although the process is performed independently for each statistic.
Selection of an appropriate forecast model is performed for each queue independently. This is done automatically at the beginning of each new forecast week, based on the data available at that time, with the following steps:
- An initial screening of the queue’s data narrows the range of models to be tested. For example, queues with very low volume will be tested against different models than queues with high volume.
- The applicable models are tested by using them to forecast recent completed weeks.
- The model that produces the most accurate results for each queue is selected for that queue.
Once models are selected, forecasts can be generated:
- The model for each queue is trained using the historical data for that queue.
- Adjustments for designated holidays and identified outliers are handled as appropriate within each model.
- CVO and AHT predictions are created/updated for every interval using the trained model(s) for all the weeks in the forecast timeline.
- Where applicable, predicted values for intervals outside currently enforced business hours are removed.
Once CVO and AHT are forecast for all queues, required staffing is calculated for each interval. The calculations used vary depending on the service level (SL) threshold of each queue:
- Staffing for queues with shorter SL thresholds is calculated using a modified Erlang formula.
- Staffing for queues with longer SL thresholds is calculated as workload, then redistributed across the SL threshold window (within the queue’s open hours).
- Shrinkage is then applied to the requirements for each interval.
On a nightly basis during the week, the previously selected model for each queue is re-trained with the latest historical data, and all forecast values are refreshed using the current configurations for the queue.
For more details on Forecasting, please head to our Forecasting documentation or follow the index below, linking to each specific section you may be looking for:
Forecasting Documentation Index
Scheduling
To calculate the optimal or near-optimal schedule for the contact center, WFM needs the following information:
- Teams that have hours of operations (HOO), time zones, holidays, etc.
- Employees and their work rules (shift types and activities that can be scheduled).
- Staffing requirements (calculated from forecasts and goals).
- Any existing schedule including unavailability, meetings, time off, etc.
- Scheduling parameters.
Before scheduling, WFM checks the existing scenario for any issues. If there is a problem, an error is logged and, depending on the severity, the scheduling task is interrupted. If there is a problem with a specific queue, the queue is removed from the scheduling calculation.
The time period to schedule is configurable, and the schedules are calculated for the given period (one week at a time). Any schedules outside of this period are considered locked i.e., they are not modified by the scheduler.
For more details on Scheduling, please head to our Scheduling documentation or follow the index below, linking to each specific section you may be looking for:
Scheduling Documentation Index
Additional Resources