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Whether it’s managing requests from agents, getting forecasts, or managing a certain team’s schedules, Talkdesk Workforce Management™ (WFM) provides simple and easy access to essential tools for Resource Planners.

• Managing Agents’ Requests
• Managing Forecasts
• Editing Forecasts
• Managing Teams' Schedules
• Managing Events
• Managing Intraday
• Daylight Saving Time
• Available Languages
• Schedule Issues

Managing Agents’ Requests

Agent Requests is utilized to manage all agent solicitations for changes to their schedules in one location. It allows any request from an agent to be filtered and managed within WFM itself, eliminating the need to track requests using outside systems.

To access this feature, go to the "Team Schedule" page. From here there are two places to enter the request.

In this example, you can see there is a new request that has not been seen, as indicated by the "Request" icon at the top of the page. Selecting a request from this list or selecting the full request list will open up the full window of requests that have been made. From here, you can approve or deny the request.

Once the status has changed from "Pending" to either "Approved" or "Denied", the agent’s request icon will show an unread request notification.

Note: At this time, approving does not automatically apply the requested change to the schedule. This feature is expected in a future release.

Requests can be filtered by:

• "Status"
  •  
    • “Approved”.
    • “Denied”.
    • “Pending”.
• “Category”:
  •  
    • “Call-out sick”
    • “Extra Hours”
    • “Meeting”
    • “Other”
    • “Shift Trade”
    • “Start of schedule adjustment”
    • “Time off”
• “Agent”.
• “Team”.

Managing Forecasts

The forecast page displays the forecast for a particular queue.

The forecast can be edited for each day in the weekly and monthly views, using the table.

Upon saving:

• New Contact Volume Offered (CVO) daily total is distributed through the day, according to the previous CVO on each 15-minute interval. Carry-over rounding is used so that the daily total is exactly matched.
• New Average Handle Time (AHT) daily average is distributed through the day, according to the previous CVO on each 15-minute interval.
• Staffing for the day is recalculated.
• All graphics are updated with the new values.

During the configured window, WFM will reschedule and resimulate, considering all the changes made on Forecast, Schedule, and Configurations.

Editing Forecasts

It is possible to edit the forecast, both AHT and CVO, at the daily level or at 15-minute, 30-minute, and 1-hour intervals, at the Forecast page. To do that, select a queue, click on Edit, and type in the new value or percentage. 

An edited forecast is not updated by the system, but Resource Planners can still check what the automated forecast for that particular interval or day was.

Managing Teams' Schedules

Zoom Levels

Using the zoom levels, combined with adherence, allows you to see the details of adherence events. To make it easier to view, explore and understand the impacts of events on the schedule, there are 4 zoom levels on the “Team Schedule” page.

Navigate to a particular date using the date selection menu, and you can always return to the current day using the Today button. The arrows to the left or right allow you to navigate back or forward in time based on the selected zoom level.

• 4 hours: The left and right arrows navigate you forward or back 2 hours at a time.

The 4-hour zoom also adds additional granularity to the displayed metrics, showing the data in 15-minute intervals.

• 12 hours: The left and right arrows navigate you forward or back 6 hours at a time.

• Day: The left and right arrows navigate you forward or back 1 day at a time.

• Week: The left and right arrows navigate you forward or back a week at a time.

The weekly view aggregates the displayed SL and staffing metrics into daily values.

Timezones

Resource planners who oversee teams in multiple regions need to access the local times of agents and teams. Team Schedule includes time zone selection, enabling planners to toggle between displayed times.

Note: When in another timezone, it is only possible to view the existing events and not edit or create them.

Drag & Drop

Entire shifts, blocks and breaks, meetings, and time offs can be easily moved to another moment in time, by dragging the event to the desired place on the “Team Schedule” page. Events can be dragged and dropped within the same Agent Schedule or between Agents for quick adjustments.

This is possible in the different zoom levels available on the “Team Schedule” page. 

Note: It is not possible to drag and drop events while the adherence functionality is enabled.

Filters

When a resource planner/supervisor makes the selection of either queue or tags filter, agent and team filter, then the filtered results will only show items that belong to the selected Team AND are associated with either the selected Queue(s) OR the selected Tag(s).

Resource planners can now search and multi-select agents across teams to see and manage only those agents’ schedules in a focused view.

Queue Tag Filter

The filtered results will only show items associated with either the selected Queue(s) OR the selected Tag(s).

Scheduled Event Upload

To perform this action, navigate to Team Schedules and click the Upload event button.

• You can now download a template CSV/Excel file. Fill in the information on Agent Name, Agent Email, Start Time,End Time,Event Type Name. Then save and upload the CSV file.
• Valid updates are applied in bulk. Errors can be downloaded for correction and re-upload.
• The system will then validate the file, flags errors (e.g., invalid agents, overlapping events), and display a summary in the error result file if applicable.

This feature saves time, reduces manual errors, and supports large-scale schedule adjustments for Resource Planners.

Copy/Paste Scheduled Event

To quickly duplicate a shift with nested break and lunch for one or more Agents, follow these steps:

• Hover over the shift block you wish to copy.
• Click the "Copy" icon that appears, as exemplified below.
• In the Copy Shift window that opens, select one or more destination Agents.
• Choose the desired Date on which to paste the shift.
• Click Copy to complete the action.

Copy the Full Week of Agent’s Schedules

Locked and Unlocked Events

On the “Team Schedule” page, it is possible to check the details of each event: 

• When they were created [1].
• When they were last updated [2].
• Who created and/or updated the event. 

It is also possible to know if an event is considered locked or unlocked. A “Locked event” [3] will not be optimized/overwritten by the algorithm of WFM. Locked events are:

• Events created manually.
• Events edited manually (even if automatically created by WFM).
• Two shifts (one automatically generated, the other manually added) scheduled for the same agent on the same day. In this case, the automatically generated shift becomes locked.
• Locked shifts. These result from its blocks and/or breaks being manually edited by a user, thus becoming locked.
• If a shift is locked, the breaks and blocks contained in it are locked automatically. 
• If a break or a block is manually deleted by a user, the shift that contains it becomes locked. 

Running a Quick Simulation

1: Access the Team Schedule Page

1. Navigate to the Team Schedule page in your Workforce Management (WFM) system.

2: Make a Schedule Change

1. Edit the schedule as needed:
   • Change break duration or placement.
   • Drag and move shifts.
   • Move agent breaks to different time slots.

3: Observe Real-Time Metric Updates

1. After making a change, look for the following UI elements:

Simulation Idle: No current simulations running, all metrics are up to date.

Toast: Shows event updated successfully.

Simulation Queued/Running Indicator: Shows that a simulation is in progress to update metrics based on a manual schedule change. 

4: Review Updated Metrics

1. Review the updated metrics (e.g., service level, staffing projections) displayed on the page.
2. If the quick update is shown, please keep in mind that final, more accurate values will appear once the simulation completes.

Managing Events

Creating Events

Users can create any kind of event on the agent’s schedule. All types of events can be created for multiple agents (Shifts, Shift Blocks, Meetings, Time Off, and break events).

Viewing Events

Upon selecting an event, the right side of the screen displays the details of the event with options to see more information.  In case of a meeting, you will also be able to see the other agents who are also scheduled for the same event. 

From here a Resource Planner has the option to edit or delete the event.

Editing Events

Supervisors and resource planners can now edit agent schedule events directly from the Team Schedule page without turning off the Intraday Adherence overlay. The adherence view remains fully active during the edit, and refreshes automatically once a change is saved — allowing you to detect a deviation and correct the schedule in a single, uninterrupted workflow.

When editing, the user can change multiple details:

• Event type [1].
• Description of the event (this will be visible to the agent) [2].
• Start Time [3].
• End Time [4].
• Agents or Teams scheduled for this event [5].

The editing option can also be used to determine the recurrence of scheduled meetings.

Note: You can only change to event types that match the shift's pay rules. If you don't see the option, the shift may not be compatible with this feature.

Deleting Events

Deleting an event will remove it from the agent schedule. If the event is a recurring event, such as a meeting, it will give the Resource Planner the option to delete this instance or to also delete future instances of the event.

Schedule Adherence (Visualization)

Schedule adherence is tracking whether agents followed or not the schedule that they were given in WFM. 

Once WFM has generated the schedule for all agents in the contact center, Resource Planners and Supervisors need to be able to track and monitor agents' adherence to the schedule at any time. 

This will allow Resource Planners/Supervisors to understand, among others, if agents are doing what was planned to and if the contact center is understaffed or overstaffed. It also supports decisions related to agent requests, such as time off or possible replacements when an agent calls in sick or is late.

Please note that WFM can only calculate schedule adherence once the Administrator has mapped each event type to the respective agent status(es).

Enabling the Intraday adherence functionality on the Team Schedule page allows Resource Planners and Supervisors to see the last 30 days of adherence of all agents with schedules. Next to this historical data, it is also possible to see the real-time adherence of each agent for the current day. 

Adherence data is refreshed frequently (at an expected refresh rate of 1 minute). This is made clear by a timeline marker that represents the current time, and another marker that represents when the adherence data was last updated.

Adherence data is visible on all zoom levels, except on the weekly view. WFM displays the total time out of adherence for each agent for the selected day.

WFM allows you to see in more detail the moments where agents are out of adherence, so that Resource Planners/Supervisors can easily understand why they are not following their schedule, if they need to intervene, and what is the best way to intervene. 

By selecting an interval of time when an agent is out of adherence (represented by a darker purple bar), Resource Planners/Supervisors can compare the expected agent status with the actual agent status(es). Also, clearly identified is the interval of the event where the out-of-adherence period was identified, as well as the total time out of adherence within that event.

Managing Intraday

The “Insights” page allows Supervisors and Resource Planners to monitor the Contact Centers’ Key Performance Indicators (KPI). It is possible to add multiple charts and to select the metrics to view on each graphic (two metrics per graphic). For each selected metric, WFM will show “Forecasted”, “Predicted”, and “History” time series, allowing users to compare the predicted/projected performance and the actual performance, as well as make real-time decisions on the actions to undertake.

AI capabilities also allow you to get a downloadable "Insight Summary", featuring more details and highlights. This AI-powered diagnostic tool automatically analyzes and identifies potential conflicts or configuration gaps that may impact schedule creation.

It reduces the time spent on manual root-cause analysis, allowing planners to resolve scheduling roadblocks instantly rather than manually correlating data across multiple points.

The available metrics and time series are described in WFM Metrics and Time Series.

Daylight Saving Time

WFM fully supports daylight saving time changes by providing a look into shift duration, instead of relying on shift end-time.

Winter Time to Summer Time 

When Winter time changes to Summer time, clocks move up one hour.

• Shifts: If a shift starts before the change of the hour and ends after it, the shift will be extended accordingly. The agent will have a shift with the same working time, but the shift will end one hour later. If a shift begins in the hour that jumps ahead, the schedule will select the following hour.
• Events: WFM preserves the relation of the events to the shifts. So, if an Agent on a regular day has a break two hours after starting the shift, that relation will be preserved regardless of the exact hour at which it occurs. 

Summer Time to Winter Time

When Summer time changes to Winter time, clocks move back one hour.

• Shifts: During a shift, if the clock goes back one hour, WFM will prioritize the duration of the shift, instead of relying on the end time. The agent will have a shift with the same duration, but it will end before the regular shift. If a Shift starts at the same hour of the time change, WFM will choose the first hour. For example, a shift begins at 1 AM, but on that day, at 2 AM, clocks go back to 1 AM. This means that the same day will have the same hour twice (1 AM). WFM will start the shift at the first 1 AM.
• Events: WFM preserves the relation of the events to the shifts. So, if an Agent on a regular day has a break two hours after the shift’s start, that relation will be preserved, regardless of the exact hour at which it occurs.

Available Languages

Talkdesk WFM currently supports the following languages:

• English (US)
• French (Canada)
• Spanish (Spain)
• Portuguese (Portugal)
• Italian

English is the default language.

Schedule Issues