Configuring Workforce Management schedules and activities

Workforce Management helps ensure that your contact center is equipped with the right number of agents at the right times to meet customer demands. Workforce Management automates forecasting by using key planning data from Zoom Contact Center to accurately estimate agent headcount for scheduling, better predict agent workload, and help businesses react in real-time with intraday management. Contact center agents will have a view to their schedule through a simple and intuitive interface.

To set up Workforce Management, admins can follow this article to create scheduling groups, create queues, and add agents to the groups and queues. Scheduling groups can also support activities for supervisors to more effectively manage the agent's time throughout the work day.

After following this article, you can use forecasting to create schedules that align with your organization’s needs and view adherence to help ensure your agents are effectively working on the assigned schedules.

This article covers:

1. How to set up scheduling groups
2. How to edit a scheduling group
3. How to add agents to scheduling groups
4. How to add queues to scheduling groups
5. How to create activities
6. How to edit an activity
7. How to create fixed or dynamic shifts
8. How to add activities to your new shift
9. How to assign agents to a shift
10. How to generate and publish a schedule

Prerequisites for configuring schedules and activities

• Zoom Contact Center license
• Zoom Workforce Management license
• Account owner or admin privileges

How to set up scheduling groups

Scheduling groups are a collection of one or more contact center queues/skills used to simplify forecasting and scheduling for a group of agents who are trained to support the same contact center queues/skills.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Scheduling Groups.
4. Click Create scheduling group.
5. Enter a Name for the scheduling group.
6. In the Channel drop-down menu, select the Zoom Contact Center channel to assign.
   If you assign a channel that is capable of simultaneous interactions, you can set an Engagement Capacity which is the maximum number of concurrent interactions that an agent can staff. 
7. Click Save.

How to edit a scheduling group

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Scheduling Groups.
4. Locate the scheduling group you want to edit.
5. In the last column of the scheduling group, click the ellipses icon, then click Edit.
6. Change the scheduling group’s Name and Channel.
7. Click Save.

How to add agents to scheduling groups

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Scheduling Groups.
4. Click the display name of the scheduling group you want to add agents to.
5. Click the Agents tab.
6. Click Add Agents.
7. Enter an agent’s name in the Search by name field to search agents.
8. Select the check box for the agents you want to add to the scheduling group.  
9. Click Add.

How to add queues to scheduling groups

Add your existing Zoom Contact Center queues to scheduling groups. Queues can determine the categorization for the scheduling group; for example, scheduling an agent with a specific location,  skill set, or expertise.  Contact Center Queues can be mapped to Scheduling groups.  Historical metrics for all queues mapped to a scheduling group will be aggregated to provide a single forecast output and staffing recommendation. Note: You can only add queues in one of the channels that’s assigned to the scheduling group. For example, if you only assigned the Voice channel to the scheduling group, you can only assign voice queues. Edit a scheduling group to change the assigned channels.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Scheduling Groups.
4. Click the display name scheduling group you want to add agents to.
5. Click the Queues tab.
6. Click Add Queue.
7. Enter a queue’s name in the Search by name field to search queues.
8. Select the checkbox for one or more queues to add to the scheduling group.
9. Click Add.

How to create activities

Activities are segments that make up a full shift. For example, a typical set of activities for call center agent can include phone, chat, lunch, and break. After creating activities, Workforce Management admins and schedulers can build shifts using a combination of predefined and custom activities.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Scheduling Configuration.
4. Click the Activities tab.
5. Click Add Activity.
6. Enter the following information:
   • Name: Enter a display name for the activity. For example, Voice.
   • Activity Type: Click the drop-down menu and select an activity type. The activity type is used for categorizing activities.
     • Productive
     • Non-productive
     • Out of office
     • Exception
     • Break
     • Meal
   • Default duration: Click the drop-down menu and select a default duration in minutes.
   • Channel: Click the drop-down menu and select the channels to assign to the activity. This is used to  indicate which channels an agent scheduled for this activity can be supporting.
   • Calculate Adherence: Select the check box to include this activities when calculating adherence.
   • Paid: Select the check box to specify that agents are paid for this activity.
   • Advanced color selection: Enable this toggle to customize the color of the activity label in your schedule.
   • Text Color / Background Color:
     • If Advanced color selection is disabled, select a color, then drag and drop the Shade sliders to customize the color shade.
     • If Advanced color selection is enabled, drag and drop the circles to customize the color.
7. Click Save.

How to edit an activity

You can edit an activity to change the names or values.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Scheduling Configuration.
4. Click the Activities tab.
5. Locate the activity you want to edit.
6. In the last column of the activity, click the ellipses icon, then click Edit.
7. Change the activity’s settings.
8. Click Save.

How to create fixed or dynamic shifts

Shifts are used to define a weekly pattern of activities and working hours to be assigned to an agent for use in scheduling. This enables Workforce Management admin to define the rules for when an agent can be scheduled and for what activities. Based on the staffing recommendations from forecasting, you can create shifts and set the activities that occur at different parts of the work day. You can add multiple shifts to build a schedule.  

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Scheduling Configuration.
4. Click the Shifts tab.
5. Click Create Shift.
6. Enter the following information for the shift:
   • Name: Enter a name for your shift.
   • Description (Optional): Enter a description of the shift.
   • Shift Type: Select Fixed or Dynamic.
7. If the Shiift Type is Dynamic, change the following settings to optimize flexible start, lunch, and break times to accommodate employee needs. They can configure a two-hour flex period for starts, lunches, and breaks. This provides more flexibility in scheduling by selecting a forecast they can schedule to their requirements, or without a forecast spread out breaks and lunches with employees on the same shift to avoid stacking of breaks and lunches.
   • Default Shift Activity: Select the primary activity for the agent, for that week.
   • Work days: Click the drop-down menu and check the days to add to the shift to, then click Add. Each day can only contain one shift. The work day will be grayed out if there’s already a shift added to it.
   • Shift start time: Select the shift’s earliest and latest start time. 
     • Flex increment: Select the duration for the activity to start within the shift. For example, if the shift start time is set from 7:00 to 8:00 with a 30 minute flex increment, the possible start times are 7:00, 7:30, and 8:00
     • Shift duration: Set the duration in hours and minutes.
   • Flexible breaks and meals: 
     • Flex Increment: Select the deviation increment between possible activity start (Don’t flex, 15, 30, 1 hour) these will apply to all breaks and meals.
     • Max Flex time: Determine the greatest deviation capped at 2 hours.
     • Break Type: Choose between break or meal activity types.
     • Activity: Choose the activity to be scheduled.
     • Activity Duration:  Choose the length of time for the activity.
     • Min work time required before activity: How much time between the item before this activity and the prior event (start time, other activity)
8. If the Shift Type is Fixed, specify days and times for the shift.
   • Default Shift Activity: Select the primary activity for the agent, for that week.
   • Start time / End time: Select the shift’s start time and end time.
   • Shift duration: Set the duration in hours and minutes.
   • Work day: Click the drop-down menu and select the days to add the shift to, then click Add. Each day can only contain one shift. The work day will be greyed out if there’s already a shift added to it.
9. Repeat step 7 to add more days and times for the shift.
10. Click Create.

How to add activities to your new shift

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Scheduling Configuration.
4. Click the Shifts tab.
5. Click the display name of a shift you created.
6. Build the shift using these options:
   • Drag and drop an activity label to the timeline to build the shift.
   • Click an activity on the timeline, then drag and drop it to change its location on the timeline.
   • Double-click an activity on the timeline to edit that activity’s start and end times in the shift.
   • Alternatively, click an activity on the timeline, drag and drop the left or right edge of the rectangle to edit the start and end times.
   • Double-click an activity on the timeline, then click Delete activity to remove the activity from the shift.

Add the agent for the generated shift once all weekly recurring activities are added.

How to assign agents to a shift

Once you have your scheduling groups, queues, and shifts created, you can assign agents to a shift.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Scheduling Configuration.
4. Click the Shifts tab.
5. Click the display name of a shift you want to edit.
6. Click Assign Agent.
7. Select the check box for the agents you want to add to the scheduling group.  
8. Click Assign.

How to generate and publish a schedule

You can generate a schedule for a defined period of time, in one week increments.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Workforce Management.
3. Click Schedule Configuration.
4. In the Schedule generation tab, click Create schedule.
5. Enter the following information:
   • Work week: Select the days for the schedule. Note: regardless of the date selected, the schedule will be generated for that full 7-day work week.
   • Number of weeks: Select the radio button for the number of weeks you want to schedule.
   • Scheduling Groups: Select the scheduling groups to apply the schedule to, then click Apply.
6. Click Create.
   If you have dynamic shift templates as part of the scheduling group, you will be asked if you want to select a forecast as the basis for flexing breaks, meals, and start times. Workforce Management will create the schedule and redirect you to the schedule timeline view.
7. Next to Staffing, click the downward arrow icon to expand the section and view the staffing requirements against the schedule:
   • Scheduled: The number of agents currently scheduled.
   • Required: The number of agents required based on the for the forecast.
   • Net Staffing: The difference between the Scheduled and Required number of agents.
8. Now you will publish the schedule for the agents to see their work schedule.
9. Select Publish.
   The schedule will now be available for the agents to view their schedules.