Release notes for Workforce Management

Upcoming Release

Details about upcoming releases will be posted as they become available.

September 15, 2024

New, enhanced, and changed features

Type	Feature title	Description	Platforms
Admin features
New or enhanced feature	User-based permissions notifications	Users can assign supervisors to specific scheduling groups for notifications. This ensures that only the assigned supervisors receive notifications for agents in their designated groups, eliminating notifications for agents they aren't responsible for.	Web portal
New or enhanced feature	ServiceNow integration	Zoom Workforce Management can be integrated with ServiceNow to import ticketing data for support centers. The integration fetches total volume of tickets every 15 minutes grouped by queue, along with average handle time. This allows Workforce Management to accurately forecast staffing needs based on real-time ticketing data from ServiceNow.	Web portal
New or enhanced feature	Rotational scheduling for agents	Workforce Management admins can create a rotational shift template (RST) and assign multiple shift templates to it. Agents are assigned to a specific shift template, and the system rotates them through shifts after a set number of weeks or schedules after schedules are generated. If only one shift template is assigned, a warning will notify that no rotation will happen. This helps provide agents with flexible schedules based on business needs or availability, such as when an agent is required to work every third weekend.	Web portal
New or enhanced feature	Long-term forecasting	Users can create forecasts for 6 to 24 months ahead, based on daily data for call volume and handle time. The forecast is calculated daily, breaking down call volume and handle time by the hour to identify staffing needs. It also factors in shift durations and calculates the total staff required each day, including openers and closers. This provides a comprehensive view of future staffing requirements for effective workforce planning.	Web portal
New or enhanced feature	Detailed error notifications	Instead of generic error messages, users will receive detailed notifications when an action cannot be completed due to scheduling conflicts or configuration issues. These notifications specify the reason for the error and offer guidance on resolving it, such as adjusting schedules or configurations. This improved error messaging helps users quickly identify and address the root cause of the issue.	Web portal

Released

August 18, 2024

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Agent shift swap requests
  Admins can enable agents to trade schedules with each other after supervisor approval. This new feature allows supervisors to approve or deny shift swaps between agents within the same scheduling group. Agents can request a shift swap for a full day, and if accepted by the receiving agent, it will be sent to the supervisor for final approval. Notifications are sent to both agents throughout the process, and either agent can cancel the swap before it is approved by the supervisor. This enables agent to proactively adapt their schedule for their personal lives and ensures proper oversight for shift trading.
- Adherence alerts
  Admins can set up out-of-adherence alerts for agents and supervisors. Agents receive alerts after being out of adherence for 30 seconds to 5 minutes, while supervisors get them after 1 to 30 minutes. These alerts, sent via email or SMS, help ensure that agents stick to their schedules, and notify supervisors if agents don't correct their behavior after the initial alert.
Agent and consumer features
- SMS notifications for agents, admins, and supervisors
  Agents, admins, and supervisors can receive SMS notifications on their phones for various events. Agents get SMS alerts for things like vacation approvals, and supervisors are notified if agents are out of adherence during scheduled activities like lunch breaks. This feature lets users receive important updates on their mobile devices without being logged into the Zoom Workforce Management (WFM) app.
- Optimizing break and lunch schedules
  Supervisors can optimize breaks and lunches for a single day to adjust staffing after changes. They can move breaks or meals within a flexible one-hour window from the original time. The optimization is based on the forecast, and a preview is available before applying the changes. This feature helps keep schedules efficient when staffing levels shift.

July 21, 2024

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Messaging channel support for Zoom Workforce Management
  Zoom Workforce Management now supports the unified messaging channel that combines chat and SMS used by Zoom Contact Center. Users can create queues and service groups for the messaging channel. They can also import historical messaging data for forecasting and reporting purposes. This enables Contact Centers to optimize their workforce and provide a smooth experience across multiple channels.
- Meeting scheduler bulk actions for dynamic and fixed meeting scheduling
  Workforce Management admins and supervisors can utilize fixed meeting scheduling to select a group of agents and assign them to a meeting at a predetermined time. Additionally, they have the capability to leverage dynamic meeting scheduling, which analyzes a day range of requirements and determines the optimal times to schedule activities within the scheduling groups. This allows for efficient scheduling and resource allocation.
- Notifications for workforce management events
  Users will receive in-app notifications within the Activity Center for various workforce management events. Admins and supervisors are notified when forecast and schedule generations complete, and when agent vacation requests or schedule change requests require action. Agents are notified about upcoming schedule changes, new schedule generations, changes to existing schedules, vacation request status updates, and the status of self-initiated schedule change requests. This helps users stay up-to-date on critical workforce management activities without needing to constantly monitor the application.
- New agent portal in Workforce Management
  Workforce Management admins and supervisors can access a new agent portal within Zoom Workforce Management, where they can view and manage all agents and their corresponding details. They can see a grid listing of agents with their scheduling group, shift template, and other relevant information. Supervisors and admins can filter and search for agents, and click into each agent's profile to view their contact information, notification preferences, and personal calendar with their work schedule. The agent portal allows for easy management and oversight of agents' availability and assignments.
- Activity notes for Zoom Workforce Management schedule
  When creating activities and assigning them to agents' schedules; supervisors and admins can now include notes. These notes are accessible by clicking on the activity in the schedules view, with an indicator showing the presence of a note. Notes can include Zoom meeting links or other relevant information. Agents can also view notes for activities on their individual schedules. This enhancement improves transparency and provides additional context for scheduled activities.
Agent and consumer features
- Reforecast single day using intraday data
  Users can reforecast a single day using intraday data. To show what will happen if the current day trend continues. Users can set the level of threshold to be alerted. The updated staffing data is displayed, allowing users to accept the reforecast and apply it to the schedule.
- Adherence reporting by activity
  Users can generate adherence reports based on specific activity codes or combinations of codes for agents, agent groups, or scheduling groups over a chosen time range. The reports display the total time agents were adherent or non-adherent for their scheduled activities. Users can also view adherence for on-time sign-on and sign-off compared to scheduled shift start and end times. This area of focus is not available for all WFM companies. Additionally, users have the option to export adherence report data to CSV for further analysis. These enhancements enable better visibility into adherence trends and areas for improvement.
- Frequently used activities
  Users can view the first ten most frequently used activities over the past 20 days on the schedules page for easy drag and drop. This feature is dynamically presented based on the individual user's most frequently used activities. For new users, activities will be ordered alphabetically. This allows users to quickly access their most commonly used activities when scheduling.

June 16, 2024

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Sign-in redirection for Zoom Workforce Management
  Workforce Management admins and supervisors are automatically redirected to the sign-in page if they attempt to access a WFM-specific URL without being logged in. Upon successful sign-in, they are taken directly to the intended page within WFM. Additionally, when their session expires, they are redirected to the sign-in page and then back to their previous location in WFM after signing in again. This saves the effort of manually navigating to the sign-in page.
- Agent portal for Zoom Workforce Management
  Workforce Management admins and supervisors can view a listing of all agents working in Zoom Workforce Management, along with their details such as supervisor group, shift template assigned, vacation data, and adherence score. They can click into each agent to see their contact information from their Zoom profile, notification email and SMS contact details, and personal calendar with their work schedule. They can also filter agents by supervisor group or shift template name, and search for agents by name. This provides a central location to manage and view agent details within Zoom Workforce Management.

May 19, 2024

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Ability to revert schedules to previous versions with audit trail
  Workforce Management admins and supervisors can revert back to a previous version of a schedule. The reverted schedule becomes the next entry on the audit trail, systematically mirroring the selected previous version. For example, if there are 5 entries from schedule creation to the current version, and the user selects to revert to the third entry, the sixth entry becomes the current version, reflecting the third entry. This feature allows admins to easily undo changes and restore previous schedule states, providing greater control and flexibility in managing schedules.
- Bulk scheduling of fixed meetings for agent groups
  Workforce Management admins and supervisors can bulk schedule fixed meetings for a selected group of agents at a specified date, time, and duration. The meetings are added to the agents' schedules regardless of existing activities, with options to handle conflicts such as scheduling over conflicts or skipping conflicted agents. A warning is provided for agents with scheduling conflicts, and recommendations for alternative times can be generated. This feature streamlines the scheduling of training sessions or other fixed events for agent groups.
- Enhancements to schedule reporting
  The schedule reporting has been improved, allowing users to export data for sharing or saving for further analysis. This enhancement enables more efficient collaboration and thorough examination of work schedules, leading to better resource management and planning.
- Support for EU local deployments
  Zoom has added support for EU local deployments for Workforce Management.
Agent and consumer features
- Ability to view peer schedules to facilitate shift trades
  Agents can view the schedules of peers in their same schedule group. This read-only view shows current published schedules without notes or audit trails. Admins control access to this feature. By enabling this feature, agents can find suitable shift trade partners more quickly.

April 13, 2024

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Schedule reporting for tracking agent activities
  Schedule reporting is provided to summarize scheduled activities across agents. Supervisors can generate reports for any past or future date range and filter by individual or multiple agents, and activity types. The report visualization shows scheduled time per activity per day, allowing users to analyze trends. The detailed reporting enables users to closely monitor scheduled activities to ensure proper staffing and service levels.
- Delegated admin support
  The delegated admins allow customers to authorize specific users outside their account, like MSPs or channel partners, to access and configure their Zoom Workforce Management instance. Furthermore, delegated admins can perform Zoom Workforce Management administration tasks like managing shifts, scheduling groups, schedules, and time off requests. This enables customers to outsource Zoom Workforce Management management and enables channel partners to offer managed Zoom Workforce Management services.
- Comprehensive audit trail for agent schedule changes
  Admins and supervisors can easily track all modifications made to an agent's schedule for a given day. The new schedule history view shows a timestamped log of every change, beginning with the initial schedule creation. It identifies the user who made each update, so admins and supervisors can understand exactly how the schedule changed. This feature provides much-needed transparency and accountability around schedule changes.
- Agent-initiated schedule change requests
  Agents have the ability to initiate schedule changes. Agents can submit requests to modify their existing published schedules, such as requesting a break be moved or removed from their schedule completely. Supervisors can then approve or deny these schedule change requests. Admins have the ability to configure which activities are eligible for agent schedule change requests. This allows greater flexibility for agents to manage their schedules while still maintaining oversight through the approval process.

February 24, 2024

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Agent-initiated schedule change requests
  Agents can submit requests to add activities in their published schedules. Supervisors can approve or deny requests. Admins can enable or disable the feature and control which types of changes are allowed at the activity code level. For example, allowing adds and moves but not deletes. The benefit is increased schedule flexibility for agents while still allowing oversight by supervisors.
- Forecasting for email channel
  Account supervisors and admins can now create forecasts for email in addition to voice, messaging, and video. This allows admins to forecast for all Zoom Contact Center channels. This is limited to imported History for forecasting.
- Enhancement to shift editor
  Users can copy a shift template day and paste it in multiple days instead of having to manually copy every time.

January 13, 2024

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Configure notifications across SMS, email and other channels
  Account owners and admins can configure notifications to be sent via email for different workforce events like an agent schedule change. Previously, notifications were limited to in-app. For example, admins can set a notification to be sent via email to an agent that their vacation was approved. This ensures users get notified even when not actively using the Zoom desktop client.
- Enhanced control of forecasting data
  Account owners and admins can adjust forecast data. They can modify intervals within a forecast at the service group level, and change the volume for a date range to account for anomalies without distorting peak times. These editing capabilities provide more accuracy in forecasting prior to generating staff recommendations.
- Enhanced search and sorting for forecasting
  Account owners and admins can sort forecasts and schedules by start date to quickly locate specific items. Additionally, sorting by newest start dates will list the most recent forecasts and schedules first.

December 16, 2023

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Searchable drop-downs
  The drop-down components throughout the Workforce Management web portal have search functionality. Users can start typing to filter the dropdown options. This makes it easier to find the desired option, especially for drop-downs with many items. The search also works for nested options in multi-level drop-downs.
- Enhancements to filtering scheduled agents
  Routing and tracking schedule management screen now has a quick filter for scheduled agents. Account owners and admins can use this filter to quickly find scheduled agents by name or extension. This makes it easier to manage schedules for a large number of agents.
- Optimized scheduling
  Account owners and admins can set up 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.

November 18, 2023

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Agent vacation request
  Agents viewing their schedules on the Zoom web portal can request time off. Admins and supervisors can approve or decline these vacation requests. If a request is approved, the agent's schedule will be updated with the approved vacation request.
- Enhancements to historical queue data
  Account owners and admins can import a CSV up to 10MB in size. Previously, this was limited to 2MB. They can import third-party historical queue interval data to be used in forecasting and reporting.
- Multi-channel support for forecasting
  Workforce management's forecasting feature supports multiple channels (voice, messaging, video). This allows account owners and admins to create forecasts for these channels and allocate resources. Previously, only the voice channel was supported.

September 16, 2023

Changes to existing features

Change week picker to day picker
The week picker on the Schedules page has been change to a day picker, so admins can select a specific day on the calendar and jump to that day on the schedule.

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Enhancements to Schedules page
  There are several enhancements to the Schedules page to improve the admin experience:
  - By default, the schedule defaults to the current day.
  - All agents in the scheduling group are listed, regardless of whether a schedule has been generated for them.
  - Admins can use arrow keys to scroll left and right.
- Account-level timezone
  Account owners and admins can set a global default timezone to standardize reporting and determine the timezone for scheduling when a user's timezone has not been set.
- Import historical queue data
  Account owners and admins can import a CSV containing third-party historical queue interval data to be used in forecasting and reporting.

August 19, 2023

New and enhanced features

Admin features
- Enhanced schedule page experience
  To improve the schedule page UI, critical elements like net staffing, interval identifiers, filters, and search remain fixed at the top when scrolling. This enhancement addresses the issue of losing visibility and interaction with key components when scrolling down on the schedules page.
- Time and date preferences
  Account owners and admins can choose their preferred time and date formats.
- Enhanced Timezone configuration
  Account owners and admins can set a default global timezone for standardized reporting and scheduling. This solves the challenge of inconsistent report data and UTC-based scheduling.
- Default shift activity
  Account owners and admins can easily edit default shift activities and edit the activity's length, and move or delete it. This provides greater flexibility over agent scheduling.
- View historical scheduling group interval data in forecasting
  Account owners and admins can easily visualize interval-based historical data metrics used for forecasting in day-to-month granularity, and customizable date ranges.