- 24 Jan 2025
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Create an Activity Plan
- Updated on 24 Jan 2025
- 9 Minutes to read
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An Activity Plan is a collection of scheduling rules that determines how your team’s time is used. Like Shift Plans, they help optimize resource allocation, allowing you to prioritize queues during peak times and schedule training or admin tasks during quieter periods.
You can automate the schedule of breaks, queue coverage, training, and offline tasks and more using Activity Plans. We recommend creating one Activity Plan per team to best adapt schedules to each team’s priorities and needs.
Once an Activity Plan is added to the schedule, agent’s shifts will be dynamically filled to meet your rules while adjusting for team capacity, time off, and calendar events.
Let’s dive into the details.
Who can use this
Dialpad WFM is available to all Dialpad users.
Contact your Customer Success Manager to discuss adding Dialpad WFM to your plan.
Create an Activity Plan
To set up your Activity Plan, first create the plan itself. Next, you’ll add break and activity rules, prioritize them as needed, and then apply your Activity Plan to the schedule.
To create an Activity Plan, head to Dialpad WFM.
Select Schedule
Select Activities
On the sidebar, select Plans
Select + New activity plan
Name your Activity Plan
To name your plan, select Edit beside the plan name.
Select the teams and/or agents who will be scheduled using this Activity Plan
Activity Plan preview
When you are in the Activity Plan builder, you will see a preview of the schedule on the right-hand side. This preview shows how your activity and break rules will look once the Activity Plan is added to the schedule. Every time you add or update a rule, the preview will update, giving you instant feedback.
The preview is based on the chosen agents in the selected date range and timezone. You can update the previewed date range or timezone at any time using the toolbar.
The coverage bar shows you the coverage you are expected to receive with the rules you have created. You can switch between queue coverage (best suited for follow forecast rules) and Activity Plan coverage (best suited for fixed staffing rules) by clicking the label in the coverage control bar.
You cannot manually edit anything in the schedule preview, but you can edit the generated scheduled once the Activity Plan is added to the schedule.
Add Break Rules
Once your Activity Plan has been created, its time to add Break Rules.
Break Rules define how and when agents’ breaks are scheduled. A Break Rule consists of a length (e.g. 30 mins), a time window (e.g. 12pm - 2pm) and a set of constraints (e.g. agents on the early or mid shift).
Navigate to Breaks
Select Add break rule
Select the type of break you want to schedule from the list, or click the + button to create a new one.
If you’re creating multiple break rules, you can check “Set custom rule name” to give the rule an additional label, e.g. “New York Lunch”
Choose how long the break should be in minutes or hours.
Set a window for the break to be scheduled within. We recommend using '“time from start/end of shift” for most flexibility.
Choose from:
At end of shift: The break will be the last activity scheduled in each agent’s shift.
At start of shift: The break will be the first activity scheduled in each agent’s shift.
Time from end of shift: Select a range of time anchored to the end of the agent’s shift, e.g. 2 - 3h from the end of shift.
Time from start of shift: Select a range of time anchored to the start of the agent’s shift, e.g. 1.5 - 2h from the start of shift.
Select Add another window if you want the break to happen more than once a day.
Stagger start times
This determines the amount of time between the start of each agent’s break so that all your agents aren’t on break at the same time.
If you do not want to stagger breaks, set the time to 0.
Filter the agents this break should be assigned to (optional)
If no filters are applied, the break will be scheduled for all agents within this plan.
Use conditions to select or exempt specific agents and/or teams. You can filter by agent/team name, skill, shift length and more.
Select Save rule
Select Add break rule to add another Break Rule, or move ahead to create an Activity Rule.
Add Activity Rules
Activity Rules define how different tasks are scheduled for the team.
There are four types of Activity Rules:
Follow forecast: Schedules activities according to forecasted demand.
This ensures you have the right level of coverage to serve your customers and meet your SLAs.
Fixed staffing: Manually specifies the number of agents needed at certain times.
This is helpful if you have required specific staffing levels for activities that aren't linked directly to queues.
Allocate time: Specifies the amount of time that should be spent on a specific activity.
You can choose to share this requirement across the team, or set it as an individual target.
Fill unscheduled time: Fills all unscheduled time in an agent's shift.
This is helpful to avoid downtime if an agent finishes their other scheduled activities.
To create an Activity Rule:
Select Add activity rule
Select the type of activity you want to schedule from the list, or click the + button to create a new one.
If you’re creating multiple rules for the same activity, you can check “Set custom rule name” to give the rule an additional label, e.g. “New joiner training”
Choose how you’d like to schedule the Activity Rule from the four options.
If you select follow forecast:
This rule will follow the forecast of any linked queues. If you have not yet linked a queue to this activity, select one from the list and click save.
Next, set the minimum coverage you wish to achieve. The rule will aim to meet this minimum at all times, and then provide additional coverage if capacity is available.
(Optional) Add a session limit, this limits the amount of time agents will be scheduled on this activity at a time, e.g. 2hrs at a time.
If you select fixed staffing:
Select the days of the week, times and timezone that you require coverage on this activity for. Then enter the number of agents required for each interval.
(Optional) Add a session limit, this limits the amount of time agents will be scheduled on this activity at a time, e.g. 2hrs at a time.
If you select allocate time:
Enter the amount of time required for this activity. This can be set as a requirement per day or per week, and per agent or shared across the team.
(Optional) Specify when this activity should be scheduled.
If no window is applied, the activity can be scheduled whenever time is available.
Select Add another window to specify different times on different days,
If you select fill unscheduled time:
Choose if this rule should fill all agents’ shifts, or only a specific number.
Specify the days of the week and timezone this rule should apply for, e.g. fill agents shift with training on Mondays.
Filter the agents this activity should be assigned to (optional)
If no filters are applied, the activity will be scheduled for all agents within this plan.
Use conditions to select or exempt specific agents and/or teams. You can filter by agent/team name, skill, shift length and more.
Select Save rule
Select Add activity rule to add another Activity Rule, or move ahead to prioritize the activities.
Prioritize rules
Activity and Break rules are scheduled in priority order. This means the requirements of each rule are attempted to be met one by one. Activities at the top of the list are most likely to meet their requirements, whereas activities at the bottom may not be scheduled if there is no capacity available.
To change the priority of rules:
You can change the priority of activities by dragging and dropping them in your desired order.
Alternatively, you can reorder your rules via the rule menu:
Select Options (that’s the 3 dots)
Increase or decrease the priority level
Move up increases the priority
Move down decreases the priority
Tip
We recommend putting live channels and time-sensitive activities at the top. If you want a fallback or ‘filler’ activity, you can put that at the bottom of the list to fill any free time
Now that you’ve made your Activity Plan, now it’s time to add it to the schedule.
Add an Activity Plan to the schedule
To use your Activity Plan, you need to add it to the schedule. Once added to the schedule, the rules within the Activity Plan will be used to generate schedules for agents’ shifts in the selected period.
The Activity Plan will remove and replace any existing schedules with new breaks and activities. Activities will be added in draft, distributed based on your rules, and synced with calendar events.
To add an Activity Plan to your schedule:
Select Add to schedule
Select the date range you want to generate schedules for.
Select Add to Schedule
Note
Depending on the size and complexity of your Activity Plan, you may encounter a loading modal. This will tell you the progress of the schedule generation but you cannot leave the page.
Select stop to stop the Activity Plan adding any more activities.
Once an Activity Plan is added to the schedule. You can make any manual edits as needed.
When you are finished editing and ready to share the schedule with the team, select Publish.
Frequently asked questions
Does the schedule automatically update when I make changes to an Activity Plan?
No, to update the schedule you need to re-apply the Activity Plan.
Will the schedule automatically update if the forecast changes?
No, the Activity Plan follows the forecast as it was when applied. If you adjust the forecast, you’ll need to reapply the Activity Plan to match the changes.
Can I correct an error in an Activity Plan after applying it?
Activity Plans can be updated at any time. Simply update your activity plan and reapply it to the schedule. All previous schedules will be overwritten.
How do I account for meetings?
When an Activity Plan is added to the schedule, it applies breaks and activities around any existing synced calendar events.
If new meetings are added after the Activity Plan is applied to a schedule, they will overwrite any previously scheduled activities or breaks.
If meetings are cancelled or moved, you’ll end up with gaps in the schedule that will need to be manually filled.
What happens if someone calls in sick or goes on vacation?
If an agent goes on vacation or calls in sick, their schedule will be removed. Activities will not be automatically reassigned to other agents to cover this drop in coverage.
You can keep track of coverage using the coverage bar at the top of the schedule.
Can I link an activity to queues?
Yes. When you create or edit an Activity Rule, toggle on Link to queue and select the desired queues.
Once linked, you can switch between viewing your planned coverage and forecasted coverage by selecting Show forecasted.
You can link one activity to multiple forecasts, which is useful when an activity spans various channels or queues. When an agent is scheduled on the linked activity, their time counts toward coverage across all associated forecasts, ensuring consistent staffing across those channels.