Scheduling 101
    • 08 Nov 2024
    • 4 Minutes to read
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    Scheduling 101

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    Article summary

    Contact centers carefully plan agent schedules to balance supply and demand for efficient customer service. In Dialpad WFM, scheduling involves creating a shift plan, adding activities, and applying the plan to the schedule. Shift plans define work hours, balance workload, and anticipate future demand. Activities specify tasks agents will perform during shifts. Schedules are typically finalized 2-7 days in advance. After setting up the forecast, queues, time off calendars, and agent profiles, the schedule can be built using a Shift Plan template. Applying the Shift Plan and Activity Plan to the schedule ensures coverage aligns with forecasted requirements. Finally, publishing the schedule makes it visible to agents, allowing for updates as needed.

    In a contact center, agent schedules are carefully planned to balance supply and demand, helping businesses deliver high-quality customer service. By forecasting expected contact volumes and translating this into specific staffing needs, you can ensure the right agents, with the right skills, are available at the right time, maximizing efficiency and customer satisfaction.

    In Dialpad WFM, schedule creation is a 3 step process.

    1. Plan Shifts: Map out shifts based on staffing needs.

    2. Add Activities: Fill each shift with designated activities.

    3. Apply Shift Plan: Finalize and apply your shift plan to the full schedule.

    Let’s go over the basics of how scheduling works.

    Scheduling basics

    When creating a schedule, first, you’ll need to create a shift plan.

    This is where you will:

    • Define work hours: Establish the core working hours for your agents, including shift times, breaks, and time off.

    • Balance the workload: Distribute shifts evenly among agents, considering factors like workload, skillsets, and preferences.

    • Anticipate future demand: Use forecasting tools to predict future workload and adjust shift schedules accordingly.

    After creating the shift plan, the next step is to add activities that define what tasks agents will complete during their shifts. This ensures staffing aligns with forecasted demand across channels and time intervals (e.g., every 30 minutes). To balance demand and agent flexibility, teams often create varied schedules with sufficient breaks. Activity schedules are typically finalized 2-7 days in advance to reflect the most up-to-date forecast data, helping to optimize coverage and accuracy.

    Note

    All schedule edits are made in draft mode. Any adjustments, like modifying shifts or adding activities, remain visible only to admins until the schedule is published.

    You can republish as often as needed, ensuring agents always see the most recent updates, whether shifts include activities or not.

    Scheduling checklist

    Before building a schedule, make sure you've completed the following setup steps:

    • You've connected your customer service or CRM platforms.

    • You've set-up your forecast using queues.

    • You've connected your time off calendars.

    • You've added all of your agents and set-up their profiles.

    Once those steps are done, you're ready to start scheduling!

    How to build a schedule

    Let’s walk through each step involved in building a schedule.

    Step 1: Create a Shift Plan

    The most efficient way to schedule at scale is by using a Shift Plan. A Shift Plan is a reusable template that helps you organize fixed or rotating shift patterns, including round robins.

    For new teams, we recommend creating a Shift Plan based on the team’s current working patterns or pre-planned shifts.

    Tip

    If your team is flexible and doesn't follow fixed shifts, the auto-schedule tool is a great option. It automatically matches agents to shifts, balancing coverage and contract requirements without needing manual adjustments.

    Step 2: Apply the Shift Plan to the schedule

    Once you’ve created the Shift Plan, its time to apply it to the schedule.
    To apply a Shift Plan, head to the Schedule section of Dialpad WFM.

    1. Select Week

    2. Select Tools

    3. Select Apply shift plan

    4. Select the Shift Plan

    5. Select the period you want to apply it for

      1. Most teams prefer to share their shift schedules at least 4 weeks ahead of time, to allow agents to plan their persona lives around their shifts.

    6. Select when you want to start rotations

    7. Select Apply

    Once applied, your Shift Plans are added to the schedule, rotating if they exceed one week. Round robin shifts will be assigned across agents to fairly distribute workloads. Conflicts, like shifts overlapping with synced time off, will be flagged for easy adjustment. You’ll also see feedback on staffing levels versus forecasted requirements in the coverage bar.Tip

    To remove a Shift Plan from the schedule, select Clear Shifts under Tools.

    Step 3: Create an Activity Plan

    In Dialpad WFM, activities are scheduled within shifts, allowing you to specify the exact tasks agents will perform during their working hours.  Now that you’ve set the working hours (the Shift Plan), you now need to outline the specific tasks agents will handle during their shifts.

    The most efficient way to do this is by creating an Activity Plan—a set of guidelines defining breaks, service tasks (like phones or chat), and non-service tasks (such as training or admin). Dialpad uses these rules to automatically generate daily schedules that align with targets and constraints, optimizing available staff to meet demand.

    The easiest way to do this is to create an Activity Plan.

    Step 4: Apply the Activity Plan to the schedule

    Once the Activity Plan has been created, its time to apply it to the schedule.

    To apply an Activity Plan, head to the Schedule section of Dialpad WFM.

    1. Select Day

    2. Select Plans

    3. Navigate to the Activity Plan you want to apply

    4. Select Options (that’s the 3 dots)

    5. Select Apply activity plan

    6. Select the period you want to apply it for

      1. Most teams prefer to plan activity schedules 2-7 days ahead of time.

    7. Select Apply

    Activity Plans will be generated based on the number of scheduled agents, making sure to book around any synced calendar events.

    In the Coverage Bar, you’ll see feedback on your scheduled staffing vs forecasted required staffing.

    Tips

    You can update an Activity Plan at anytime, but remember to reapply it to push changes to the schedule.

    Many teams adjust their rules weekly to reflect current priorities, such as allocating extra training time or deprioritizing non-service tasks during peak periods.

    Step 5: Publish the schedule

    Once your schedule is complete, you're ready to share it with the team.

    To make it visible to agents, you must publish the schedule—this finalizes the current version and shares it to agents' Dialpad WFM accounts.

    To publish the changes, select Publish.

    You can republish anytime to update your team with the latest changes, including any shifts or activities.


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