Configure workforce management to increase the number of alternative shifts offered

An agent can participate in alternative shift trading only if a published schedule exists for that week. At the time of alternative shift trading, the agent must still be in the same Business Unit and Management Unit as when the schedule was originally published.

Alternative shift trading requires that you generate the schedule based on a forecast. The forecast provides the required staff information that is necessary to determine if the updated schedule still satisfies the service goal impacts.

Schedules that are generated without a forecast and schedules attached with a different forecast than the one initially used for generation may not offer any alternative shifts to the agents.

Workforce management can only offer alternative shifts that satisfy the agent’s work plan. As such, the work plan must provide sufficient valid variations. You can increase the number of variations in a work plan in ways such as:

• Mark one or more days of the week as optional in the work plan.
• Make shift start time flexible.
• Make daily paid time flexible.
• If weekly paid time is used, make it flexible.
• Allow the number of scheduled days per week to vary. Make sure that you set the Minimum Schedule Days Per Week and Maximum Scheduled Days Per Week fields to different values.

Workforce management checks the service goal impacts at two separate times in an alternative shift trade:

• First, when the agent requests alternative shifts. Workforce management ensures that all alternative shifts satisfy service goal impacts at the time they are offered.
• Second, during the automatic approval process. The approval process ensures that the updated service goals are still within the acceptable range.

Service goal impacts are configured in the business unit and can be overridden in the service goal template. For more information about configuring service goal impacts, see Service goal impacts overview.

Ideally, all shifts involved in an alternative shift trade start at least a certain time after the current time. Set the minimum duration in the Alternative Shift Start field in the business unit. For more information, see Enable and configure alternative shift trading. 

Alternative shifts are offered only in the six-week window, which includes the current work week. Both the time zone and the starting day-of-week used to calculate the six-week window are configured in the business unit. For more information about adding and configuring business units, see Add a business unit and Manage a business unit.

For a particular shift in the agent’s schedule, workforce management offers alternative shifts only within the same work week.