Hello everyone!
This month sees new options in our familiar Web People and Web Schedules screens, and also a new exciting way of creating schedules! Yes Shift Bidding is now included in your WFM so watch this month’s video or carry on reading for more details.
Web People – Add Leaving Date
You now have access in the Web People screen to add a Leaving date for your people. As I always say I would recommend using the Web People screen rather than the Windows People screen to add the Leaving date so you can review who added the date and when in the General Audit Trail.
In the Web People screen, select the person (or people) who are leaving then go to the new option ‘Leaving date’ from the Action drop down menu. In the pop up screen enter the leaving date and Save.
The Leaving date should be the last date that they start their final shift. When you add the Leaving date for anyone this takes care of everything for you. Schedules after the date are automatically removed and your over and under staffing will be recalculated, including redistributing skills in a multi skilled area. So be mindful that in a multiskilled area the leaver may affect your predicted KPIs in skills they didn’t have.
Booked absences after the Leaving date are also removed so if you use the Wait list feature then it may in turn approve absences for other people.
If the person was an agent with schedules, then they are removed from the license count after the Leaving date.
The person is removed from pick lists, so when opening any screen or report for a group of agents, they will not be in the list for any dates after the Leaving date. This includes Windows People & Schedules, Web screens; People, Schedules, Teams and Reports. Old schedules, people info and reports can still be viewed by changing the date at the top of the pick list to a date before the Leaving date.
Finally, the person will not be able to log in to Windows WFM, Web WFM or MyTime two days after the date. This accounts for people that are working the overnight shifts.
To allow permission to use this new feature go to Web Permissions, select a role, Functions tab, Web drop down, People drop down then highlight the new ‘Manage leaving date’ option. I would recommend only 1 or 2 main administrators have permissions, due to the implications as described above it’s not something to be taken lightly, only add a Leaving date if you definitely know somebody is really leaving!
Go to the General Audit Trail to check details of any changes made in the Web People screen including when leaving dates have been added.
Web Schedules – Refresh Button
You will see this new button on the top right of the screen. It will light up when changes have been made to the schedules you are viewing by other users. Click on the button, it will return to grey and the schedules are refreshed.
Web Schedules – Add & Edit Overtime
Click on the required schedule (or schedules), you’ll find a new option in the Action dropdown, Add Overtime. If the schedule already has overtime on it you will also see the option Remove overtime, and you will be able to edit the overtime by drag and drop or changing the time fields.
You will find permissions to allow users to carry out these processes in Web Permissions, select a role, Functions tab, Web drop down, Schedules then highlight the new Overtime options Add Overtime and Remove overtime.
You can review who added/edited overtime either in the View Schedule History pop up within the Schedules screen or go to Web Reports, Schedule Audit Trail.
Shift Bidding – a different way of Scheduling!
In case you are new to the bidding principle, instead of creating schedules for each agent according to their own rules, we create a set of rules for a group and we create schedules with no names on them. The schedules are those you need to cover the forecasted requirement. The agents in the group bid for their preferred schedules and the schedules are allocated according to the bids.
To review how this is done in New Calabro WFM, click on the ‘?’ on the top left of any Web screen, this will take you to the Calabrio Help Centre. Type ‘bidding’ in the search field and select the top result. The first page is an overview of the process with 3 links to the detailed instructions. Even if you’ve not used bidding for schedules before I highly recommend you take 5 or 10 minutes to read this first section, it’ll really give you a good feel for what it does and how useful it can be for some teams and centres.
It’s a really good alternative way of using agent preferences, so if you currently use those I would definitely give it a try!
If you do decide to go ahead with it, I would recommend starting with a pilot team, there might be a specific team in your centre that you think this would work really well for, so let’s try it on that team. This will allow you to find best practice in terms of how far in advance would you do the bidding process and how long can an agent bid on the screen for example. It will also allow you to assess the impact of the new process carried out by the WFM team and what queries you’ll get from your agents.
You will find permissions to get started in Web Permissions, select a role, Functions tab, Web drop down, Shift Bidding options
With any new functionality it’s always important to give feedback. Click on the Leave Feedback button on the bottom left of your Web screen, tell the developers what you like about Shift Bidding and what other further developments you’d like to see in the system.
So that’s our 3 topics covered for today. I hope there’s something in there that you’re looking forward to using, especially the shift bidding process! I hope all you busy WFMers have been able to plan in a break for yourselves over the next few weeks, it’s always good to start a new year with recharged batteries!
Take care everyone
Jo