Review optimization result

Evaluate if the optimization has achieved a good result. Use the Result table to get an overview of the result. The result is good if the scheduled hours match the forecasted hours for all days in the schedule period and all intervals of the day. If a skill is overstaffed or understaffed, the best possible result is if the skill is equally overstaffed or understaffed for all days and intervals.

If you are not satisfied with the result, you might need to run some of the optimization steps again. If that doesn’t help, you must investigate why the optimization cannot achieve a good result.

You can also use the Result table to verify that any limits on minimum agents, maximum agents or maximum seats have been fulfilled.

The Result table has one tab per skill. The skills shown are the skills of the agents you selected when you opened the Schedules module. If there are multi-skilled agents and therefore the staffing on the agents’ skills is affected by the staffing on other skills, those other skills are also loaded and shown as tabs. You can create summary tabs to look at the results of more than one skill at the same time. If a site has a limit on the maximum seats available, the site is shown as a tab. The tabs that are most important to you can be pinned for easy access.

Use the different levels in the Result table to look at the data on for example intraday level or day level.

Prerequisites

  • You have the Schedules permission.
  • You have the Global functions > View schedules permission.
  • You have the Global functions > Modify schedules permission and the underlying Modify assignment permission.
  • You have the Global functions > View unpublished schedules permission.

Page location

Client > Schedules > Open schedule

Procedures

Review optimization result

Review the optimization result to see if there are days or intervals that are not sufficiently staffed. The understaffing and overstaffing thresholds that are set for each skill help you identify days or intervals where too few or too many agents are scheduled by highlighting them in red, yellow or blue.

For more information on how to interpret each parameter, see Understand the result table parameters.

  1. Select the Shrinkage button if you want to consider the shrinkage factor when reviewing the result. When considering shrinkage, the forecasted hours are slightly increased to compensate for any unplanned absences, like illness.

    If you want to include shrinkage depends on whether you are looking at a future period or for example this afternoon. For future periods, include shrinkage. For today and tomorrow, you usually do not want to include shrinkage as most absences have already been added.

  2. Select the tab of the skill for which you want to look at the optimization result.
  3. In the Result table, right-click and select Day.
  4. Look at the Relative difference for the period. If it is close to zero, the scheduled hours for the day matches the forecasted hours for the day. Verify that the Relative difference is roughly the same for each day. If not, try running the optimization steps Days off and Time between days again.
  5. When the Relative difference for the period looks good, right-click in the Result table and select Intraday.
  6. Look at the Relative difference for the intervals of the day. If it is close to zero, the scheduled agents for the interval matches the forecasted agents for the interval. Verify that the Relative difference is roughly the same for each interval. If not, try running the optimization step Shifts within day again.

NOTE   The Standard Deviation and RMS values are also helpful when reviewing the optimization result. See Understand the result table parameters to learn more about them.

Follow up on minimum and maximum agent limits

If there are limits in the forecast on the minimum or maximum number of agents to schedule for certain intervals, this is highlighted in the Result view.

  1. In the Result table, right-click and select Day.
  2. Look at the Scheduled hours row. If a day is highlighted in red or blue, a limit is broken for that day.
  3. If a limit is broken one day, select that day in the schedule view.
  4. In the Result table, right-click and select Intraday.
  5. Scroll through the intervals of the day and look at the Scheduled heads row. If the minimum agents limit is not fulfilled, the value in the Scheduled heads row is highlighted in red. If the maximum agents limit is exceeded, the value in the Scheduled heads row is highlighted in blue.

Follow up on maximum seats limits

If there is a limit on maximum seats for a site, that site is shown as a tab in the Result table.

  1. In the Result table, right-click and select Day.
  2. Select the tab of the site.
  3. Look at the Max used seats row. If a day is highlighted in red, the maximum seats limit is broken for that day.
  4. If the limit is broken one day, select that day in the schedule view.
  5. In the Result table, right-click and select Intraday.
  6. Scroll through the intervals of the day to find the intervals where the maximum seats limit is broken, to address it.

Group the results of two or more skills

Create a skill summary tab to group the results of two or more skills.

  1. Right-click in the Result table.
  2. Select Create skill summary.
  3. Enter a Summary name.
  4. Select the skills to include in the summary.
  5. Click OK to add the summary tab.

Pin a skill tab

Pin a tab to make it show up among the first tabs. This is useful when you have many skills and there are some that are more important than others.

  1. Right-click on a tab in the Result table.
  2. Select Pin to front. Pinned tabs are highlighted in green and shown among the first tabs on the row, with any other pinned tabs.

Present data in the chart

Present the most important Result table data in the chart to get a good overview.

Related topics