Review Schedule Optimization Plans

On the Schedule Optimization Plan page, you see all of the optimization plans. Click on a plan to review it and see more details.

Inside the plan, you can see:

When you review an active planClosed Optimization plans that you can review and optimize before they expire, click Optimize to adjust the activities. Once you optimize:

  • The schedule is updated and published.

  • The net staffing for the day is optimized.

  • Schedule updates are notified to agents. The notification is sent only to agents with new schedules.

Keep in mind, the time of the activities in the plan is adjusted to the time zone of the scheduling unit. It doesn't display your local time.

You can learn more about Schedule Optimization with these videos:

  • Overview: Discover how the Schedule Optimization feature in CXone WFM can enhance your workforce productivity with just a single click.

  • Rules: Learn how to set up schedule optimization rules and receive a daily plan that you can use.

  • Plans: Learn how to review and optimize plans, understand the improvement rate, and track plan status.

This feature is only available for users with the CXone WFM Advanced license.

You must have these permissions to:

If you cannot access the page, check with your administrator. The administrator can find these permissions in CXone. Go to Admin > Security Settings > Roles and Permissions and select the role.

Staffing by Skill

In the Staffing by Skill tab, you can see details of the staffing data before and after optimization.

The widget shows data for the whole day in one graph. The table shows the data in 15-minute intervals.

Widget

The widget is a graph that give you a view of the variance data. In the graph, you see how far the current and optimized schedules are from the staffing requirements. When you hover over the graph, you see data for that interval.

For example, you hover over one of the intervals. You can see:

  • Required staffing: 100 agents.

  • Current schedule: Overstaffed by 20 agents and that 120 agents are scheduled.

  • Optimized schedule: You will be overstaffed only by 10 agents, with 110 agents scheduled.

The widget focuses on the variance and not the actual number. Because of this, the Required metric is the baseline to see the variance. It will always be a straight line, representing 0. You can see how far the current and optimized schedules are from the Required value.

Let's say you are looking at the data for 10:00–10:15. You see:

  • Required: 100 agents

  • Scheduled: 20 (120 agents)

  • Optimized: 10 (110 agents)

The Required line is the baseline, so the line is 0 in the graph. The Scheduled line is 20, because that's the variance from the required staffing:

(120 agents scheduled) – (100 agents required) = 20 agents.

The Optimized line is 10. At a glance, you can see the variance data and how optimizing can improve the net staffing.

Table

The table gives a more detailed breakdown of the staffing data.

You can drill down to see data per skill. To the left of the table, select the skill you want to be displayed. By default, All skills is selected to show data for the whole plan. Keep in mind, All skills excludes skills that agents from the plan's scheduling unit aren't assigned to.

As a manager, you manage two scheduling units: NY Morning and NY Night . Here are the skills the agents in each unit can handle:

  • NY Morning: Skill A, Skill B, and Skill C

  • NY Night: Skill C and Skill D

When you open the optimization plan for NY Morning, All skills can display data for skills A, B, and C. When you open the plan for NY Night, All skills can display skills C and D.

Next to each skill, icons indicate how optimizing would improve Image of improvement rate icon and balance image of balancing staffing icon the net staffing.

The net staffing improves when intervals with opposite net staffing balance each other. The improvement rate calculation is a is follows:

The optimizer sums the net staffing in each interval (in absolute value), before and after optimization. The improvement rate is the difference between the sum before optimization and after:

(Sum before optimizing in absolute value) – (Sum after optimizing in absolute value) = (Improvement rate)

For example, you need for each interval 50 agents during the day (required agents: 50):

  • 12:00–12:15: 55 agents scheduled. You are overstaffed by 5 agents (+5).

  • 12:15–12:30: 46 agents scheduled. You are understaffed by 4 agents (-4).

|5|+|–4| = 9

The sum of both before optimizing (in absolute value) is: 9 agents.

Now, the optimizer moves some of the break activities. The optimized schedule will be:

  • 12:00–12:15: 51 agents scheduled. You are overstaffed by 1 agent (+1).

  • 12:15–12:30: 50 agents scheduled. You aren't understaffed (0).

|1|+ 0 = 1

The sum of both after optimizing (in absolute value) is: 1 agent.

The improvement rate will be 8 agents. Why?

9 (sum before optimizing) – 1 (sum after optimizing) = 8.

The improve rate for each row is rounded to two decimal places . The improve icon Image of improvement rate icon is also rounded, but after adding the full decimal number. This means that there might be a slight difference between the rate in the improve icon compared to adding all of the rows.

Balancing the net staffing is different from improving it. The balance icon image of balancing staffing icon shows if the optimizer was able to distribute the net staffing evenly between the intervals. It doesn't mean that it was able to improve the net staffing for the shift.

The net staffing is balanced by lowering the degree of major overstaffing or understaffing. The plan does this by moving activities from intervals with better net staffing.

Let's say you need 50 agents during the day for each interval (required agents: 50):

  • 12:00–12:15: 45 agents scheduled. You are understaffed by 5 agents (-5).

  • 12:15–12:30: 35 agents scheduled. You are understaffed by 15 agents (-15). Compared to the previous interval, this is a higher degree of understaffing.

The sum of both before optimizing (in absolute value) is: 20 agents.

|-5|+|–15| = 20

Now, the optimizer moves some of the break activities. The optimized schedule will be:

  • 12:00–12:15: 40 agents scheduled. You are understaffed by 10 agents (-10).

  • 12:15–12:30: 40 agents scheduled. You are understaffed by 10 agents (-10).

The sum of both after optimizing (in absolute value) is still 20 agents.

|-10|+|–10| = 20

The plan is considered optimized when it improves or balances the net staffing. So, even though the plan doesn't improve the net staffing, you can use it to optimize your schedule. This is because the major degree of understaffing was lowered.

When the plan doesn't effect the net staffing balance, the icon is . When it imbalances the net staffing the icon is .

The columns displayed in the table:

  • Required: The full-time equivalent (FTE)Closed A unit that indicates the workload of an agent number of agents required to handle the interactions (such as calls and chats) within that time interval. The number comes directly from the forecast or staffing plan used to generate the schedule.

    • You expect to handle six calls in a 15-minute interval. The average call takes 10 minutes. This means that during the 15-minute interval, your agents need to be available for 60 minutes (10 minutes per call × 6 calls = 60 minutes).

      In this case, the required staffing will be 4.00. Why? Because four agents handling interactions for 15 minutes equals 60.

    • You expect to handle seven calls in a 15-minute interval. The average call takes 10 minutes. This means that during the 15-minute interval, your agents need to be available for 70 minutes.

      In this case, the required staffing will be 4.67 (70-minute total handling time ÷ 15-minute interval = 4.67).

  • Scheduled: The FTE number of agents that are scheduled to be open to handle interactions within that time interval.

    Let's say you have four agents open during a 15-minute interval:

    This means that your agents will be open for a combined 60 minutes during that 15-minute time interval. The staffing you see is 4.00. Why? Because the 60 combined minutes that they're open, divided by the 15 minutes in the interval, equals 4.

    During that time, two of those agents will have a ten-minute break. This means that your agents will be open for a combined 40 minutes during that 15-minute time interval. The staffing you see is 2.67. Why? Because the 40 combined minutes that they're open, divided by the 15 minutes in the interval, equals 2.67.

  • Optimized: The new FTE number of agents that are scheduled to be open, after using the optimization plan.

  • Scheduled variance: The variance between the required staffing and the current schedule.

    For example, the Required value is 100 and the Scheduled is 120. The variance is 20.

  • Optimized variance: The variance between the required staffing and the optimized schedule.

    For example, the Required value is 100 and the Optimized is 110. The variance is 10.

  • Improvement—How much the net staffing is improved using the plan. The rate is measured by the FTE number of agents. Learn how it's calculated.

Schedule Adjustments

In the Schedule Adjustment tab, you can see all of the break activities in the plan. The current and optimized schedules are in separate columns. You can filter to view only the adjusted activities.

The time is according to the scheduling unit's time zone.

Each row details the agent's activity:

  • Scheduled: When the activity is scheduled to occur before optimization.

  • Adjusted: The activity's new time after optimization. Only adjusted activities are displayed in this column.

  • Shift time: The time of the shift that the activity is scheduled for.