Block scheduling allows Workforce Management (WFM) schedulers to create shifts for agents including specific types of work at designated times throughout the day. This feature adds precision to shift planning by letting schedulers assign planning group-based work blocks using on queue activity codes directly to agent’s shifts. This level of detail helps WFM schedulers align service needs with agent work patterns and decide if agents can work across multiple groups or focus on a single one.

Planning shifts with block scheduling helps agents focus on interactions that have distinct service goals or handling behaviors. This approach reduces context-switching fatigue, enabling agents to deliver better results for customers.

For example, switching between written and verbal customer interactions can be tiring. Block scheduling lets teams assign specific times of day for each interaction type, reducing context-switching. Similarly, when agents handle both deferred work with extended deadlines and real-time voice or messaging interactions, block scheduling can reserve low-volume periods each day to ensure steady progress on deferred work backlogs.

Block scheduling benefits users with:

• Improved alignment to demand: Ensures that agents are scheduled to meet service targets for specific queues or channels throughout the day.
• More granular control: Empowers WFM administrators to define and optimize worktypes by time of day, improving forecast accuracy and staffing efficiency.
• Reduced manual effort: Allows automated schedule generation to place intraday work assignments, reducing reliance on purely manual edits.
• Align work schedules with human handling characteristics: Reduces cognitive overload caused by frequent context switching by using written versus verbal tasks, voice versus messaging, or workitems versus other inbound interactions.

Configure block scheduling

Use one of the features to configure block scheduling.

• Activity code planning group assignment: When you edit or create a new on queue activity code, use the Work Handling Settings field to link the activity to a specific planning group.
  • When the planning group setting is set to Any, this activity code in an agent’s shift applies to all the agent’s planning groups. This setting is the default value.
  • When the planning group setting is set to Specific Group, this activity code in an agent’s shift applies only to that selected planning group.
• Manual block scheduling: Schedulers can manually add these activity codes to agent shifts to create work blocks dedicated to specific types of work.
• Work plan integration: Work plan configurations with the support of enhanced activity codes, allows the schedule generation engine to optimize intraday block scheduling. When schedulers include block scheduling activity codes in work plan configurations, rescheduling is also supported.
• Enhanced metrics: Key forecast and performance metrics, such as service level, average speed of answer, and occupancy, reflect the impact of scheduled work blocks in agent shifts.

At the beginning or end of an on-queue block, agents or managers can use Queue Activation to adjust the type of work routed so that it matches the work assigned in the agent’s shift.