WFM/Alcatel stats & configuration

[Nick]

Hi All,

With reference to an earlier issue, we appear to have a solution to configuring Data Aggregator, when using an Alcatel 4400. This involves writing a routing strategy that accesses a database table that contains dialled number information and also by attaching data to each call to define the WFM activity.

My WFM query of the day, however, is: have any of you good people out there had to install/configure WFM in an environment where the workforce operates within rigidly defined shift patterns i.e their start and finish times are always the same, but they may work more or fewer hours on different days and have one, two or more days off, spread over a week? Of course, WFM is really designed to tell agents when they are due to work, not the other way around! However, in this particular instance, the existing work patterns must be preserved. Has anyone had to deal with this and, if so, how did you configure WFM with regard to employment types, shifts & rotating schedules etc? Any info gratefully recieved...

[RBD]

Hi Nick;

It sounds like you know what you're doing with WFM, but I'll offer some suggestions to your scenario....I hope you're using 6.1 WFM!

Fortunately, WFM 6.1 is now flexible enough to handle rigid shift requirements. There are several ways to approach it, but the one I would try first would be to break up your employment types by the hours you want agents working. If some start at 8am, and others start at 12pm, you would need two employment types. By setting the Availability for each employment type you would control when they could start each day. Then use the TimeOff section (Advanced button) and enable the Number of Days off granted per week.

With 6.1 there is a new section in the TimeOff tab called Synchronization of Daily Schedules. Use this to ensure that agents start at the same time every day of the week or schedule period.

From there you could define a fairly flexible shift that would be assigned to each employment type. The system would assign the shift based on the employment type rules. This gets around having to define a bunch of rigid shifts and haggling with rotiting schedules. The biggest drawack is that you would have to assign each agent to one of these employment types.

FAlso, for good measure, you could set your Site Rule so that there is 15 hours between the end of the shift and the start of the next. That will reinforce the rigid rules you set in the employment types.

If there's one thing I've learned with this product, the results are always unpredictable.
Good luck

[Nick]

RDB

Thanks for your very helpful advice. Sadly, I am stuck with WFM version 5.1.6 in this particular scenario and cannot upgrade to version 6.1. This is because the solution that we have installed uses MS SQL Server 7.0 as the DBMS on clustered NT servers. You may be aware that Genesys advise that WFM 6.1 can only operate using MDAC 2.6 no other version. Microsoft advise that, under no circumstances should MDAC 2.6 be used with SQL Server 6.5 or 7.0 in a clustered environment, due to connectivity issues. This effectively rules out an upgrade, until we can convince the customer to migrate to SQL Server 2000. So I am stuck with temperamental old 5.1, which often stubbornly refuses to provide schedules for anybody, for no apparent reason!

However, when the time comes, your advice on 6.1 configuration will prove invaluable, I'm sure.