Advanced Workforce Management Package Overview Guide

Transcription

1 Advanced Workforce Management Package Overview Guide NN

2 Document status: Standard Document version: 0101 Document date: 6 November 2009 All Rights Reserved While the information in this document is believed to be accurate and reliable, except as otherwise expressly agreed to in writing NORTEL PROVIDES THIS DOCUMENT "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED The information and/or products described in this document are subject to change without notice Nortel, Nortel Networks, the Nortel logo, and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners

3 3 Contents New in this release 5 Features 5 Other changes 5 Introduction 7 Features of the Advanced Workforce Management Package 8 Workforce Management 11 Workforce Management overview 11 Forecasting and scheduling 12 Defining organization hierarchies 13 Weighting data 13 Scaling CV and AHT forecast 14 Forecast profiles 15 Scheduling and Work Rules 16 Work Patterns 17 Assignment Rules 17 Outbound Forecasting and scheduling 18 Outbound forecasts 18 Outbound service goals 19 Outbound scheduling 19 Outbound tracking 19 Outbound adherence 20 Outbound reports 20 Proficiency-based Scheduling 20 Intraday Management 21 Alerts 21 Multi-Site Management 21 Multi-Contact Scheduling 22 Web-enabled Self Services 23 Unified Agent Portal 23 Schedule Viewing 24 Agent Preferences 24 Shift Swapping 24 Time Off Manager Overview 25 NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

4 4 Contents Advanced Adherence Overview 26 My Time 26 Adherence Management Tabs 26 Adherence Exception Management 27 Desktop Application Adherence 27 Optional Agent Self Adherence 27 What If Mode 28 Forecasting and scheduling and What If Mode 28 Strategic Planner 29 Defining Simulation Scenarios - Queues and Profiles 29 Modelling Scenarios 30 Forecasting 33 Marking Specials Days in Forecasting 33 Generating Reports 34 Performance Management 37 Performance Management Overview 37 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 38 Configuring Role-Appropriate Scorecards 38 Manager Role 38 Scheduler Role 38 Supervisor Role 38 Agent Role 39 Scorecards Views 39 NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

5 5 New in this release The following sections detail what s new in Nortel Workforce Management (NN ) for Release 70 "Features" (page 5) "Other changes" (page 5) Features There are no feature changes for this document Other changes Nonessential graphics have been removed from procedures NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

6 6 New in this release NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

7 7 Introduction This document provides a general description of Nortel Advanced Workforce Management, a solution that simplifies the complex task of forecasting and scheduling, while providing insightful performance management The Nortel Advanced Workforce Management Package includes these unified components: Workforce Management Support for dedicated inbound, outbound, and blended outbound contact centers Forecasting and scheduling capabilities that are used to forecast and generate schedules on an intraday, daily and weekly basis Advanced Adherence to track schedule adherence covering phone and non-phone based activities Time Off Manager (TOM), a web-based module allowing agents to request and supervisors to manage agents time-off and vacation requests Strategic Planner to help centers plan for the long term and to increase forecast accuracy by developing strategic forecasts that can be combined with tactical weighted average forecasts produced in Forecasting and scheduling Multi-contact capabilities for creating schedules for inbound phone, with the ability to add on other optional media types, including outbound phone, , fax, web chat, call back, and voice over IP (VOIP) Multi-site management capabilities Enterprise reporting capabilities with ad-hoc querying What-if modelling with Staffing Profile capabilities Performance Management NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

8 8 Introduction Performance Management application that collects and displays key performance indicator (KPI) information on role-appropriate scorecards for agent, supervisor, manager and scheduler roles in contact centers Features of the Advanced Workforce Management Package The following list describes the features of the Advanced Workforce Management Package Framework Password restrictions and encryption Single sign-on to provide seamless access from one component of the package to another, without having to log in multiple times Workflow features to enhance productivity Alerts to inform you of important system events Access to numerous out-of-the box report templates Ad hoc reporting capabilities Drill down into reports Filter reports by various types of data Compare reference groups View information in multiple graphical formats and textual, tabular format Ability for users to export report results to HTML, PDF and Excel file formats Centralized, consolidated source for standard reports and Advanced Scorecards describing activity and performance data for every enterprise site Desktop Learning Libraries so Supervisors and Agents can conduct web training without having to leave their workstations Workforce Management Support for dedicated inbound, outbound or blended outbound and inbound contact centers Forecasting and scheduling functionality so that users can forecast and generate schedules on an intraday, daily and weekly basis Multi-week Forecasting and scheduling functionality, so that users can forecast and generate scheduling periods of up to six weeks in length, and create scheduling periods of different lengths within a given campaign NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

9 Features of the Advanced Workforce Management Package 9 Time Off Manager that enables agents to view vacation availability, submit and track requests for vacation and days/partial days off (down to 15-minute increments), withdraw approved time-off requests, and receive real-time information about request conflicts and request status Advanced Adherence gives a real-time view into contact center activities, with the ability to track schedule adherence across all contact channels covering front and back-office activities, including enabled media types such as inbound phone (aux code states) and desktop application usage among others Strategic Planner to increase forecasting accuracy with sophisticated analysis of historical data, and plan your resources to reflect projected customer demand and corporate objectives What-If mode allows users to model hypothetical data and its effect on the schedules without affecting production data Configuration of Alerts to monitor deviations from plan of several contact center metrics and out-of-adherence events with automatic notification to one or more individuals through screen pop-up alerts or Optional multi-contact capabilities for creating schedules for inbound phone, with the ability to add on other optional media types, including outbound phone, , fax, web chat, call back, and voice over IP (VOIP) Enterprise-reporting capabilities with ad-hoc querying Performance Management Rapid implementation that allows contact center organizations to effectively manage a performance practice Scorecards that can display agent performance information on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis, as well as trend information compared to goals Role-appropriate Scorecards for agent, supervisor, manager and other roles compute and display Key Performance Indicators on a daily basis Ability to view KPI performance against goals, trends over different periods of time and compare performance of groups and organizations Ability to immediately drill down into recorded interactions to analyze performance Enterprise-reporting capabilities NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

10 10 Introduction NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

11 11 Workforce Management This chapter describes Workforce Management and contains the following sections: "Workforce Management overview" (page 11) "Forecasting and scheduling" (page 12) "Outbound Forecasting and scheduling" (page 18) "Multi-Contact Scheduling" (page 22) "Web-enabled Self Services" (page 23) "Time Off Manager Overview" (page 25) "Advanced Adherence Overview" (page 26) "What If Mode" (page 28) "Generating Reports" (page 34) Workforce Management overview The Workforce Management (WFM) application includes a variety of forecasting and scheduling capabilities WFM supports the management of dedicated outbound, and blended outbound and inbound contact center organizations WFM also supports multi-week forecasting and scheduling capabilities This functionality allows you to create scheduling periods of up to six weeks in length, copy scheduling periods with the same options, and create scheduling periods of different lengths within a given campaign WFM has optional multi-contact capabilities that allow schedule creation over a range of different media types, and users also have access to Advanced Adherence to track schedule adherence across all contact channels NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

12 12 Workforce Management The Advanced Workforce Management package focuses on optimizing contact center performance by increasing contact center revenue generation, and ensuring consistent customer experiences It includes: Time Off Manager (TOM) Web-based module allowing agents to request and supervisors to manage agents time-off and vacation requests This module is also an option for the Operational Workforce Management package Advanced Adherence Enhanced adherence management capabilities for monitoring adherence to schedule for phone media, including aux codes and non-phone-based activities, as well as enabling management of adherence exceptions Advanced Scorecards Pre-defined role-appropriate scorecards with pre-packaged Workforce Management and Quality Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which display actual performance information on a daily basis, as well as the ability to display trend information compared to goals Strategic Planner Combine strategic forecast data from Strategic Planner with weighted average forecast to increase forecast accuracy Some optional features include Multi-Contact Enables forecasting and scheduling for additional media other than inbound phone, such as outbound phone, chat, and Shift Bidding A web-based module facilitating automated shift bidding Operations Volume capture and workload management Forecasting and scheduling The Forecasting and scheduling application is used to forecast and generate schedules on an intraday, daily, weekly and multi-weekly basis It supports dedicated inbound, outbound, and blended inbound and outbound contact centers Forecasting and scheduling functions are typically accessed by schedulers, analysts, and managers and, to a lesser extent, by supervisors Forecasting and scheduling provides considerable flexibility allowing users to generate forecasts across multiple queues and media Users define organizational hierarchies, after which the forecasting is done through selecting, combining, and/or altering historical data stored in the system Historical data can be Pulled in from Automatic Call Distributors (ACDs) and other systems Entered by pasting data from a spreadsheet Entered manually NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

13 Forecasting and scheduling 13 Forecasts are created to reflect contact behavior across 15-minute increments The components of the contact behavior are Volume and Activity Handle Time Defining organization hierarchies Forecasting and scheduling allows organizations to manage information about employees: Where they work (location) With whom they work (groups) When they work (hours of operation) You can define your organizational hierarchy with as many organizations and levels in the hierarchy as you wish Weighting data Users can bring in data from any week in history from last week, last month or last year Each week can be weighted differently to: De-emphasize weeks with irregularities Emphasize weeks that illustrate important patterns Emphasize weeks that you think most match the forecasting week NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

14 14 Workforce Management With the Strategic Planner application, you can combine forecast data from Strategic Planner with historical weighted average data to increase forecast accuracy Scaling CV and AHT forecast Forecasting and scheduling allows scaling, by which users can alter forecasts to reflect any changes in business, such as new customer growth and larger amounts of direct mail sent out Scaling allows the use of previously known set of call histories, and the application of the reality of today to those histories NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

15 Forecasting and scheduling 15 The data from past weeks can be scaled on a daily basis to change contact volume and Average Handle Time (AHT) totals by a percentage, or by an actual number The trends of contacts (peaks and valleys) remains the same; the numbers are just adjusted to reflect the percentage or the absolute volume change Forecast profiles Forecast profiles speed the forecasting process by identifying certain call trends It reduces the amount of time required to look for the correct historical data Profiles allow grouping, naming, and saving a set of call behaviors Profiles can consist of weeks of history that are absolute or rolling (last four weeks) or can be a collection of weeks of history that have been adjusted and altered (by scaling, changing some of the forecast numbers through the table, or weighting) You can load these profiles into any forecast Profiles are not limited to a specific campaign; they can be shared across campaigns NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

16 16 Workforce Management Scheduling and Work Rules Work Rules define the ways in which employees are assigned work, including time spent at work, or length of shift, breaks, lunches and other non-phone work It also includes when shifts are assigned and special rules that the scheduler follows when creating schedules You can modify the definitions of morning, afternoon, and evening shifts for increased shift rule flexibility The Work Rules module allow creation of simple or more complex work rules based on business needs Users can control how and when shifts are assigned, or they can assign control of shift assignment to the system The system can also optimize shift assignments The overall actions required to set the Work Rules are: Defining shifts and shift activities, with the ability to define shifts down to one-minute intervals Linking activities to shifts Setting up work patterns Linking shifts and activities to work patterns Defining assignment rules (optional) Assigning the work patterns and assignment rules to agents Shifts are set using a variety of pre-defined attributes NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

17 Forecasting and scheduling 17 Work Patterns Using the Work Patterns feature enables the creation of potential schedules by putting shifts together and then applying special rules to them These rules can be defined very tightly or make them general and allow the scheduling engine to determine the optimum schedule Using Work Patterns, users: Define the combinations of shifts that employees can work Specify the days on which they can be assigned Specify which days are marked as off Users then attach patterns to different agents Patterns can be used to give the system choices of full-time schedules, part-time schedules, or choices such as four 10-hour shifts or five eight-hour shifts Assignment Rules An additional option feature, Assignment Rules, assists managers who must comply with scheduling needs from union regulations, internal rules, state/country legislation, or very specific agent needs There are four types: Shift rules to ensure agents are assigned a specified number of events over a period of time NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

18 18 Workforce Management Fairness rules to ensure events are fairly assigned among agents in a group over a period of time Rotation rules used to create rotations from two to 26 weeks Team scheduling rules indicating members shift times start, end at same times, or overlap Outbound Forecasting and scheduling Scheduling agents for outbound calls requires different forecasts, different goals, different scheduling methodology and different tracking than scheduling inbound agents The Workforce Management component supports outbound contact center operations and blended inbound-outbound contact center operations It is meant for contact centers that make outbound calls by using a predictive dialer or by manually dialing a list of customers or prospects for collections, telemarketing and proactive customer service The Outbound Forecasting and scheduling component is described in the following sections: "Outbound forecasts" (page 18) "Outbound service goals" (page 19) "Outbound scheduling" (page 19) "Outbound tracking" (page 19) "Outbound adherence" (page 20) "Outbound reports" (page 20) Outbound forecasts The Workforce Management component supports the following forecast statistics for outbound contact centers: Connect Rate as a percentage Right Party Connect Rate as a percentage Connect Activity Handle Time (AHT) Right Party Connect AH List Parameters The forecasts for the outbound statistics and the incoming lists are based on historical weeks that are added to a forecast or profile Additionally, manual editing and scaling is fully available for the outbound statistics The forecasted lists are also fully editable NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

19 Outbound Forecasting and scheduling 19 Outbound service goals You can define two types of service goals for outbound queues: Achieve a certain amount of Right Party Connects for a campaign week, for example, achieve 1000 Right Party Connects for this campaign week Connect to the right-party contact for a certain percentage of the list, for example, connect to the Right Party for 5% of all lists this campaign week Note: You can use a Connect goal instead of Right Party Connect if Right Party Connect forecasts are not available Outbound scheduling The outbound scheduling algorithm takes into account the following key factors: Ability to trade off against other outbound queues during skill-based scheduling or queue-hopping scheduling The scheduler determines the correct placement of dedicated outbound agents and the correct mix of queue hopping activities to place for them Ability to trade off against other media queues during blended and queue hopping multi-contact scheduling This allows the scheduler to determine correct placement and mix of activities for multi-contact agents Ability to consider the deferred nature of outbound work Like other deferred scheduling, agents do not need to be scheduled when the lists arrive or at any one point in the day Instead, they can be scheduled at many different times within the list to improve period service level Ability to weigh different intervals according to Right Party Connect Rate (RPCR) or Connect Rate Outbound tracking Users can track and trend actual, forecasted, and required statistics in the Pulse module for intraday management purposes The following statistics are available: Connects Connect Rate Activity Handle Time Right Party Connects Right Party Connect Rate Right Party Connect Activity Handle Time NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

20 20 Workforce Management Dials Backlog Staffing FTEs Occupancy Abandons Actual statistics are regularly imported from the supported dialer You can view these statistics immediately in the Pulse module, and use them to create forecasts Outbound adherence Supervisors can track adherence of their outbound agents or multi-contact agents, and track adherence of queue hopping activities on supported systems Information for real-time agent adherence can also be gathered from supported dialers or from supported systems that combine ACDs and dialers Outbound reports The following outbound reports are available: Outbound Daily Forecast Assessment This report compares forecasted statistics to actual statistics on a daily basis Outbound Daily Performance Assessment This report compares predicted values to actual values on a daily basis This report only differs from the Outbound Daily Forecast Assessment report in the statistics shown Outbound Monthly Performance Assessment Summary This report compares predicted values to actual values on a monthly basis Outbound Forecast Lists Assessment This report shows forecasted call lists as they compare to actual call lists for a particular scheduling period Proficiency-based Scheduling Proficiency-based scheduling within Forecasting and scheduling can help improve service levels by building schedules that reflect each agent s proficiency level for a particular skill NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

21 Proficiency-based Scheduling 21 Intraday Management Intraday Management is the ability to identify, understand and resolve variations to plan on an intraday basis Intraday Management is a collection of features, including alerts that together allow users to identify, understand, and resolve intraday variations to the plan It allows users to look at trends for the rest of the day and then re-forecast and reschedule for only the remaining intervals in the day A key component of Forecasting and scheduling is the web-based Pulse module, which is used to: Monitor key metrics that get updated with each fresh batch of data from the ACD Track and compare actual, forecasted and required statistics by individual queue or combined queue View deviations of key contact center metrics in percentages or absolute numbers View intraday trends and historical data One of the common actions resulting from Intraday Management is to either schedule overtime (OT) or give voluntary time off (VTO) to agents to balance for understaffed or overstaffed situations, respectively The scheduler can use slider bars in the Scheduler Setup to reschedule OT and VTO events using agent seniority, rank, or preferences OT/VTO attributes include Min and Max Duration, Length, Min and Max Gap from Shift, Start, End or Anytime of Shift, Max OT Weekly and Daily, and Employee Preferences Alerts This solution offers a set of alerts, which can be configured to monitor deviations from plan of several contact center metrics and events and then notify one or more identified individuals through screen pop-up alerts or Alert types include urgent, confidential, and normal Users can send urgent messages on demand to immediately communicate urgent information Alerts are defined in relation to a scope (Organization, Campaign, or System) Some rules are valid only within a certain scope Multi-Site Management The multi-site management module is designed to accommodate contact centers operating structure allowing for a single point of control over the entire network, or decision-making at individual sites Information from the sites can be rolled up to present a complete picture of the entire contact center operations NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

22 22 Workforce Management Multi-site centers that share contacts across centers are typically managed or set up in one of two ways Contact allocation Virtual center Forecasting and scheduling supports both of these approaches, and can be configured to support variations of the two basic multi-site approaches Contact Allocation For centers that manually allocate incoming contacts on a percentage basis across multiple sites, Forecasting and scheduling supports the creation of central forecasts and local site schedules Forecasting and scheduling creates a central forecast by analyzing contact history and trends of contacts serviced by the sites that they have historically delivered It can then allocate portions of the central forecast to sites based on each site s ability to handle contacts There are two modes of allocating contact percentages: 1 The allocation percentage is manually entered by the user into Forecasting and scheduling 2 Forecasting and scheduling recommends the allocation percentages Each site can use the allocated forecast to create site schedules that can be rolled up to calculate global service levels Virtual Center For fully networked centers that operate as though they are one virtual center, Forecasting and scheduling includes enhancements for the creation of global or central forecasts and schedules In this configuration, Forecasting and scheduling creates global schedules for all sites, treating them as one virtual center, and automatically assigns schedules to agents at each individual site Multi-Contact Scheduling Multi-contact scheduling is an optional component of Forecasting and scheduling in the Workforce Management package Forecasting and scheduling allows users to gain efficiency with optimal schedules that take all contact media into consideration Forecasting and scheduling applies the notion of media-type to a queue Customers can define a queue or skill as being one of the following six media: Phone (inbound or outbound) NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

23 Web-enabled Self Services 23 Fax Web chat Call back Voice over IP (VOIP) Skills definitions include which medium pertains to which skill These media can be categorized as: Immediate media type - phone, chat, and voice over IP Deferred media type - fax, call back, and Forecasting and scheduling can model four types of multi-contact routing: The first and most simple is a dedicated agent group model In this model, each medium has a group of agents who handle only that medium and do not handle contacts from any other queue While there can be skills-based routing within each medium, there is no mixing of contacts between media The second model is media hopping In this model an agent performs work in one answer type (that is, medium) for a length of time and then switches to another answer type While agents can work more than one answer type in the course of a day, they do not work more than one answer type at any time The third model is true blending Here agents can be routed contacts from any medium at any time For example, an agent handles a phone call, then an , and then another phone call The fourth model is an outbound agent group model Here agents can hop from one media queue to another, and receive a blend of activities if they are multi-contact agents Web-enabled Self Services The Web-Enabled Self-Service (WESS) allows agents to participate in the workforce management process Web-Enabled Self-Service enables agents to access schedule information, enter day on/off and start time preferences, and post, negotiate, and request shift swaps WESS automates a number of routine administrative processes and thereby frees up more time for supervisors and managers to spend one-on-one coaching time with agents Unified Agent Portal On one page, agents can get a summary of their schedules for the week and the status of their shift swap, shift bid, time-off and vacation requests NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

24 24 Workforce Management ATTENTION The Time Off Manager component is included in the Advanced Workforce Management and Strategic Workforce Management packages You can purchase Shift Bidding as an optional component in either one of these packages Schedule Viewing Available for individuals and groups, Schedule Viewing provides agents with on-demand access to scheduling and time-off information Schedulers can publish schedules by campaign, and update and communicate schedule changes with a click of a mouse Viewing group schedules requires privileges that are set by the administrator A warning message is given if a user does not have the privilege to view a group schedule or if one does not exist Agent Preferences Because contact center staff can have a significant percentage of people with special scheduling considerations, such as students, working parents, and part timers, Workforce Management includes agent preferences and self-service functionality that creates improved scheduling flexibility Agent preferences functionality: Relieves supervisors and managers of the administrative burden of manually updating agent preferences Involves agents up-front in the scheduling process Agents can enter day on, day off, and start-time preferences directly into the system This functionality applies to centers that are using seniority or rank as part of their scheduling practices The scheduling algorithm attempts to balance these considerations and come up with a schedule that satisfies both center and agent requirements Agents can indicate first, second and third preference start time for each day of the week They can also indicate their preferred day of time off and indicate whether start time or day of time off is more important for them Shift Swapping Shift swapping is another agent self-service feature that helps enhance the flexibility of contact center schedules while maintaining acceptable service levels or quality You can purchase this feature as an option for all of the Workforce Management packages NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

25 Time Off Manager Overview 25 Agent Features Shift Swapping allows agents to post, negotiate and request entire or partial shift swaps Agents can filter swap board postings to view All Requests, My requests, Requests from my organization, and Requests from my campaign Agents can pick up portions of a posted shift and multiple agents can each pick up portions of a posted shift Management Features Manager can process shift swap requests that have already been screened by both the agents and Workforce Management s conflict-checking functions Administrators can grant permissions to approve or deny Shift Swap requests by organization Managers can only view and manage requests that they are entitled to see When managing Shift Swap requests, managers can view the list by organization and campaign Time Off Manager Overview Time Off Manager (TOM) enables agents to: View vacation availability Submit and track requests for vacation and days/partial days off (down to 15 minute increments) Receive real-time information about request conflicts and request status Withdraw requests that are already approved The following graphic is an example of a Time Off Manager setup: For managers, Time Off Manager enables them to: Manage all vacations and time-off requests from one on-line repository Maintain a waitlist of time-off requests that can be automatically sorted by various criteria, and processed when a change in time off occurs Run time-off reports for a specific agent NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

26 26 Workforce Management Run reports for withdrawn time-off requests and waitlisted time-off requests Advanced Adherence Overview Advanced Adherence provides a real-time view into activities in the contact center It tracks schedule adherence across all contact channels covering front and back office activities, including phone (aux code states), desktop, , and chat, sorting mail, faxes, and special projects The Advanced Adherence features help ensure that agents work on assigned activities as scheduled, thus enabling agent time to be more accurately managed Using Advanced Adherence: Manages and reduces shrinkage for contact centers Provides an understanding of how agent time is spent Increases agent satisfaction by eliminating discrepancies between pay and performance Manage plan-to-actual on a real-time basis My Time Advanced Adherence includes a feature called My Time, which provides a view of agent activities The browser-based My Time enables agents to know what they are expected to accomplish during the day, including activities that are not phone-related, and monitors schedule adherence for these activities Adherence Management Tabs For managers, the Quick View tab provides a current snapshot of each agent s adherence status, time out of adherence, actual activity being worked, and time in activity This view also provides a visual alert of out-of-adherence Auto-refresh rates for the adherence screen can be set between one minute and 60 minutes In the event that exception rules are triggered, Advanced Adherence provides notification which enables managers to take control of the situation The Adherence tab provides three time lines for selected agents: Scheduled: Shows activities scheduled Actual: Shows the agents actual activities as compared to schedule Exceptions: Indicates the time(s) of the day when the agents were out of adherence from scheduled activities NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

27 Advanced Adherence Overview 27 The Detailed View can be used to view the time activity entries in any employee s time records From this view, administrators with the correct privileges can edit the time entries Common reasons requiring editing include reasons such as an agent forgot to log in or log out, an agent selected the wrong activity, and so on Supervisors and managers can add notes to time records indicating the reason for the edit or why an exception was approved Adherence Exception Management Some agents deviate from their schedules These deviations are sometimes deliberate, sometimes accidental, sometimes caused by others, and sometimes caused by customer needs Adherence exception management enables supervisors to view agent exceptions graphically across the entire day in real time and approve or deny them in one-minute increments Exceptions can be approved individually or can be grouped Managers can add comments to approved exceptions Desktop Application Adherence With Desktop Application Adherence, managers and supervisors can now monitor desktop, phone and non-phone activities of the employees from a single screen Users can simultaneously view and compare employee desktop application usage against their phone activity and against what they were scheduled to do This feature is extremely useful in back-office operations where phone is not the primary contact media Desktop Application Adherence enables managers to manage shrinkage better, thereby lower costs and increase agent productivity Managers and supervisors can view which applications are being used by an agent during phone activity, for example, Tom s manager can see which applications are being using when a caller is placed on hold The different desktop applications are mapped to separate activities in the Workforce Management component Each application is represented by a different color on the adherence screen Supervisors can then gauge if employees are spending too much time on a specific application that is not core to their primary job function Optional Agent Self Adherence You can purchase an optional module that allows agents to monitor their own adherence This tab, as shown in the following graphic, shows the agent s adherence data (how well the agent is conforming to an assigned schedule) in graphical form, as well as, a summary of the data for the day: NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

28 28 Workforce Management For detailed information on this optional feature, refer to the Workforce Management Agent s Guide What If Mode Changes to the databases in Workforce Management are automatically saved at the time they are made If users want to make changes that are not saved, such as to model hypothetical data and its effect on the schedules, they can use the What If mode What If mode is accessible from within Forecasting and scheduling as well as from within the Workforce Management s web application Forecasting and scheduling and What If Mode When users enter What If mode, Forecasting and scheduling offers to synchronize current data with the What If database This synchronization makes a copy of users current information in a separate database, where they can then make any changes to the data without affecting the original data The What If mode uses a single Forecasting and Scheduling database, which is named BPWHATIFDB This database can be accessed by any Forecasting and scheduling client When a Forecasting and scheduling client is using the What If database, it is locked, preventing another user from re-synchronizing the database, until that user leaves What If mode NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

29 Strategic Planner 29 The data in the What If database, including the user changes to it, remains as the user leaves it until the data is resynchronized with the active database Users can also enter What If mode when they are logged into the web application Strategic Planner Strategic Planner is a long term planning solution integrated with the Nortel Workforce Management Performance Management package It achieves a level of visibility into the future that is otherwise not possible with traditional forecasting and scheduling solutions or with sophisticated spreadsheet analysis Strategic Planner lets centers evaluate long-term scenarios related to: Resource/Capacity Planning - getting a handle on specific resources and skills required Budget Planning - what is the cost of service delivery Strategies - assess trade-offs in offerings, service goals and service methodologies Using the same simulation techniques used in the core Forecasting and scheduling solution, it matches resources with projected customer demand and corporate objectives and lets customers easily develop different scenarios to determine the optimum trade-offs among costs, service levels, customer satisfaction and staffing constraints Strategic Planner can factor in revenue considerations, agent burdened costs, agent attrition and come up with different scenarios that answer how many agents need to be recruited It goes beyond that by determining when they need to be hired by factoring in different ramp up times for new agents vs transferred agents for example It also answers questions on whether the agents should be part time or full time and cross trained Each scenario presents impact on cost, revenues and service level For detailed information on all of the functionality available in Strategic Planner, refer to the Workforce Management Planner s Guide Defining Simulation Scenarios - Queues and Profiles Strategic Planner utilizes scenarios to simulate the activity and environment of the contact center during the planning process The scenario is comprised of two pieces, Queues and Staffing Profiles NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

30 30 Workforce Management Queues are utilized to define the demands on your contact center These demands include items such as contact volume, AHT, revenue per contact, the distributions of your contact volumes, Staffing requirements, over / under staffing the service levels you need to achieve and the demand on space in terms of seat needs Staffing Profiles are utilized to define the attributes of your agent population in groups, or profiles These include differences in your agent groups in terms of Skills, Wages (regular and overtime), Shrinkage, how they are hired (transferred in or new hires), Full time or Part time, how they are trained, including learning curves and attrition These staffing profiles represent your supply planning and help to determine how to develop resource plans you need to deal with the demand The following graphic shows the window where you create scenarios in Strategic Planner: Modelling Scenarios You can configure a given queue to be worked by more than one group of agents, creating an interaction between the workloads each group handles The following graphic shows a sample queue configuration: NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

31 Strategic Planner 31 With Strategic Planner, you can set up complex scenarios by creating Queues and Staffing Profiles that work theses Queues The user sets each Queue s contact type, and determines the Queues with which each Staffing Profile can work The following graphic shows a sample staffing profile linked to a work queue: NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

32 32 Workforce Management There are different methods available to Strategic Planner to analyze and model a number of selected scenario settings, constituting the building blocks of any given scenario Single Staffing Profile working an Immediate-Phone Queue Single Staffing Profile working an Immediate-Chat Queue (if you purchase a license for this media type) Single Staffing Profile working one or more Deferred Queues (if you purchased licenses for these media types) Single Staffing Profile working several Immediate Queues Single Staffing Profile working both Immediate and Deferred Queues Several Interacting Staffing Profiles working several Immediate Queues NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

33 Strategic Planner 33 Forecasting The sophisticated and powerful forecasting techniques used in Strategic Planner include: Using Regression Analysis to account for: Daily trends Weekly trends Monthly trends Quarterly/Seasonal trends Annual growth trends Factoring in Special Events and Days treatment Allowing users to flag specific days in the past and future Users can give a name to the flag, and create as few or as many as they want Factoring Queue Reconfiguration effects Mark changes to a queue (eg addition or deletion of groups to the queue or change in the hours (days) of operation that could affect the contact volume and distribution) For the purposes of Strategic Forecasting, not all data prior to the reconfiguration is ignored Depending on what was reconfigured, some trends will ignore past data and some will continue to use it Marking Specials Days in Forecasting Strategic Planner automatically finds outliers for Special Events, Days and Queue Reconfiguration as illustrated in the following graphic: NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

34 34 Workforce Management Outliers: You can exclude the outlier data that deviates from the mean forecast when doing regression analysis Special Event Days: You can flag specific days in the past and future, give a name to the flag, and create as few or as many as you want The deviation of this special event from the average is calculated The same deviation is applied in the future Reconfiguration Days: Reconfiguration days mark changes to a work queue, such as a change to the groups feeding to a work queue Data before this change event is ignored when doing regression analysis Generating Reports This package provides a series of out-of-the-box reports that can help you understand individual and group performance and perform activity analysis The standard reports deliver information related to: Employee time record details Summaries of activity data Administrative information Adherence reports deliver information related to agent schedule adherence You can run each report as needed (ad hoc), or you can set the appropriate parameters to schedule the report to run at a later time NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

35 Generating Reports 35 You can save reports, export reports for use in other applications, and share reports with others As with the other features of the Workforce Management solution, administrators can enable security privileges for specific roles Administrators can also segment security privileges to allow the appropriate people with the correct privileges to access the Reports module, run ad hoc reports, or schedule reports As with the other features of the Workforce Management solution, administrators can enable security privileges for specific roles Administrators can also segment security privileges to allow the appropriate people with the correct privileges to access the Reports module, run ad hoc reports, or schedule reports NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

36 36 Workforce Management NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

37 37 Performance Management This chapter describes the Advanced Scorecards module and contains these sections: "Performance Management Overview" (page 37) "Configuring Role-Appropriate Scorecards" (page 38) "Scorecards Views" (page 39) Performance Management Overview Users can leverage the Advanced Scorecards component to view contact center Workforce Management performance metrics for individual employees and at any organization level The Advanced Scorecards module helps agents, supervisors and all contact center employees to focus on critical aspects of their performance and identify opportunities for improvement With Advanced Scorecards users can address complex questions such as: Which agents and teams are performing to expectations? Where do I spend my coaching time? Which agents? Which teams? How is one agent performing relative to his peers? How much did Team B improve since completing the new training course? How can I improve the accuracy of my forecasts and schedules? You can deploy the Advanced Scorecards component very rapidly without customization Predefined KPIs and integration adaptors are available out-of-the-box for Workforce Management, and qualified ACD systems Out-of-the-box functionality enables an organization to be up and running with role-appropriate Scorecards based on best practice KPIs in a minimum of time NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

38 38 Performance Management The Advanced Scorecards module allows users to understand their KPIs in context by displaying the KPI results relative to goal, relative to peers, and as trend graphs Supervisors and Managers can provide feedback beyond the automated scoring provided in the scorecard with the Assessments feature Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Because KPIs have a clear business implication and are quantitative and measurable, they can help contact center management to communicate with all areas of the organization, while helping improve productivity Managers or administrators can use Advanced Scorecards to select the appropriate or relevant KPIs to be displayed by role By selecting a limited number of key KPIs, they can receive a correct picture of their organization without being overwhelmed by information Configuring Role-Appropriate Scorecards You can configure Advanced Scorecards for different contact center roles, using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relevant to each role The KPIs are quantitative and measurable Manager Role KPIs configured for a manager role create scorecards that: Monitor daily achievements and goals for the group Set service level, financial, and advanced goals and analyze the circumstances and operations that affect these goals Allow managers to select their preferred KPIs, browse across the organization over time, or focus on specific KPIs to track area of interests and discover problems Scheduler Role KPIs configured for the scheduler role create scorecards that focus on the ratio of unavailable time and absenteeism shrinkage rate better matching workforce with workload and improving the accuracy of each forecast Basic Scorecards let schedulers tap into call volume, activity handle times and other parameters in order to develop the best schedules Advanced Scorecards lets schedulers tap into call volume, abandoned calls, average handle times and other parameters Supervisor Role KPIs configured for the supervisor role create scorecards that: Monitor daily achievements for the group Enable supervisors to drill down to understand the team or individual performance NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

39 Scorecards Views 39 Agent Role KPIs configured for the agent role create scorecards that: Indicate basic personal performance metrics, such as average contact handling time, percentage of hold, and after-call wrap-up, as well as their level of adherence to the protocol Enable agents to compare their performance to their goals and discover areas for improvement Enable agents to compare their performance to that of top-performing agents (optional functionality) Scorecards Views Advanced Scorecards includes four top-level scorecard types and associated drill-down windows which allow a user to drill down to the next level of information to gain further insight into the operations The five top-level scorecard types are: Organization Scorecard Organization Scorecard presents information summarizing the performance of the selected organization Organization Summary Scorecard Organization Summary Scorecard presents information summarizing the performance of each selected organization My Scorecards My Scorecards allows you to view your own scorecard, including information about your raw scores, the dates during which they were recorded, and how the scores were computed Employee Scorecards Employee Scorecards shows information summarizing the performance of a particular team within the organization Figures here represent the average of all the agents who belong to that team Employee Summary Employee Summary presents information for the individual agents in the team Note: The scorecards and columns shown depend on role, privileges, and the configuration as set by your administrator In general, however, managers and supervisors see all scorecard types, schedulers see the Organization Summary, Organization Scorecard, and My Scorecard; and agents see only My Scorecard NN Standard 70 6 November 2009

40 40 Performance Management As mentioned previously, Advanced Scorecards offers several levels of drill-down, including: A Leader Board, accessed by clicking on the value shown in the Peer column listed above The Leader Board lists the top performers for a particular KPI Depending on the levels of security and permissions granted, this list may show the names, organization, job title, actual, goal, and overall score of the top performers: A Management Coaching List, accessed by clicking on the value shown in the % Met column listed above The Management Coaching List displays the bottom performers for a particular KPI Depending on the levels of security and permissions granted, this list may show the names, organization, job title, actual, goal, and overall score of the top performers: NN Standard 70 6 November 2009