Handled within

The Handled within setting for a skill defines target for how quickly to handle the contacts. This target affects the forecast volume. For less time-sensitive skills, like email and back office, this is expressed as the maximum hours required to handle a contact.

For time-sensitive skill types, like telephony, chat, and retail, the service level target is expressed as a percentage and a number of seconds. See Service level for more information.

For optimal performance, the handled within value can be a maximum of 24 times the interval length of the skill activity. If the interval length for a skill is set to 15 minutes, the maximum handled within time is therefore 6 hours. If the interval length for the skill is 60 minutes, the maximum handled within time is 24 hours.

NOTE   For back-office skills, it is possible to have up to 30 days handle within. See the Create a skill with an Extended service level target procedure for Create a skill (web Forecasts tool)

Only the open hours of the skill are considered when calculating the handled within time. For all emails or tasks arriving during hours outside the skill's open hours, the handled within time does not start counting until the first interval of the open hours.

EXAMPLE   A support skill has a target that all customers should have a reply within 24 hours. The daily open hours for the skill are 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM (8 hours). The handled within target is therefore set to 8 hours.

You can set varying service level targets for the different days of the week or the different intervals of the day. For example, it might be acceptable with a longer response time at night when volumes are usually lower. See Adjust skill targets for more information.

When a period is scheduled, you can see the predicted service level for the skill. It indicates the service level that can be reached with the current schedules. Predicted service level is calculated based on the forecast, considering the efficiency and the occupancy factors. The shrinkage factor is taken into consideration when calculating predicted service level if you have selected to include shrinkage. It is important to note that the predicted service level is a prediction and not a guarantee of performance. See Understand the result table parameters for more information on how the predicted service level is calculated.