Manage dynamic shrinkage

Shrinkage is the loss of resources due to non-skill-related activities, like trainings and meetings, and absences, such as paid time off and sick leave. It is used to calculate the total number of agents needed to handle the forecasted volume by including the number of agents required to cover for absences and non-skill activities which are not yet planned when scheduling the agents. Shrinkage levels are often different depending on the time frame. Most absences and non-skill activities for today and tomorrow are already known, so the shrinkage is low. Looking at a period three weeks from now, we need to use a higher shrinkage because there is still a lot that is unknown.

With dynamic shrinkage, a gradually decreasing share of the original shrinkage defined in the skill template is used for the near future, for a period starting maximum 30 days from today and until today. This is helpful to reduce the manual work to adjust the shrinkage levels.

The dynamic shrinkage values in use for each day and interval are shown in the Forecasts module in the WFM client. When dynamic shrinkage is enabled, the shrinkage values appear dimmed and cannot be edited. The dynamic shrinkage values are updated each night, according to the server time zone. For any dates before or after the dynamic shrinkage period, the original shrinkage values from the skill templates or any manual adjustments are shown.

In the view of dynamic shrinkage templates, you can hover the Used in skills field for a template to see which skills that are connected to this template.

Prerequisites

This feature is available to Calabrio GovSuite users.

• You have the Web > Forecasts > Dynamic shrinkage permission.

Page location

WFM > Forecasts

Procedures

Create a dynamic shrinkage template and assign it to selected skills

1. Click Manage and select Dynamic shrinkage.
2. Click New template.
3. Ensure the Enabled check box is selected.
4. Enter a Name for the dynamic shrinkage template.

5. Enter the share to use for today in the Share of the original shrinkage to use for today field. Currently only integers are supported.

   NOTE   This is not the shrinkage that is applied, but the share of the original shrinkage to use.

   EXAMPLE   In the skill template for today, the shrinkage is set to 20%. If you set the share to 10%, the applied shrinkage for today will be 2%.

6. In the Dynamic shrinkage period in days field, enter the length of the period for which you want the shrinkage to gradually decrease, down to the share set for today. The maximum number of days is 30.

   EXAMPLE   The dynamic shrinkage period is 24 days, and the share set for today is 8%. In this case, the share for first day in the period is 100% of the original shrinkage, for the second day it is 96%, for the third 92%, and so on, down to 8% of the original shrinkage set for today.

7. Select the skills to connect to this dynamic shrinkage template in the left-hand list of skills and click the arrow to move them to the right-hand side.

   One dynamic skill template can be connected to several skills. A skill can only be connected to one dynamic shrinkage template at a time.

8. Click Create.

   NOTE   The shrinkage levels for the selected period are not visible right away. They are updated at midnight, according to the server time zone, and are applied from the next day.

Disable a dynamic shrinkage template

When you disable the dynamic shrinkage templates, the original shrinkage values are restored for all connected skills.

1. Click Manage and select Dynamic shrinkage.
2. Click Edit for the dynamic shrinkage template to disable.
3. Clear the Enabled check box.
4. Click Save.

NOTE   To restore the shrinkage back to the skill template values for only some of the skills which are connected to a dynamic shrinkage template, remove those skills from the dynamic shrinkage template.

Delete a dynamic shrinkage template

1. Click Manage and select Dynamic shrinkage

2. For the dynamic shrinkage template to delete, click Delete.

   A dynamic shrinkage template cannot be deleted if there are any skills attached to it. If the Delete option is not available, edit the dynamic shrinkage template to remove the connected skills and then try again.

Related topics

• Adjust skill targets
• Adjust the forecast manually on the web