How to use Plans

You can use the Plans tool to streamline the process of planning, validating, and publishing employee schedules. You can define scheduling rules for groups of agents, identify and resolve potential issues before finalizing schedules, and manage all scheduling activities through a centralized tool.

Prerequisites

You have the Plans and Manage planning groups permissions.

Page location

WFM > Plans

Procedures

Create a new planning group

Planning groups are dynamic and can be defined by site, team, skill, part-time status, or other optional columns. For more information about optional columns, see Optional columns.

Click New planning group.
Enter a Planning group name.
Filter for a site, team, skill, contract, or shift bag.
In the Scheduling settings section, enter a name.
Select or clear the Day off optimization check box and enter the minimum or maximum number for the following settings:
- Days off per week
- Consecutive workdays
- Consecutive days off
- Full weekends off
- Weekend days off
Select one of the following options for Block scheduling:
- Off
- Between days off
  - Same shift category
  - Same start time
  - Same shift
- Schedule period
  - Same shift category
  - Same start time
  - Same shift
Select one of the following options for Team scheduling:
- Off
- Business hierarchy
  - Same shift category
  - Same start time
  - Same end time

Enter a percentage amount for Preference fulfillment.
Toggle the following sliders on or off:
- Rotations
- Shift patterns
- Availabilities

(Optional) If you want to add more than one scheduling setting, click New scheduling setting and complete steps 4 to 6 again and then click Save.

NOTE Scheduling settings are prioritized in order, with the top setting applied first, followed by subsequent settings for any agents not covered by prior ones. The default scheduling setting, always positioned at the bottom, applies to any agents not captured by other scheduling settings. The settings can be reordered, except for the default, which remains fixed at the bottom.

Click Save.

Edit a planning group

On the Plans landing page, click Edit planning group for the planning group that you want to edit. If you cannot see the planning group, enter the planning group name in the Filter planning groups field.
Edit the Planning group name.
Filter for a site, team, skill, contract, or shift bag.
In the Scheduling settings section, edit the name.
Select or clear Day off optimization and edit the minimum or maximum number for the following settings:
- Days off per week
- Consecutive workdays
- Consecutive days off
- Full weekends off
- Weekend days off
Select one of the following options for Block scheduling:
- Off
- Between days off
  - Same shift category
  - Same start time
  - Same shift
- Schedule period
  - Same shift category
  - Same start time
  - Same shift
Select one of the following options for Team scheduling:
- Off
- Business hierarchy
  - Same shift category
  - Same start time
  - Same shift

Edit the percentage amount for Preference fulfillment.
Toggle the following sliders on or off:
- Rotations
- Shift patterns
- Availabilities

(Optional) If you want to add more than one scheduling setting, click New scheduling setting and complete steps 1 to 9 again.

Click Save.

Delete a planning group

On the Plans landing page, click Edit planning group for the planning group that you want to delete. If you cannot see the planning group, enter the planning group name in the Filter planning groups field
On the Edit page, click Delete.
Click OK.

Create a planning period

Planning periods are defined scheduling windows (for example, 2-week or 4-week increments) for planning in consistent iterations.

On the Plans landing page, click View planning periods.
There are the following two options:
- If you already have existing planning periods, click Create next planning period.
- If you do not have existing planning periods, click Create planning period, select either a suggested date range on the Suggestions tab or a custom date range on the Custom tab, and then click Save.

Manage planning periods

On the Plans landing page, click View planning periods.
Click Details.
You can browse the following three tabs:
- On the Overview tab, view the number of scheduled agents. To view the schedules, click View schedules.
- On the Validations tab, view issues that occur. For example, a scheduled period might not match a selected period or an agent might not have any schedule period for a selected period. You can use this information to proactively catch problems before scheduling.
- On the Agents tab, view an agent's name, employment number, or site/team.

You can perform the following optional steps:
- To schedule the agents, click Schedule and then click OK.
- To perform intraday optimization for agents, click Optimize intraday and then click OK.
- Click Clear scheduled shifts and days off and then click OK.
- Click Publish schedule, select a publication date, and click Save.
- Click Update heatmap and click OK.
- Click Scheduling settings and perform steps 4 to 11 in the Create a new planning group procedure.

Delete a planning period

On the Plans landing page, click View planning periods.
Click Delete planning period.
Click Delete.

View schedules

On the Plans landing page, click View planning periods.
Click View schedules. The Schedules tool appears in a new tab.

View an audit trail

On the Plans landing page, click Edit planning group.
Click Audit trail. For further information, see General Audit Trail report.

Change planning duration

On the Plans landing page, click View planning periods.
Click Change planning duration.

NOTE You can only change the planning duration for the top planning period row on the page.
Select Weeks or Months.
Enter a number.
Click Save.