Set up validations for shift trade requests

Administrators can save time by handling the validation of all or most agent shift trade requests automatically. The shift trade request settings allow you to enable additional validations in the automatic processing of shift trade requests.

If enabled, these shift trade validations apply to all agents with permissions to do shift trade requests, regardless of which workflow control set they belong to.

NOTE For agents to trade shifts, you need to open a period for shift trade requests. The open period is defined per workflow control set under Options > Scheduling > Workflow control set > Shift trade requests tab. The workflow control set also contains some basic validations which apply based on the workflow control set the agents belong to. The rules apply for workflow control sets that are set to auto-grant shift trade requests. If the workflow control set is not set to auto-grant, all requests go to a pending status regardless of the settings configured on the page. See Create rules to handle shift trade requests for more information.

Prerequisites

You have the Options > Shift Trade Request permission.

Page location

Client > Options > System settings > Shift trade request settings

Procedures

Enable validation on number of seats available

If a site has a limited number of seats and shift trades between sites is allowed, you can validate each shift trade to ensure the max seats value is not exceeded.

Select the Enable maximum seat validation check box to enable validation on number of seats.
Select which interval to use when validating on number of seats.

NOTE Selecting a short interval will give a more precise result but also affect performance more.
Click Apply to save the changes.

Define which business rule validations to use

Decide which shift trade request validations to use to ensure contract rules and other business rules are not broken and how to handle requests that break these rules.

Select the Enabled check box to enable a business rule validation.
Select what the system should do if the validation fails.

Deny—Deny the request immediately.

Send to administrator—Forward the request to be handled manually. It will then be in status Pending until handled.
Repeat for all business rule validations you want to enable.
Click Apply to save your changes.

Available business rule validations

Shift category limitation for period—Ensures that any shift category limitations for the schedule period are not broken for the agents involved in the shift trade.
Shift category limitation for week—Ensures that any shift category limitations for the week are not broken for the agents involved in the shift trade.
Nightly rest—Ensures that the nightly rest set on the contract is not broken for the agents.
Minimum weekly rest—Ensures that the weekly rest set on the contract is not broken for the agents.
Minimum weekly work time—Ensures that the minimum time per week set on the contract is not broken for the agents.
Contract time tolerance—Ensures that the shift trade does not break the target contract time for the schedule period, considering both the tolerance time on the contract and the shift trade tolerance setting for matching contract time.
Day off conflict with activity—Ensures that the shift trade will not cause a day off to be overlapped by a shift. Using this, the day off will not be shorter than the defined day off target length.
Non-overwritable activity in shift—Ensures the shift trade does not cause any personal activities or meetings to be placed on top of activities which are not overwritable.
Meeting, personal activity or overtime activity in shift—Ensures the shift trade won't be automatically approved if there are any personal activities, meetings or overtime activities scheduled on the day of the trade.
Maximum consecutive days without day off—Ensures the shift trade will not cause the agents to have too many consecutive workdays without a scheduled day off. The maximum number of days must set per workflow control set.