Block and team scheduling overview

Block scheduling schedules the same or similar shifts for an agent within a defined period. Team scheduling schedules the same or similar shifts for all agents within a team or group page.

NOTE Block or team scheduling should not be combined with any other types of restrictions, like preferences or rotations.

Block scheduling

When you schedule using block scheduling, the shifts are scheduled in blocks. A block is either the workdays between two days off, or all days in a schedule period. All the agent's shifts within a block are similar. They can be of the same shift category, with the same start time or even be the same specific shift.

When you use block scheduling, you must remember to select the block scheduling option also when optimizing the schedule. Otherwise the blocks will be rescheduled. It is important that you select the same definition of a block, that is Between days off or Schedule period, when you optimize as you selected when you scheduled.

NOTE

The agents' shift bags must have rule sets with shifts that are available for all weekdays for block scheduling to work. This applies regardless of if you are block scheduling with the same shift category, same start time or same shift.
Block scheduling makes it more difficult to get a good result when optimizing. It works best for large skills with many agents.

Team scheduling

Use team scheduling to schedule all agents in a team to work roughly the same hours. They can work shifts of the same shift category, with the same start time or end time or have a selected activity at the same time, for example lunch.

When optimizing the schedule, you can define if an agent in the team can have a day off while the other agents are working or if they should all have the same days off. This is controlled with the Same days off option.

The team scheduling functionality is not restricted to use the business hierarchy teams only. It's possible to use any group page to define the groups. All agents in the same group will be scheduled with similar shifts according to the selected options.

When you use team scheduling, you must remember to select the team scheduling option also when optimizing the schedule. Otherwise the teams will no longer have similar shifts. It is important that you select the same team or group page when you optimize as you selected when you scheduled.

EXAMPLE Team scheduling can be used for carpools, to give all agents in one carpool the same working hours.

NOTE The agents' shift bags must have rule sets with shifts that are available for all weekdays for team scheduling to work well. This applies regardless of if you are team scheduling with same shift category, same start time, same end time or same activity.

Using both block and team scheduling

When using both block and team scheduling at the same time, the chance of a good result is higher if the agents within a team have similar settings for contract, part-time percentage and shift bag.

An agent who changes teams within a block will cause issues if using both block and team scheduling at the same time.