Troubleshoot issues with absence requests

Problem Things to check
An absence does not deduct from the budget allowance.

  • Check on which day(s) of the week the problematic absences occur.

    • If requested by the agent, go to Web > Requests.

    • If manually added by a scheduler, go to Web > Schedules or Client > Schedules.

  • Go to Client > People > Person Periods and check the contract schedule assigned to the agent in question.

  • Go to Client > Options > Contract > Contract Schedule, select the contract schedule that was assigned to the agent and verify which days are added as default working days and days off.

An absence does not deduct from the agent’s personal account or personal allowance.

An absence adds a day off when looking at WFM client > Schedules > Days off.

An absence does not show up when pulling an absence report.

NOTE   For any of the problem scenarios, the absence can be manually added by an admin or requested on MyTime by an agent.

Contract schedules define how many working days and days off an agent has per week and which days off are the default days off per week. Unchecked days in the contract schedule are considered default days off. The days off are usually added as absences for a future date where schedules are not yet generated and the day the absence was added for is marked as a “default day off” per the contract schedule. This is applicable for full day absences. Part day absences on non-scheduled days will not show in the allowance.

When scheduling agents with no restrictions (rotations or availabilities), the system by default schedules agents with this contract schedule for Monday to Wednesday. The days off can then be rearranged through optimization. If restrictions such as availabilities or rotations are used, then the system will schedule working days and days off according to those restrictions.

If there is no schedule in place for future dates, and an absence is added to a day that is not selected in the contract schedule (either through an agent request or manually adding the absence), WFM will not deduct from the agents personal account balance or from the budget allowance and the absence will not show up in reporting. This is by design because the WFM system assumes the day will be a day off anyway.

Create "skeleton" schedules for future days or generate "placeholder schedules" for future dates where absences can be requested by agents. This option works well for customers who have relatively static schedules where agents work the same shifts or days every week. After you generate the schedules, when absences are requested it will deduct from the scheduled days and will not deduct from the scheduled days off. This works even when the schedules are not published for future dates.

Create a seven day contract schedule, select all days in the contract schedule, and assign to agents in the People module.

  1. Create a seven day contract schedule.

  2. Assign to agents in People > Person Periods.

    NOTE   If you are implementing this change, before assigning the seven day contract schedule to agents, first go to the Schedule Periods tab, copy the Days off column, and paste the values into the Override days off column. Then, proceed with step 2.

  3. Go to People > Schedule Periods, add Override days off and then add the number of days off an agent should have per week.