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Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

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  • 1.  Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    Posted 04-21-2021 11:14
    No replies, thread closed.
    We are relatively new to Genesys (about a year or so now) and recently we ran into an issue around planning groups and data.  When we launched WEM on Genesys we setup our planning groups as our business was designed at the time.  Recently we made a change to who takes calls from specific queues and found some queues that were no longer used so we deleted them.  In making these changes some of our agents no longer fell into a planning group so when we looked at the data on the intraday view, it was showing 0's for several values.  We identified the issue and changed the queues that were assigned to the planning groups, but the data didn't change.  We came to find out that the forecasts and schedules are based on the planning groups that were configured at the time they are created (fixed values), but the planning groups themselves change when you make changes to them (dynamic).  So now all the historical and future forecasts and schedules that have already been created are based on the original planning group structures and therefore are showing 0's for things like the forecasted Service Level, Agents, etc. so we can not tell how we did forecast vs actual.  

    Has anyone else run into this issue or have any ideas on how to prevent data loss when queues/planning groups need to change?  The only way I can think to prevent this from happening in the future would be to make each queue it's own planning group, but with hundreds of queues, this feels like an administrative nightmare.

    In our previous system, we were able to apply date rules around these types of changes.  So I could say the planning group contained these queues from 1/1/2021 to 4/4/2021 and then effective 4/5/2021 it contained these queues, so we would never lose historical data.
    #Performance Management
    #Scheduling
    #Workforce Engagement Management

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    Jason Lorden
    Independent Health Association, Inc.
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  • 2.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    GENESYS
    Posted 04-28-2021 06:26
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Jason,

    Apologies, I see you have had no response, I will try to source a reply for you.

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    Tracy
    Genesys
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  • 3.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    GENESYS
    Posted 04-29-2021 07:10
    No replies, thread closed.
    I would not recommend having a planning group per queue. Of course when you generate a forecast we utilize the planning group to know what queues, language, and skill sets to query the historical data from analytics. If you end up deleting a queue, then we can no longer fetch the data from analytics - it's gone.

    Routing changes shouldn't be done frequently or without regard to downstream consequences - especially if you want to utilize WFM for longer term forecasting purposes.

    If for some valid business reason you need to delete a queue and you want to 'preserve' the volume/pattern, then it would be a rather manual effort to utilize export/import capabilities for forecasting (with modification between export and import to 'associate' the volume with new queue(s)).

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    Jay Langsford
    VP, R&D
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  • 4.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    Posted 04-29-2021 12:41
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Jay, 

    Thanks for the feedback.  Deleting queues isn't a common process but it does happen from time to time when we are doing cleanup.  The bigger concern I have is what do we do when we have to add queues or change who is working a given queue?  I have worked in many contact centers and adding queues or changing which group of people answers calls in a given queue is common place in my experience.  I have yet to work in a contact center that is set it and forget it.  So what do we do when we have to add a queue to a planning group or have to move a queue from one planning group to another because of a change in business process?  

    Having to manually take data out of a system and store it in excel files seems like a waste of administrative resources.  

    Thanks!

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    Jason Lorden
    Independent Health Association, Inc.
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  • 5.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    GENESYS
    Posted 04-29-2021 13:47
    No replies, thread closed.
    Regarding your 'add queue' scenario, if it is truly a new queue we obviously can't guess at things like volume, AHT, and arrival pattern...to bootstrap forecasting you'd either need to utilize an import mechanism or wait until you have at least one weeks' worth of historical data.

    Small changes will be 'in the noise' and eventually get baked into future forecasts. Large, complex, or wholesale routing and planning group changes should be done with caution and perhaps with guidance from Genesys consultants. Worst-case, if it is essentially a complete re-do of routing and planning groups, then it should be treated as a day 1 type of scenario where you should use import capabilities until you have enough historical data to do forecasting.

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    Jay Langsford
    VP, R&D
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  • 6.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    Posted 04-29-2021 15:21
    No replies, thread closed.
    Sorry, I should have been more clear.  I understand how to do the forecasting for new queues.  My question is what do I do about losing the historical data because the planning groups are changing and will no longer match the configuration of any previously created forecast or schedule?

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    Jason Lorden
    Independent Health Association, Inc.
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  • 7.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    GENESYS
    Posted 04-30-2021 06:49
    No replies, thread closed.

    After a change you will need to generate a new forecast and a new schedule. If you want to utilize old data in some way, then you would need to extract relevant data (analytics query, forecast export), transform that data, and then utilize one of the import functionalities. On queue deletions, analytics will delete any historical data so you'd have to extract the data prior to a deletion if you want to retain it - that is upstream from WFM.

    @Daniel Rickwalder might have some general best practices he can share.



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    Jay Langsford
    VP, R&D
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  • 8.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    Posted 05-03-2021 12:29
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Jay, 

    Thanks for the info and the work around.  Obviously our preference would be that the forecast and scheduling pieces of the system be updated to be more dynamic or at the very least have effective date rules to account for changes, but I understand that would take some time and development. Having to pull data out of the system and then reimport could be very time intensive based on the number of queues, skills, planning groups, etc. and just opens the door for human error.  

    Thanks!

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    Jason Lorden
    Independent Health Association, Inc.
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  • 9.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    Posted 04-30-2021 16:30
    No replies, thread closed.
    Sorry to piggy bakc on this.

    Hi @Jay Langsford what's the main reason you wouldn't recommend a planning group per queue?  We have a number of customers where there may be 10 queues but agents are all in various combinations of those queues.  So in that scenario having a planning group per queue seems like the only way to really configure this.  It obviously means agents are in ​multiple planning groups.  Is there a better alternative?

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    Vaun McCarthy
    NTT New Zealand Limited
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  • 10.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    GENESYS
    Posted 04-30-2021 16:35
    No replies, thread closed.
    For a small number of queues it would be fine to be more 1:1 to planning groups; with hundreds of queues it becomes cumbersome which is why for that scenario I wouldn't recommend it.

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    Jay Langsford
    VP, R&D
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  • 11.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    Posted 04-30-2021 16:41
    No replies, thread closed.
    Yep definitely make sense to avoid that in such a large queue spread like that, thanks Jay.

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    Vaun McCarthy
    NTT New Zealand Limited
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  • 12.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    GENESYS
    Posted 04-29-2021 08:51
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Jason, 

    Thanks for posting an idea related to this on our ideas portal.  We'll continue to track the issue there.
    https://genesyscloud.ideas.aha.io/ideas/CLWFO-I-515

    Thank you,
    Chris Johnson
    Product Management

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    Christopher Johnson
    Genesys - Employees
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  • 13.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    GENESYS
    Posted 04-30-2021 15:31
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Jason,  the way I read your original message, I think you did this:
    1. generated a forecast and schedule
    2. changed Planning Groups
    3. tried to update the forecast associated with that original schedule generateion.
    If I have that correct, your issue is that you can't change planning groups on an exisiting forecast and would need to generate a new forecast.   you should not lose historical data it just wouldn't upadate in that original forecast. 

    However, if you have rebuilt queues and skills (so in essence they are actually new queues/skills.) you would "lose the old queue data.  IN that case it may be advantagious to export the old data and improt it into WFM using the historical data import and renaming everything using the new names. 

    If I'm missing something let me know


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    Daniel Rickwalder
    Genesys
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  • 14.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    Posted 05-03-2021 10:54
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Daniel, 

    Thanks for your response.  To answer your question, the issue did arise in existing forecasts/schedules after we changed the queues that were assigned to a given planning group that was associated with one of those already created forecasts and schedules. In this instance, we had a couple changes to planning groups:
    1. We deleted a queue that was associated with one planning group
    2. We removed some queues from a couple planning groups and we moved them to another planning group

    I am 99% sure that we attempted to just create a new forecast but that alone wouldn't fix the issue.  We had to also delete and recreate the schedules to get the data to update in the intraday stats page.  Does that sound correct to you, or do you believe that creating a new forecast alone will fix the issue?  

    My concern is really around creating new queues due to business need and/or moving queues to other planning groups because of business need.  We have one area of our company that is looking for our assistance in setting up forecasting and scheduling for their agents in Genesys, but they are constantly growing and adding new clients which require separate queues and skills for the agents.  How do I manage historical data and planning groups for them without it sucking up hours and hours of administrative time?  

    Thanks!

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    Jason Lorden
    Independent Health Association, Inc.
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  • 15.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    GENESYS
    Posted 05-03-2021 13:07
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Jason,  yes you would need to create a new schedule too.  so Ideally you would plan ahead for a new quue and prepare in advance.  If you get suprised by a new queue during an existing published schedule week then you could republish, but you would need to add in all manual changes.  or you would have to live without the new queue forecast that week.


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    Daniel Rickwalder
    Genesys
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  • 16.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    Posted 05-03-2021 16:06
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Daniel, 

    So my dilemma is not necessarily what happens in the future, but rather what happens with all the historical data.

    For example lets say I have a planning group that I have been using for 9 months.  We find that starting next week we need to add a new queue to that planning group.  So we build the queue, add it to the planning group, create a forecast and schedule for next week with that queue created.  That next week is great and will be fine.  However, the forecast for the Service Level and Number of Agents for the historical stats for the last 9 months is now 0 since the planning group no longer matches what was previously forecasted and scheduled.  So to get the data back, it sounds like I would have to delete the old forecasts and schedules and then rebuild the schedules to match what they were previously so that the adherence numbers are the same.  There is no way I want to take that level of admin work on.  

    Either not many of your customers ever change planning groups, or maybe the don't track the forecast vs. the actual historically for these metrics (unless they take the time to take the forecasted data out of the system for every planning group each week).  I don't want to have to pull data out of a system and track it manually.  I feel the system should be smart and agile enough to account for changes over time.  

    I know it's not my job to solution, but I think the system needs effective dates for changes to people, planning groups, etc.  I can say that the WFM system we came from gave us that ability so we could always view the data in the context of the setup at the given time and not based on today's configuration.

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    Jason Lorden
    Independent Health Association, Inc.
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  • 17.  RE: Changes to Planning Groups and Historical Data

    Posted 05-11-2021 10:47
    No replies, thread closed.
    I guess the answer is there currently is not a way to protect historical forecasted data in Genesys when you need to add or remove queues from a planning group. 

    When changes like this are necessary, it sounds like my options are:
    1. To rebuild forecasts and schedules historically (could be months worth of schedules)
    2. Manually track the forecast vs actual data outside of Genesys.  
    Does anyone have any other thoughts or ideas on this topic?  My preference is to stay within an application whenever possible, but given the option of rebuilding forecasts and schedules or tracking data outside of the Genesys application, I would rather track information outside the application.  

    Thanks!

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    Jason Lorden
    Independent Health Association, Inc.
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