This will allow the employee to select specific days and times when they are available for work. The Schedule engine will look to schedule shifts from the Work Plan that fall within these times. This would allow for more flexible work plans, opening up the possibility of Alternative shifts, but restricting the schedule engine options to the agreed start times.
To help with my understanding a little more, if an employee is on a fixed work plan what level of flexibility would you want to give in terms of moving the shift/offering an alternative?
Paul
Original Message:
Sent: 08-14-2024 07:54
From: Jennifer DiCesare
Subject: Alternative Shift (Trade with the System) Shift Trade Walk-Through
Hi Jay,
Thanks for the clarification. This is what I had originally thought when it was released, but thought maybe I was wrong based on some feedback received.
Unfortunately, we have an employee-first approach so we work with our employees to have set shifts that work best for their lives. If we make the start time flexible, it means the scheduling engine will schedule them based on what it thinks is best in that range causing them to possibly have different shifts every day. When we were implementing Genesys, we were under the impression that the flexible start time meant the employee could start their shift within that given range and be within adherence, not that the scheduling engine would choose their start time for them. Therefore we are kind of stuck with static shifts.
I was hoping the Alternative Shifts would finally provide the solution we were hoping for and allow the agent to trade for another start time within our approved flexible range (spoken word since Genesys doesn't support this) that can suit their lifestyle. Especially having some offices in a cities with traffic volatility causing some of our staff to arrive later than expected. Alternative Shifts had the potential to help with this had they had the option to switch their shift once reviewing traffic in the morning. Or alternatively if their child was sick and they needed to find last minute care, etc. There are so many reasons why true flexible start (and then an adjusted end time based on this) is so important for us.
While the scheduling engine is good for larger call centers, there are many scenarios where we need to provide more fixed shifts for some of our staff members, layered with true start/end time flexibility, and the scheduling engine does not cover our needs to put the employee first.
This brings me back to requesting again for my idea to be re-opened as Alternative Shifts does not cover our needs as it currently is.
https://genesyscloud.ideas.aha.io/ideas/WESCH-I-211
Thanks,
Jennifer
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Jennifer DiCesare
Esri Canada
Original Message:
Sent: 08-14-2024 07:39
From: Jay Langsford
Subject: Alternative Shift (Trade with the System) Shift Trade Walk-Through
The shift rows in work plan configurations do not directly result in alternative shifts. The variability in one or more shifts that are configured in a work plan allow for multiple potential shift variations. The mix of all the constraints will reduce that to a valid set of shift that meets constraints. Among those variances the next best (in terms of service performance impact) up to 15 are presented as alternative shifts to the agent.
In your screen shot you have only 1 shift variant possibility because your shift is completely locked down (fixed shift start/end, fixed activity start/end) and as such there are no alternatives possible. Likely just trial, but the difference between your two shifts is only in start time and that variability could be done in one shift row with flexible start times rather than have two shifts - e.g., shift start could be from 8am to 9am with 60m step increment that would allow for the possibility of either an 8am start or a 9am start.
The following resource article has two expandable Example sections near the top explain a bit more about work plan configuration and how the scheduling engine chooses amongst. https://help.mypurecloud.com/articles/work-plans-configuration-overview/
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Jay Langsford
VP, R&D
Original Message:
Sent: 08-13-2024 14:22
From: Jennifer DiCesare
Subject: Alternative Shift (Trade with the System) Shift Trade Walk-Through
Hi Paul,
Any chance more documentation on how to configure the shifts to become available for the agent could be provided? I have followed the steps in the video (although it does not cover this part of the configuration) and tried various work plan changes, yet no alternate shifts are appearing for agents.
As per the idea post we were chatting on, you mentioned the Alternative Shifts are based on the employee's Work Plan Configuration. I assume since I'm assigned to the following Work Plan, that I need to add an extra shift in here, which I've done in the second record.
However, that just shows me this view in my Schedule, but I cannot find any alternate shifts.
I have also tried configuring a new work plan assigned to no agents (since you cannot be assigned to more than one), but that does not appear as an Alternate Shift either.
Thank you,
Jennifer
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Jennifer DiCesare
Esri Canada
Original Message:
Sent: 08-05-2024 09:07
From: Paul Wood
Subject: Alternative Shift (Trade with the System) Shift Trade Walk-Through
Hi Community,
there has been a lot of interest and questions around the new Trade with the system Shift Trades, Alternative Shifts, and I wanted to cover as many of them as possible in a short walk-through video.
In addition to the video, we are updating the Resource Centre documents to help better explain how to use the feature. I'll update the post with links as soon as the updated documentation is queued for release.
update
Paul
#Configuration
#WorkforceManagement
#Scheduling
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Paul Wood
Product Manager for Genesys Cloud Workforce Management
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