Workforce Engagement Management

Hi There

#Forecasting

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Chandni Kara
Boden MI & Planning Specialist
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Hi Chandni, 

Service level calculations in Genesys Cloud do not consider queue operating schedules. Wait time is not paused when a queue is closed, and any time spent waiting during closed hours is fully included in the total wait time.

For example: if an email enters the queue at 2:00 AM when you're closed, and it's answered at 9:00 AM when you reopen, the entire overnight period counts toward the wait time-which could make meeting your 8-hour service level challenging.

A solution option is to pause or hold emails when you're closed using Architect flows. The Wait action allows you to pause email processing for up to 72 hours in inbound email flows. You can configure this in literal mode (setting a specific duration) or expression mode (using expressions to calculate when to release emails).

Additionally, you can implement schedule-based routing using Evaluate Schedule actions in your inbound email flows. This allows you to:

• Assess your organization's schedule with an Evaluate Schedule action;
• Use Evaluate Schedule Group actions to differentiate between open and closed hours;
• Add Send Auto Reply actions to notify senders of delayed responses outside business hours;
• Hold emails during closed hours and release them when you reopen.

This approach ensures emails that arrive overnight are held until your operational hours begin, rather than accumulating wait time while your queues are closed.

About the Forecast Distribution you mentioned, the forecast captures historical data showing when emails were offered to the system and their Average Handle Time (AHT). With your current setup where emails arrive overnight and remain in queue, the system is likely recording those emails in the intervals when they arrived (overnight hours), which may not align with when agents are actually available to handle them. The staffing requirements generation during schedule generation uses this forecasted data to calculate agent needs, but if emails are sitting in queue overnight, this can create mismatches between when volume shows in the forecast versus when you actually need agents scheduled.

By implementing the hold/pause approach, you would better align email arrival patterns with your operational hours, making your forecast more reflective of actual workload during staffing periods and improving schedule generation accuracy.

I hope this helps point you in the right direction. 😊

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Camila Meneghini
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Hi Chandni,

From what I've seen across the Community, a common approach is to hold emails outside the ACD queue while the contact center is closed and only route them to the queue once business hours resume. This seems to provide a better representation of when work is actually available to agents and can help avoid overnight emails influencing queue metrics and WFM forecasting. I'd be interested to hear what others are doing and whether they've found this approach improves forecast accuracy.

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Phaneendra
Technical Solutions Consultant
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I think Camila already covered the Architect approach really well, especially around Evaluate Schedule, Wait, and holding emails outside business hours.

One additional point I'd consider is the impact on Workforce Management. If emails are entering the queue overnight but aren't actually actionable until business hours, the historical data used by Forecasting may not accurately represent when work is truly available. Since staffing calculations are based on historical volume and AHT, aligning the point at which emails become available to agents may also improve schedule generation accuracy.

It's also worth keeping in mind that the Wait action has a 72-hour limit, so if an email needs to be held longer than that, another approach may be necessary.

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Raphael Poliesi
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