Workforce Engagement Management

Hi all,

We've been using Activity Plans for one of our teams for their off-queue time. However when we combine this with the work plans we've created, we've noticed that there's a lot of periods in the schedules with 15min on-queue.  Having to expect someone to jump on queue for a 15min block isn't desirable.

In the activity plan, the scheduling activity is 90mins and the Mailboxes they work on is an hour.  (The 1 hour mailbox is mandated, but the scheduling isn't that time dependent)

What I'd like to know is how can we better plan these shifts so that we don't need to manually adjust all these 15min on-queue blocks.  The easy way would just be to give everyone their own individual workplans, but that kinda defeats the purpose of letting Genesys do it's magic.

Most of the Workplans look something like this;

Is it better to rework the activity plans, or is there anything in relation to the work plans that could help?

Example below;

More end of day gaps.

#WFMConfiguration,BestPractices

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Robert Niblock
Contact Centre Technology Analyst
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Hi @Robert Niblock, 

Not sure if this is important or not, but in your work plan do you have Contigous Work Time ticked?


I believe then the work plan should take into account the minimum and maximum time to be on queue when looking at breaks, meals and off queue time. I am not sure though if that rule applies when the off phone activity is placed via Activty Planner though. 

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Mike Morris
Manager - BCD
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Hi Mike,

Thanks for your response.

I can verify that we have Contiguous enabled.

I've tried increasing Minimum Contiguous to 2hrs, as it seems periods that are 1hr:45mins create a 15min block.  

After testing this, then Genesys now plops Activities in the middle and creates more 15min blocks. 😅

It's almost like Activity Plans needs a feature to snap Off-Queue activities to breaks.  It doesnt look like I can find anything in the Ideas lab, but if anyone from Genesys has any feedback regarding this scenario, I'd be keen to raise an idea for Snap to Breaks for Activity plans.

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Robert Niblock
Contact Centre Technology Analyst
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-21-2026 12:13
From: Mike Morris
Subject: Optimising Activity Plans

Hi @Robert Niblock, 

Not sure if this is important or not, but in your work plan do you have Contigous Work Time ticked?


I believe then the work plan should take into account the minimum and maximum time to be on queue when looking at breaks, meals and off queue time. I am not sure though if that rule applies when the off phone activity is placed via Activty Planner though. 

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Mike Morris
Manager - BCD
------------------------------

For planning specific and regular off-queue or specific work activities, it is best practice to use Work Plan Shift Activities or the new Block Scheduling features. 
These will ensure that the work/activities are optimised during the schedule generation cycle and respect the other Work Plan constraints like  Contiguous Work Time. 

When using Activity Plans, you are looking for periods in the schedule where you can schedule additional activities, during interruptible time (on queue or other Activity Codes that are configured as interruptable) while maintaining service prediction between your upper and lower Service Goal Impact configurations. 

As a rule of thumb:

• Activity Plans should be used to plan meetings, training and 1 off events. 
  • These will be added to the schedule at the times that best support Employee availability and Service Goals
• Work Plans should be used for scheduling known workloads, and regular must have activies.
  • Work Plan activities will be "baked into the schedule" to create an optimised schedule that supports all known workloads, distribution patterns and service levels with the available staff and skill mix.

Are you able to share more of the details around your use case so that we can best understand your challenge/desired outcome for possible solutions?

Paul

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Paul Wood
WFM Product Manager
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Hi Paul, 

Thank for sharing your best practice suggestions, definitely something I could consider for planning this better.

We have a team of about 30 staff across 3 geographical locations and their roles are to manage mailbox tasks, make outbound calls and be on queue to receive inbound calls.  They have KPIs around their outbounds and when we've looked into possibly using a dialler, it's not enough volume for it to be worth the effort and for how they distribute work, it's not viable.

Essentially we'd like to ensure that staff across the locations have equal opportunity for periods of the day to make their Outbounds, whilst working on other tasks and having coverage for our inbound queues.  For context, the outbound calls relate to contacting clients to make bookings with their coordinator.

Based on your your suggestion for best use with Activity Plans, it seems Off-Queue activities like what we're trying to achieve might not be the most suitable.  We may just have to setup a mixture of Workplans and Rotations instead and leave things such as Training and Once-off activities for Activity Plans.  It seems with our requirements, we'd need to setup a lot of individual Workplans which requires a lot of initial effort and planning.  

------------------------------
Robert Niblock
Contact Centre Technology Analyst
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-22-2026 07:22
From: Paul Wood
Subject: Optimising Activity Plans

For planning specific and regular off-queue or specific work activities, it is best practice to use Work Plan Shift Activities or the new Block Scheduling features. 
These will ensure that the work/activities are optimised during the schedule generation cycle and respect the other Work Plan constraints like  Contiguous Work Time. 

When using Activity Plans, you are looking for periods in the schedule where you can schedule additional activities, during interruptible time (on queue or other Activity Codes that are configured as interruptable) while maintaining service prediction between your upper and lower Service Goal Impact configurations. 

As a rule of thumb:

• Activity Plans should be used to plan meetings, training and 1 off events. 
  • These will be added to the schedule at the times that best support Employee availability and Service Goals
• Work Plans should be used for scheduling known workloads, and regular must have activies.
  • Work Plan activities will be "baked into the schedule" to create an optimised schedule that supports all known workloads, distribution patterns and service levels with the available staff and skill mix.

Are you able to share more of the details around your use case so that we can best understand your challenge/desired outcome for possible solutions?

Paul

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Paul Wood
WFM Product Manager
------------------------------

Hi Robert, 

This might be a good case to talk through with your Professional Services contact, as I can see a few possible solutions, but they would require a little thought and configuration.

If you have volumes and arrival times for the mailbox tasks, you could import these as work item tasks, which can then be forecast and scheduled with the inbound work. This could be taken a step further using the new block scheduling features to set a fixed amount of time per shift dedicated to mailbox work.

The Scheduling/call backs could also be handled in this way, or as a flexible Work Plan Activity.  

As you are finding, there are several ways that we can try to replicate your required result; it may take a little time to fine-tune the process to meet all of your expectations.

Paul

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Paul Wood
WFM Product Manager
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-29-2026 23:01
From: Robert Niblock
Subject: Optimising Activity Plans

Hi Paul, 

Thank for sharing your best practice suggestions, definitely something I could consider for planning this better.

We have a team of about 30 staff across 3 geographical locations and their roles are to manage mailbox tasks, make outbound calls and be on queue to receive inbound calls.  They have KPIs around their outbounds and when we've looked into possibly using a dialler, it's not enough volume for it to be worth the effort and for how they distribute work, it's not viable.

Essentially we'd like to ensure that staff across the locations have equal opportunity for periods of the day to make their Outbounds, whilst working on other tasks and having coverage for our inbound queues.  For context, the outbound calls relate to contacting clients to make bookings with their coordinator.

Based on your your suggestion for best use with Activity Plans, it seems Off-Queue activities like what we're trying to achieve might not be the most suitable.  We may just have to setup a mixture of Workplans and Rotations instead and leave things such as Training and Once-off activities for Activity Plans.  It seems with our requirements, we'd need to setup a lot of individual Workplans which requires a lot of initial effort and planning.  

------------------------------
Robert Niblock
Contact Centre Technology Analyst
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 04-22-2026 07:22
From: Paul Wood
Subject: Optimising Activity Plans

For planning specific and regular off-queue or specific work activities, it is best practice to use Work Plan Shift Activities or the new Block Scheduling features. 
These will ensure that the work/activities are optimised during the schedule generation cycle and respect the other Work Plan constraints like  Contiguous Work Time. 

When using Activity Plans, you are looking for periods in the schedule where you can schedule additional activities, during interruptible time (on queue or other Activity Codes that are configured as interruptable) while maintaining service prediction between your upper and lower Service Goal Impact configurations. 

As a rule of thumb:

• Activity Plans should be used to plan meetings, training and 1 off events. 
  • These will be added to the schedule at the times that best support Employee availability and Service Goals
• Work Plans should be used for scheduling known workloads, and regular must have activies.
  • Work Plan activities will be "baked into the schedule" to create an optimised schedule that supports all known workloads, distribution patterns and service levels with the available staff and skill mix.

Are you able to share more of the details around your use case so that we can best understand your challenge/desired outcome for possible solutions?

Paul

------------------------------
Paul Wood
WFM Product Manager