Hello community!

I was really pleased to see the release of work plan bids this week although I do have a couple of questions:

• If a user is already assigned to a work plan and participates in the work plan bid process, which takes precedence?
• How does this change with the addition of rotations to the mix?
• I assume that work plan bids work best with fixed work plans (e.g., fixed start and end times with either flexible or fixed breaks and lunches). Can somebody confirm if that's the case? The reason I'm asking is that if we open up a work plan bid process for extremely flexible shift start times (e.g., anywhere between 6am and 11am), this might defeat the purpose of the whole work plan bid process. I can see a couple of use cases in which such an approach also makes sense, but I see the baseline use case not as an addition to flexible work plans but rather as a replacement altogether.
• I still haven't had the opportunity to test this out fully, so I'm highly interested in the review/approval/publishing process. Are agents automatically assigned to the work plans that they were approved for, or is it a manual user assignment process? (This question actually relates to the first two questions.)
• Is gamification required for the performance-based work plan bid approval process, or is the system looking at some standard metrics such as AHT, ASA, Not Responding, Adherence, etc.?

Thanks in advance
Aleksandar

#WorkforceManagement

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Aleksandar Narancic
Star Telecom
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Hi Aleksandar, 

It's great to hear you are as excited as we are for the Work Plan bidding release😁

• If a user is already assigned to a work plan and participates in the work plan bid process, which takes precedence?

The user will be scheduled based on their currently assigned Work Plan during the bid up to the stated effective date. Once the bid has been closed, validated and published the user's Work Plan will be updated to take effect from the date set in the Bid process. The schedule generation process will pick up the correct Work Plan for each week being scheduled so even is a bid becomes effective part way through your next schedule period the change will be picked up and the user scheduled correctly.

• How does this change with the addition of rotations to the mix?

While you can't use a rotation as part of a bid process, only single wee Work Plan can be part of a Bid Group, users can transition from a rotation to a standard Work Plan via a bid. 

• I assume that work plan bids work best with fixed work plans (e.g., fixed start and end times with either flexible or fixed breaks and lunches). Can somebody confirm if that's the case? The reason I'm asking is that if we open up a work plan bid process for extremely flexible shift start times (e.g., anywhere between 6am and 11am), this might defeat the purpose of the whole work plan bid process. I can see a couple of use cases in which such an approach also makes sense, but I see the baseline use case not as an addition to flexible work plans but rather as a replacement altogether.

No, this is where Work Plan Bidding differs from traditional shift bidding processes. Flexible Work Plans are just as valid for bid as fixed Work Plans, the user is not bidding on the schedule outcome but on the rules by which they are happy to be scheduled. 

As a user, I might have a preference to not work past 6:00 pm and I need Thursday as a rest day so that I can attend my sports club practice. In Selected a Work Plan with flexible shifts covering 7:00 am - 6:00 pm I have a variety of possible shifts and if I want to make a short notice change I'm able to make use of Alternative Shifts (Shift Trades with the system)

Equally, there will always be a group of users that need a fixed and stable shift pattern. These users can bid on more restrictive Work Plans or have Work Plans allocated outside of the bid.

• I still haven't had the opportunity to test this out fully, so I'm highly interested in the review/approval/publishing process. Are agents automatically assigned to the work plans that they were approved for, or is it a manual user assignment process? (This question actually relates to the first two questions.)

Not yet but I think that would be an awesome next step 🙂
The allocation and approval process is as follows:

1. The Bid closes
2. The system will then order all the users in Rank/Performance order and allocate the user's preference of Work Plan.
   • starting at the top of the list we allocate the user's top possible preference. This is simply a chase of checking off the "suggested" Work Plan Slots that were agreed upon before opening the bid until all users have been allocated a Work Plan.
3. Following the Allocation process, the Administrator can review the Work Plan allocations and make adjustments if required, along with a reason for the change.
4. Once happy with the Work Plan allocations the Administrator then publishes the results.
   • The user's Work Plan is updated along with the effective date.
   • The user's Work Plan tab in Agent Home/Activity is updated with a record of the closed bid and details of their allocated Work Plan.

At this point the Bid is complete and the normal scheduling cycle can continue.

• Is gamification required for the performance-based work plan bid approval process, or is the system looking at some standard metrics such as AHT, ASA, Not Responding, Adherence, etc.?

Not for this release, during our research there were a lot of organisations that used a different performance calculation and weighting to that of Gamification. This would require a new approach or the ability to assign a user to multiple Gamification Profiles, both of which were out of scope for this project. 
The Performance and Custom values will make use of the new User Attribute Service and will need to be imported via the User Attribute Service API. Full details can be found in the Developer Centre under /useragentman/users/

Hello community!

I was really pleased to see the release of work plan bids this week although I do have a couple of questions:

• If a user is already assigned to a work plan and participates in the work plan bid process, which takes precedence?
• How does this change with the addition of rotations to the mix?
• I assume that work plan bids work best with fixed work plans (e.g., fixed start and end times with either flexible or fixed breaks and lunches). Can somebody confirm if that's the case? The reason I'm asking is that if we open up a work plan bid process for extremely flexible shift start times (e.g., anywhere between 6am and 11am), this might defeat the purpose of the whole work plan bid process. I can see a couple of use cases in which such an approach also makes sense, but I see the baseline use case not as an addition to flexible work plans but rather as a replacement altogether.
• I still haven't had the opportunity to test this out fully, so I'm highly interested in the review/approval/publishing process. Are agents automatically assigned to the work plans that they were approved for, or is it a manual user assignment process? (This question actually relates to the first two questions.)
• Is gamification required for the performance-based work plan bid approval process, or is the system looking at some standard metrics such as AHT, ASA, Not Responding, Adherence, etc.?

Thanks in advance
Aleksandar

Hi Aleksandar, 

It's great to hear you are as excited as we are for the Work Plan bidding release😁

• If a user is already assigned to a work plan and participates in the work plan bid process, which takes precedence?

The user will be scheduled based on their currently assigned Work Plan during the bid up to the stated effective date. Once the bid has been closed, validated and published the user's Work Plan will be updated to take effect from the date set in the Bid process. The schedule generation process will pick up the correct Work Plan for each week being scheduled so even is a bid becomes effective part way through your next schedule period the change will be picked up and the user scheduled correctly.

• How does this change with the addition of rotations to the mix?

While you can't use a rotation as part of a bid process, only single wee Work Plan can be part of a Bid Group, users can transition from a rotation to a standard Work Plan via a bid. 

• I assume that work plan bids work best with fixed work plans (e.g., fixed start and end times with either flexible or fixed breaks and lunches). Can somebody confirm if that's the case? The reason I'm asking is that if we open up a work plan bid process for extremely flexible shift start times (e.g., anywhere between 6am and 11am), this might defeat the purpose of the whole work plan bid process. I can see a couple of use cases in which such an approach also makes sense, but I see the baseline use case not as an addition to flexible work plans but rather as a replacement altogether.

No, this is where Work Plan Bidding differs from traditional shift bidding processes. Flexible Work Plans are just as valid for bid as fixed Work Plans, the user is not bidding on the schedule outcome but on the rules by which they are happy to be scheduled. 

As a user, I might have a preference to not work past 6:00 pm and I need Thursday as a rest day so that I can attend my sports club practice. In Selected a Work Plan with flexible shifts covering 7:00 am - 6:00 pm I have a variety of possible shifts and if I want to make a short notice change I'm able to make use of Alternative Shifts (Shift Trades with the system)

Equally, there will always be a group of users that need a fixed and stable shift pattern. These users can bid on more restrictive Work Plans or have Work Plans allocated outside of the bid.

• I still haven't had the opportunity to test this out fully, so I'm highly interested in the review/approval/publishing process. Are agents automatically assigned to the work plans that they were approved for, or is it a manual user assignment process? (This question actually relates to the first two questions.)

Not yet but I think that would be an awesome next step 🙂
The allocation and approval process is as follows:

1. The Bid closes
2. The system will then order all the users in Rank/Performance order and allocate the user's preference of Work Plan.
   • starting at the top of the list we allocate the user's top possible preference. This is simply a chase of checking off the "suggested" Work Plan Slots that were agreed upon before opening the bid until all users have been allocated a Work Plan.
3. Following the Allocation process, the Administrator can review the Work Plan allocations and make adjustments if required, along with a reason for the change.
4. Once happy with the Work Plan allocations the Administrator then publishes the results.
   • The user's Work Plan is updated along with the effective date.
   • The user's Work Plan tab in Agent Home/Activity is updated with a record of the closed bid and details of their allocated Work Plan.

At this point the Bid is complete and the normal scheduling cycle can continue.

• Is gamification required for the performance-based work plan bid approval process, or is the system looking at some standard metrics such as AHT, ASA, Not Responding, Adherence, etc.?

Not for this release, during our research there were a lot of organisations that used a different performance calculation and weighting to that of Gamification. This would require a new approach or the ability to assign a user to multiple Gamification Profiles, both of which were out of scope for this project. 
The Performance and Custom values will make use of the new User Attribute Service and will need to be imported via the User Attribute Service API. Full details can be found in the Developer Centre under /useragentman/users/

Hello community!

I was really pleased to see the release of work plan bids this week although I do have a couple of questions:

• If a user is already assigned to a work plan and participates in the work plan bid process, which takes precedence?
• How does this change with the addition of rotations to the mix?
• I assume that work plan bids work best with fixed work plans (e.g., fixed start and end times with either flexible or fixed breaks and lunches). Can somebody confirm if that's the case? The reason I'm asking is that if we open up a work plan bid process for extremely flexible shift start times (e.g., anywhere between 6am and 11am), this might defeat the purpose of the whole work plan bid process. I can see a couple of use cases in which such an approach also makes sense, but I see the baseline use case not as an addition to flexible work plans but rather as a replacement altogether.
• I still haven't had the opportunity to test this out fully, so I'm highly interested in the review/approval/publishing process. Are agents automatically assigned to the work plans that they were approved for, or is it a manual user assignment process? (This question actually relates to the first two questions.)
• Is gamification required for the performance-based work plan bid approval process, or is the system looking at some standard metrics such as AHT, ASA, Not Responding, Adherence, etc.?

Thanks in advance
Aleksandar

Hi Paul,

Great info. Just so I'm clear, the Performance option for Agent Ranking does NOT use Genesys Gamification scores. Is that correct?

Also, is there a way at this time to manually rank the agents, in the event that we do not want to use Hire Date or Performance? Thanks.

Hi Aleksandar, 

It's great to hear you are as excited as we are for the Work Plan bidding release😁

• If a user is already assigned to a work plan and participates in the work plan bid process, which takes precedence?

The user will be scheduled based on their currently assigned Work Plan during the bid up to the stated effective date. Once the bid has been closed, validated and published the user's Work Plan will be updated to take effect from the date set in the Bid process. The schedule generation process will pick up the correct Work Plan for each week being scheduled so even is a bid becomes effective part way through your next schedule period the change will be picked up and the user scheduled correctly.

• How does this change with the addition of rotations to the mix?

While you can't use a rotation as part of a bid process, only single wee Work Plan can be part of a Bid Group, users can transition from a rotation to a standard Work Plan via a bid. 

• I assume that work plan bids work best with fixed work plans (e.g., fixed start and end times with either flexible or fixed breaks and lunches). Can somebody confirm if that's the case? The reason I'm asking is that if we open up a work plan bid process for extremely flexible shift start times (e.g., anywhere between 6am and 11am), this might defeat the purpose of the whole work plan bid process. I can see a couple of use cases in which such an approach also makes sense, but I see the baseline use case not as an addition to flexible work plans but rather as a replacement altogether.

No, this is where Work Plan Bidding differs from traditional shift bidding processes. Flexible Work Plans are just as valid for bid as fixed Work Plans, the user is not bidding on the schedule outcome but on the rules by which they are happy to be scheduled. 

As a user, I might have a preference to not work past 6:00 pm and I need Thursday as a rest day so that I can attend my sports club practice. In Selected a Work Plan with flexible shifts covering 7:00 am - 6:00 pm I have a variety of possible shifts and if I want to make a short notice change I'm able to make use of Alternative Shifts (Shift Trades with the system)

Equally, there will always be a group of users that need a fixed and stable shift pattern. These users can bid on more restrictive Work Plans or have Work Plans allocated outside of the bid.

• I still haven't had the opportunity to test this out fully, so I'm highly interested in the review/approval/publishing process. Are agents automatically assigned to the work plans that they were approved for, or is it a manual user assignment process? (This question actually relates to the first two questions.)

Not yet but I think that would be an awesome next step 🙂
The allocation and approval process is as follows:

1. The Bid closes
2. The system will then order all the users in Rank/Performance order and allocate the user's preference of Work Plan.
   • starting at the top of the list we allocate the user's top possible preference. This is simply a chase of checking off the "suggested" Work Plan Slots that were agreed upon before opening the bid until all users have been allocated a Work Plan.
3. Following the Allocation process, the Administrator can review the Work Plan allocations and make adjustments if required, along with a reason for the change.
4. Once happy with the Work Plan allocations the Administrator then publishes the results.
   • The user's Work Plan is updated along with the effective date.
   • The user's Work Plan tab in Agent Home/Activity is updated with a record of the closed bid and details of their allocated Work Plan.

At this point the Bid is complete and the normal scheduling cycle can continue.

• Is gamification required for the performance-based work plan bid approval process, or is the system looking at some standard metrics such as AHT, ASA, Not Responding, Adherence, etc.?

Not for this release, during our research there were a lot of organisations that used a different performance calculation and weighting to that of Gamification. This would require a new approach or the ability to assign a user to multiple Gamification Profiles, both of which were out of scope for this project. 
The Performance and Custom values will make use of the new User Attribute Service and will need to be imported via the User Attribute Service API. Full details can be found in the Developer Centre under /useragentman/users/

Hello community!

I was really pleased to see the release of work plan bids this week although I do have a couple of questions:

• If a user is already assigned to a work plan and participates in the work plan bid process, which takes precedence?
• How does this change with the addition of rotations to the mix?
• I assume that work plan bids work best with fixed work plans (e.g., fixed start and end times with either flexible or fixed breaks and lunches). Can somebody confirm if that's the case? The reason I'm asking is that if we open up a work plan bid process for extremely flexible shift start times (e.g., anywhere between 6am and 11am), this might defeat the purpose of the whole work plan bid process. I can see a couple of use cases in which such an approach also makes sense, but I see the baseline use case not as an addition to flexible work plans but rather as a replacement altogether.
• I still haven't had the opportunity to test this out fully, so I'm highly interested in the review/approval/publishing process. Are agents automatically assigned to the work plans that they were approved for, or is it a manual user assignment process? (This question actually relates to the first two questions.)
• Is gamification required for the performance-based work plan bid approval process, or is the system looking at some standard metrics such as AHT, ASA, Not Responding, Adherence, etc.?

Thanks in advance
Aleksandar