Workforce Engagement Management

My company has Canadian and US lines of business. They're both in the same business unit because while rare, it's possible Canadian agents may be needed for US business and vice versa. This is easy enough in the current setup - simply add the queue and skill to the agent corresponding to the other business. But there's a downside, and that is complexity. When we build schedules, both sites are done at the same time because they're in the same business unit. We have over 150 planning groups combined between the two sites. That alone is enough to drive me bonkers when selecting planning groups within the Intraday Monitoring or Schedule pages.

Is there a better solution to this? Is there a way to separate Canada into another business unit but still be able to use their agents to assist the US business unit?

Hi @Linsey Edn!  Are you wanting to factor them in together when you schedule?  I am asking because anyone can be skilled to handle any calls regardless of business unit they are in, in case of emergency.  You don't have to be in the same business unit to physically handle the calls. 

We have a group who is a last in line back up for another group.  However, they are not in the same business unit and I don't want them in there because, in a perfect world, they would never have to perform those back up services.  I do not want scheduling to consider them, at all.  Now, you have to remember that those backups do exist and not freak out if an interval looks short when looking at intraday, but they are in essence two separate groups who each have their own work to worry about and only help the other group in emergency backup capacity so for me it works better that they be in their own BUs.  

My company has Canadian and US lines of business. They're both in the same business unit because while rare, it's possible Canadian agents may be needed for US business and vice versa. This is easy enough in the current setup - simply add the queue and skill to the agent corresponding to the other business. But there's a downside, and that is complexity. When we build schedules, both sites are done at the same time because they're in the same business unit. We have over 150 planning groups combined between the two sites. That alone is enough to drive me bonkers when selecting planning groups within the Intraday Monitoring or Schedule pages.

Is there a better solution to this? Is there a way to separate Canada into another business unit but still be able to use their agents to assist the US business unit?

My company has Canadian and US lines of business. They're both in the same business unit because while rare, it's possible Canadian agents may be needed for US business and vice versa. This is easy enough in the current setup - simply add the queue and skill to the agent corresponding to the other business. But there's a downside, and that is complexity. When we build schedules, both sites are done at the same time because they're in the same business unit. We have over 150 planning groups combined between the two sites. That alone is enough to drive me bonkers when selecting planning groups within the Intraday Monitoring or Schedule pages.

Is there a better solution to this? Is there a way to separate Canada into another business unit but still be able to use their agents to assist the US business unit?

#Workforce Management

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Linsey Edn
Workforce Management
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Ideally you are not splitting shared load or shared resources across business units. The earlier you can make the determination as to which BU should handle the interaction the better - ideally before it is enqueued initially (by checking queue depth, EWT, routing schedules, and probably many other ways). You can still separate shared load/resources after an interaction has been enqueued by separating out primary versus overflow queues across BUs.

The example below is a simple reciprocating overflow, but it could be just one BU that helps and is not reciprocated by the other BU. The goal is a clean separation of forecast and resources and the overflow queues are a means to do that. BU2 is not concerned with what interactions were offered to queues in BU1 - it is only interested in interactions offered in its queues and therefore is staffed accordingly.

If you opt to try this, I would recommend starting with a small example so you understand the nuances of this configuration strategy. I am not on the solutions or PS side of things, but I have suggested similar a few times in the past and don't recall anyone saying it was a bad idea.

BU1:

• Queue: BU1Primary (in overflow cases interactions can be transferred to BU1OverflowToBU2)
• Queue: BU2OverflowToBU1

BU2:

• Queue: BU2Primary (in overflow cases interactions can be transferred to BU2OverflowToBU1)
• Queue: BU1OverflowToBU2

For the 150 planning groups, are these mostly configured as one route path per planning group? I ask to see if there is perhaps natural consolidation where you might be able to combine some if all the agents can handle every route path configured for the 'combined' planning group.

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Jay Langsford
VP, R&D

Original Message:
Sent: 07-20-2025 19:49
From: Linsey Edn
Subject: Different sites in same business unit

My company has Canadian and US lines of business. They're both in the same business unit because while rare, it's possible Canadian agents may be needed for US business and vice versa. This is easy enough in the current setup - simply add the queue and skill to the agent corresponding to the other business. But there's a downside, and that is complexity. When we build schedules, both sites are done at the same time because they're in the same business unit. We have over 150 planning groups combined between the two sites. That alone is enough to drive me bonkers when selecting planning groups within the Intraday Monitoring or Schedule pages.

Is there a better solution to this? Is there a way to separate Canada into another business unit but still be able to use their agents to assist the US business unit?

#Workforce Management

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Linsey Edn
Workforce Management
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