Hello Community, 

I'm hoping to find some answers regarding the  "Maximum Occupancy % for Deferred Work" setting (Management Unit -  Scheduling tab).

Using the following example from the resource center:

Example: If you set a service goal so that agents will likely handle calls for 85% of their time, and then set the maximum occupancy percentage for deferred work to 95%, then the scheduling engine adds enough deferred work to require up to 10% of the agents' time. This feature allows agents configured to receive multiple interactions the ability to receive supplemental work while waiting for other interactions to arrive.

1. If you set a service goal so that agents will likely handle calls for 85% of their time. Is the service goal we are discussing here sourced from the WFM service goal template or from the service level target of the queue (queue setting)?
2. If we have separate queues for Voice and Email as well as separate planning group for each media type, will this setting still be applied?

Thank you for any help you can provide! 

Hi Tam, 

1. Yes the service goal used within WFM is based on the service goal template.  That is the service goal the resource center article is referring to.
2. Yes, since voice and emails have to be broken out during Planning Group configuration (due to different staffing algorithms for immediate and deferred work), this is the same thing as where the resource center article refers to "configured to receive multiple interactions".  So basically the Resource Center article is saying that if the agent is configured to handle more than one planning group, when one of them is deferred work (email), then the maximum occupancy for deferred work will be applied.

I hope this helps.

Thank you,

Chris Johnson

I think the resource center example is confusing things. "If you set a service goal so that agents will likely handle calls for 85% of their time..." could and probably should have been something like "If you expect agents to be occupied 85% on immediate work...". 

Maximum occupancy % has nothing directly to do with service goal template service goals.

This configuration is a way for us to model how much an agent associated to the management unit can (additionally) apply to deferred work when they are not fully occupied. It is specific to the scheduled on queue periods in a shift, not the entire shift.

The default of 95% is reasonable. It could also be set lower if you want us to be more pessimistic on staffing requirements or higher if you want us to be more optimistic on staffing requirements when there is deferred work in play.

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Jay Langsford
VP, R&D
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