Time off planning with the allotment editor

A time off plan allows administrators to set an allotment of time off that the system automatically approves when agents request time off. You can set an allotment per day, per staff type, and per coverage group. To access the allotment editor, create a new time off plan or edit an existing one. The allotment editor opens.

In the allotment editor, you can perform these tasks:

• Modify a time off plan's allotment

• Set up a representative schedule

• Change time off plan display options

• Import predicted staff

Interaction Optimizer menu options

In addition to the tasks described above, you can open the Interaction Optimizer menu and select:

• View Capped Days to view capped days per staff type and coverage group

• Export to Excel to export allotment values per day, staff type, and coverage group to an Excel spreadsheet

• Import from Excel to import allotment values per day, staff type, and coverage group from an Excel spreadsheet

• Activate time off plan to activate the plan. Before activation, Interaction Optimizer may prompt you to save any unsaved changes. If another active time off plan overlaps any dates in the plan being activated, you will be asked if you want to proceed. If you proceed, the other time off plan will be de-activated and your time off plan will become the active plan.

• View Agent Accruals to view agent accrual balances and scheduled or processed time off requests.

Graph display options

When you open the allotment editor for a time off plan, three groups appear in expandable panels on the left side of the screen:

• Day. Select the days to show on the allotment editor graph. For example, if your agents only work Monday through Friday, clear the Sunday and Saturday check boxes to prevent them from appearing on the graph.

• Graph. All graphs are measured in either hours or FTEs based on a display option. Select the check box next to one or more parameters to include in the graph:

Note: Click the colored bar next to any graph parameter to change it's color on the graph.

• Staff Type and Coverage Group. The graph shows the total values across all checked staff types and coverage groups. After you select a representative schedule, you can pick some, but not all of the coverage groups.  Before selecting a representative schedule, you can only pick one coverage group at a time or you can select all coverage groups from all staff types.

Graph Area

On the graph, red lines mark today's date. Use the Start Date and End Date to change the range shown on the graph. Below the graph, use the Week, Month, Future, and Full Plan buttons to modify the time period in the graph.

Data point grid

Below the graph, Interaction Optimizer displays a row for each data point in the selected area of the graph.

The allotment cap is used to protect a day from every having a higher allotment than the allotment cap.  For example, let's assume you set the allotment cap to 5 on January 1st. If you create a modification that increases everything in January by 30% and subsequently increases the allotment for January 1st fro 5 to 7, the allotment is only set to 5.

Here, you can:

• Click the Modify Allotment button to change the allotments shown in the grid.

• Click the fields in the Allotment values and Allotment Cap values to edit them.

Note: If you attempt to set an allotment higher than the allotment cap, the value will be set equal to the allotment cap.

• Select the check box the “Blackout Day” column to make that day a blackout day.  

Note: Because no plan allows time off on a blackout day, the system automatically denies requests make on blackout days.