Configure how many weeks of data to use in the forecast

Note: AI-powered forecasting can consume up to three years of historical data. The ability to configure the data to use for a forecast does not apply to AI-powered forecasts.

In the Forecasting area of the Scheduling Unit page, select the amount of ACD data to include in the forecast. Select the number of days of data to use when creating a new forecast.  Choose from a number of weeks or a number of occurrences.

If you choose a particular number of weeks, Interaction Optimizer creates forecasts based on the number of specified weeks excluding any days marked with an “Exclude from Forecast” day classification. If you choose 6 weeks of past data, Interaction Optimizer may use less than 6 data points to average. 

For example, let’s assume you want to determine the days to use for Monday’s forecast, and you select to forecast from the last 6 weeks. However, 2 of the Mondays within the last 6 weeks were assigned an “Exclude from Forecast” day classification. Therefore, Interaction Optimizer only uses the remaining 4 Mondays in the forecast.

If you choose a particular number of occurrences, Interaction Optimizer uses a fixed number of data points for each day of the week in the forecast, regardless of how many weeks old the data might be.

Using the example scenario above, if you set the number of occurrences to 6 then Interaction Optimizer ignores the 2 days assigned with the “Exclude from Forecast” day classification and instead uses data from the last 8 weeks (assuming the remaining Mondays do not contain exclusionary day classifications), and creates a forecast with 6 days of usable data points.

1. In the Forecasting area, do one of the following:

• Click the Number of weeks radio button and use the up and down arrows to select the number of weeks to use in the forecast.

Note:  If any days include the “Exclude from Forecast” day classification, the number of actual weeks in the forecast may be lower.

• Click the Number of occurrences radio button and use the up and down arrows to select the number of weeks to use in the forecast.

Note: If any days include the “Exclude from Forecast” day classification, the exact number selected will be used in the forecast but the data may be older than the specified number.

2. Click save. 

3. Next, set agent schedule preference versus coverage focus. For more information about configuring agent schedule preferences against schedules and managing shrinkage, see the Related Topics.