Equitable shift rotation and efficient assignment mechanisms for contact center agents

摘要

Systems and methods are provided for facilitating equitable assignment of rotating shifts to agents in a contact center. In one embodiment, points are allocated to agents indicating their frequency of receiving undesirable shift assignments. Based on the previously allocated points, future undesirable shifts are assigned to agents. The point allocation scheme accommodates various exceptions scheduling periodic rotating shifts, such as skipping assignment of an agent from an upcoming undesirable shift, agents leaving, swapping a shift, and agents being added. In another embodiments, agents are assigned to rotating shifts using constructs of a cycle and a rotation template, which facilitates assigning agents to a work schedule with a calendar in a repetitious manner, and where certain shifts are non-rotational in nature and other shifts are rotational in nature.

主权项

1. A method for scheduling agents in a contact center using a computer comprising:
receiving a first input from a user at the computer defining a cycle, wherein the cycle comprises one or more shifts, wherein each shift is associated with a shift starting time, a shift ending time, and one or more shift breaks, wherein each shift break is associated with a shift break start and end time, and wherein each shift is associated with a day of a week; defining a roster template by using the computer, the roster template comprising one or more cycles, and wherein the roster template covers one or more days; associating an agent to a particular cycle of the one or more cycles by the computer based on a second input from the user, thereby creating a roster template instance stored in the computer; associating, by the computer, the roster template instance to a specified one or more days of a calendar in a scheduling period; and associating the roster template instance to another specified one or more days of the calendar during the scheduling period by the computer, wherein the another specified one or more days does not overlap with the specified one or more days, thereby scheduling the agent by the computer to work on corresponding shifts of the particular cycle on the specified one or more days and the another specified one or more days; receiving input from a call handler, the input identifying the agent logging into the call handler; determining the agent is scheduled to work; and providing a message to the call handler indicating the agent is scheduled to work, wherein the call handler is configured to direct a voice call to a workstation used by the agent.