Weekly Rules

Weekly rules are scheduling templates made from daily rules. Once you group daily rules into weekly rules, you assign them to your agents. Their schedule is generated according to those rules.

Full-time agents work morning shifts, while interns take the afternoon shifts. In this case, you can create two weekly rules called Full Time and Intern. In the Full time weekly rule, you add daily rules with morning hours. In the Intern weekly rule, you add daily rules with afternoon hours. You assign your agents and generate schedules based on these weekly rules.

Each agent can only be assigned to one weekly rule. However, a weekly rule can have several agents assigned to it.

You don't have to create weekly rules from scratch. You can duplicate an existing weekly rule, make changes, and save it as a new one.

These are the tabs in the Weekly Rules page:

Multi-Skill Scheduling Rules

Multi-skill scheduling rules are weekly rules that can be used by the multi-skill scheduling engine. Using these rules, the engine can run forecast simulations and optimize the generated schedules.

You have three employees:

  • Brian speaks English and can only handle English-speaking customers.

  • Jim speaks Spanish and can only handle Spanish-speaking customers.

  • Zoe is bilingual. She can handle both English and Spanish-speaking customers. She doesn't have to split her time handling one language.

Let's say your contact center receives two calls, one in English and one in Spanish. Brian and Jim are handling them. With the multi-skill rule, Zoe will be on queue for the next call, regardless of the customer's language. This way, you lower the average holding time.

Or maybe your contact center has a low volume of calls during the evenings. You don't have to schedule Jim and Brian to handle each language. Instead, you can schedule Zoe to handle both English and Spanish calls.

Keep in mind, schedules for multi-skill and single-skill weekly rules must be generated separately.

To create a multi-skill scheduling rule:

  1. Click the app selector and select CXone WFM.

  2. Go to Setup > Weekly Rules.

  3. Click New Rule, and enter a weekly rule name.

  4. Select Use for multi-skill scheduling.

  5. Define the Total per week. This is the minimum and maximum days of shifts that can be assigned to employees associated with this rule.

  6. You can include these settings:

    • Consistent start time: Define a consistent start time for shifts generated with this rule. The shifts will all begin at the same time, regardless of employee shift preferences.

      You cannot select this if your weekly rule has more than one daily rule.

    • Consecutive days off: If employees have multiple days off in a workweek, they will only be scheduled consecutively. Once selected, define the range of consecutive days off per week. The range can be between 2 and 7 days.

      When defining the consecutive days off, keep in mind:

      • The engine looks at each week separately when generating a schedule for one week. Let's say the week starts on Monday until Sunday and you defined two consecutive days off. In this case, the engine won't schedule the days off from Sunday to Monday because Monday is considered a new week. Monday can be combined with Tuesday, and Sunday after Saturday.

        However, if you generate a schedule for more than one week, Sunday and Monday could be scheduled as consecutive days off.

      • Closed office days are not considered days off, and will not be taken into account during scheduling.

      • The minimum of consecutive days off cannot be lower than the maximum weekly days off. Generating the schedule will fail if the Consecutive days off settings conflict with the weekly days off.

        When you define the Total per week, you give a range for the number of days that agents can work during a week. For example, if you set the range between 5 and 6 days, agents in this weekly rule will be scheduled for 5 to 6 shifts each week. This means that they will either have 1 or 2 days off per week.

        Because the maximum weekly days off is 2, the Consecutive days off cannot be higher than 2.

        If it is higher than 2 consecutive days off, generating the schedule will fail.

        This is why you cannot use Consecutive days off when the Total per week range is between 6 and 7 days.

        Let's say the Total per week is only 6. Agents in this weekly rule will be scheduled for 6 shifts each week. This means that they will only have one day off per week. Because there's one day off, there cannot be consecutive days off. Schedule generation will fail if Consecutive days off is selected.

    • Consistent breaks and lunches: Define a consistent start time for the employee's breaks during the week. If your weekly rule is part of a rotation, the breaks will be consistent only for each rule. Let's say you have two weekly rules in your rotation. The breaks in the first week can start at 11:30, while they will start at 12:00 for the second week.

      Your daily rule has an activity code called lunch break with these settings:

      • Relative start: four hours.

      • Slack: one hour.

        • Because the slack is one hour, the employee's lunch break can start between four to five hours since the shift began.

        With Consistent breaks and lunches enabled, the breaks will start at the same time during the week.

        To learn more about relative start and slack, see Daily rules.

  7. Define the minimum number of hours between shifts. Employees assigned to this rule will have at least the defined number of hours free in between the shifts they receive. This number must be between 3 and 18.

  8. Click Select Daily Rules and select the daily rules you want for this weekly rule.

  9. Click Save.

  10. Define the Possible Days on which the employees assigned to this rule can be assigned shifts.

    For example, you want the weekly rule to define a schedule with morning shifts that occur on the weekend. Select a daily rule for morning shifts, and click SAT and SUN.

  11. Under Usage, enter the minimum and maximum number of times this daily rule is used per week. The maximum cannot exceed the total number of days you selected in Possible Days.

    For example, under Possible Days, you selected FRI, SAT, and SUN. The maximum number under Usage is 3.

  12. To assign employees to the template, go to the Employees tab, and click Select employees.

  13. Select the employees you want to assign to the template. You can search and filter for specific employees.

    The previously assigned employees are listed in the Assigned tab.

    Keep in mind, only employees who have the Can be Scheduled attribute enabled will appear in the employee list. To learn more, see Set Up Employees.

  14. Click Save.

  15. In the Advanced tab, under full-day settings, Define the shift start and length. Here you customize how many hours to deduct when an employee is out of office for a full day.

    Keep in mind, the length must be longer than the Max hours of the Partial days off in the rule's activity code.

  16. Once you've added all of the relevant daily rules and employees, click Save. In the page:

    • All weekly rules created appears under Weekly Rules.

    • The weekly rules assigned to rotation rules are marked with rotation icon in the column after the weekly rule name.

Single-Skill Scheduling Rules

Single-skill scheduling rules are weekly rules that allocate employees and their time by their skills.

You have three employees:

  • Brian speaks English and can only handle English-speaking customers.

  • Jim speaks Spanish and can only handle Spanish-speaking customers.

  • Zoe is bilingual. She can handle both English and Spanish-speaking customers.

When generating a schedule, Zoe's cannot be scheduled to handle both languages at the same time.

Let's say Zoe is scheduled to handle English-speaking customers. Your contact center receives two calls, one in English and one in Spanish. Brian and Jim are handling them. If the next call will be from a Spanish-speaking customer, the call won't be routed to Zoe.

When you generate a schedule, you cannot use both multi-skill and single-skill weekly rules.

To create a single-skill scheduling rule:

  1. Click the app selector and select CXone WFM.

  2. Go to Setup > Weekly Rules.

  3. Click New Rule, and enter a weekly rule name.

  4. Clear the Use multi-skill scheduling checkbox.

  5. Define the Total per week. This is the minimum and maximum number of hours that can be assigned to employees associated with this rule.

    Only complete shifts will be assigned based on the weekly rule. If the defined shift length is 9 hours and the maximum hours per week is 45, then employees will be assigned up to 5 shifts a week. But if the maximum is 36 hours per week, then employees associated with the rule won't get more than 4 shifts a week.

  6. Click Select Daily Rules and select the daily rules you want for this weekly rule.

  7. Click Save.

  8. Define the Possible Days on which the employees assigned to this rule can be assigned shifts.

    For example, you want the weekly rule to define a schedule with morning shifts that occur on the weekend. Select a daily rule for morning shifts, and click SAT and SUN.

  9. To assign employees to the template, go to the Employees tab, and click Select employees.

  10. Select the employees you want to assign to the template. You can search and filter for specific employees.

    The previously assigned employees are listed in the Assigned tab.

    Keep in mind, only employees who have the Can be Scheduled attribute enabled will appear in the employee list. To learn more, see Set Up Employees.

  11. Click Save.

  12. In the Advanced tab, under full-day settings, Define the shift start and length. Here you customize how many hours to deduct when an employee is out of office for a full day.

    Keep in mind, the length must be longer than the Max hours of the Partial days off in the rule's activity code.

  13. Once you've added all of the relevant daily rules and employees, click Save.