Extra work and voluntary time off slots – Assembled

Pro or Enterprise plan · Any role, depending on the task

Plan: Pro or Enterprise plan. Compare plans
Publish extra work and VTO slots: Admin or Manager role
Or a custom role with Slots set to Can publish extra work and voluntary time off slots on the Schedule tab
Approve and deny extra work and VTO requests: Admin or Manager role
Or a custom role with Requests set to Can approve, deny, edit, and cancel all agents' voluntary time requests on the Schedule tab
Request extra work and VTO slots: Any role
Make event types eligible for extra work: Admin role
Or a custom role with Configure event types set to Can configure event types on the Configure tab

Admins set roles and permissions in Manage team > Roles and permissions.

Use extra work and voluntary time off (VTO) slots to match staffing to demand with your team’s help. When you’re short, publish extra work slots so agents can pick up productive hours outside their scheduled events. When you’re overstaffed, publish VTO slots so agents can take optional time off during their productive events. You set how many people can take each slot, using net staffing as a guide.

To publish slots, go to Schedule > Voluntary time slots.

How extra work and VTO slots work

The process has five steps:

Make event types eligible for extra work, so agents can be scheduled for them as extra work.
Publish slots for a day, setting how many people can take each one.
Agents request slots they’re eligible for.
Approve or deny requests, checking slot availability and net staffing. Agents are notified of your decision.
Report on extra work and VTO in Report > Schedule analysis.

Some rules apply throughout:

Each slot lasts one interval, the length of your company’s base interval.
Agents only see slots that match their channels, queues, sites, teams, and skills.
Extra work slots are outside an agent’s scheduled events, and VTO slots are within their productive events.
Times on the Voluntary time page are in your own time zone. To add more time zones, use Edit time zones next to the time zone row.

Make event types eligible for extra work

Go to Configure > Event types.
Select a productive event type to edit it, or add a new one.
Select Eligible for voluntary extra work slots.
Select Save event type.

The Edit event type dialog for a productive event type, opened from Event types in the Configure menu. A numbered marker shows the Eligible for voluntary extra work slots checkbox (1)

In the list of event types, the event type now shows Eligible for extra work. The checkbox only appears for event types classified as Productive.

Publish extra work or VTO slots

Go to Schedule > Voluntary time slots.
Select a date and a channel. To create slots for a specific queue, site, team, or skill, select Add agent filter and choose it.
Use the Net staffing row to decide how many people can take each slot, and enter the numbers in the extra work and VTO rows. Or select Auto populate to fill them in for you (see below).
Check the Preview net staffing row, which shows what net staffing would be if every slot were filled.
Select Publish slots, choose your publish options, and select Publish.

The Voluntary time page for the Chat channel, showing net staffing by interval and empty extra work and VTO slot rows

Agents can see and request the slots as soon as you publish them. To review what you’ve published, select View published slots.

Fill in slots automatically

Select Auto populate to open Auto populate slots, choose your options, and select Populate slots.

The Auto populate slots options, with staffing target, time range, and editing conflict settings

Option	Choices
How to fill slots	Staffing target: Balance staffing to 0, Overstaff by, or Understaff by, in Percent or Agents. Or Constant value: populate all the Extra work slots or Voluntary time off slots with the same number.
Time range	Populate all slots for the day, or Only populate slots for specified times with a start and end time.
Editing conflicts	Preserve existing unpublished edits keeps numbers you’ve already entered. Override all slots replaces them.

Publish options

When you select Publish slots, you can choose:

Option	What it does
Auto-approve requests	Approves requests for these slots automatically.
Include default events for VTO	Lets agents convert their default scheduled time to VTO. Appears when you’re publishing VTO slots.

Request extra work or VTO slots

Agents see the slots they can request on their schedule in My Assembled, marked Extra work open or VTO open.

An agent’s weekly schedule in My Assembled, showing open VTO and extra work slots next to scheduled events

Request a slot

The agent selects a block of open slots.
They adjust the start and end times to request part of the block, if they want.
They select Request extra work or Request voluntary time off.

The Request extra work popover with start and end times and the Request extra work button

The Request voluntary time off popover with start and end times and the Request voluntary time off button

The request shows on their schedule as Extra work pending or VTO pending until it’s approved or denied.

A VTO pending placeholder on the agent’s schedule after submitting a request

Approve or deny extra work and VTO requests

Go to Schedule > Schedule requests.
Set Request type to Extra work. This shows both extra work and VTO requests.
Open a request to check its details, then approve or deny it. For how approving and denying works on this page, see Schedule requests.

Check whether slots are still available

Before you approve, check Slots status in the request’s details. Slots available means there’s still room in the slot the agent requested; Slots filled means other requests have already taken it. The details also show which channel, queue, site, team, or skill the slot was for.

After you approve or deny

When you approve a request, the event appears on the agent’s schedule and on the Staffing timeline. When you deny one, the pending placeholder disappears. Either way, the agent gets an email with your decision.

A sample email telling an agent their extra work request was approved, with the date and time

Report on extra work and VTO

Go to Report > Schedule analysis.
Select Extra work events to see metrics for all extra work, or an eligible event type to see its extra work hours. Select Voluntary time off events to see VTO.

The Schedule analysis report for one day, with Count, Total hours, and Distinct days columns for each agent. Numbered markers show the Extra work events columns (1) and the Voluntary time off events columns (2)

For more about the report, see Schedule analysis.