Extra work and Voluntary time off

Your team can go through the extra work (EW) and voluntary time off (VTO) workflow with the following steps:

1. Managers make event types eligible for EW: Make certain event types eligible to be scheduled for EW.
2. Managers publish EW or VTO slots: Set capacity for slots on a given day (referencing or using net staffing numbers), and publish the slots.
3. Agents request EW or VTO slots: Agents see which slots they are eligible for and request them.
4. Managers action on EW or VTO requests: Approve or deny EW and VTO requests, with the ability to see slot availability and net staffing numbers. Agents are notified when their request(s) have been approved or denied.
5. Managers see metrics for EW or VTO events: See schedule reports for EW and all VTO event types on the Schedules report.

1. Make event types eligible for EW

Click on Company settings > Event types and either edit or add a productive event type. Make it eligible for EW by clicking the checkbox next to “Eligible for extra work settings.” Save the event type.

2. Publish EW or VTO slots

Click on Staffing > Voluntary time Select a date, and a channel you would like to create slots for. If you would like to create slots for a specific queue, site, team, and/or skill, select those as well. The net staffing numbers will show, and you can reference those to enter how many people can fill each slot.

The duration of individual slots corresponds to the company’s default interval.

Note that time zones will reflect the manager’s settings. Click the clock icon next to the time zone to add more time zones to the view.

Auto-populate slots

Alternatively, you can auto-populate the number of slots. To do so, click on the Auto populate button to open the configuration modal. You can choose to bring net staffing to zero, understaff, or overstaff by number of agents or percent of net staffing.

To preserve any values that you have entered, check the Preserve existing unpublished edits option. To select which time window to auto-populate for, check the Only populate slots for specified times option and input desired start and end times.

Publish slots

When you are ready to publish slots, click the Publish slots button so that agents can see and request them. You can reference the Preview net staffing row to see what the future net staffing numbers will be if all slots are filled by agents.

3. Request EW or VTO slots

Agents can see and request slots on the My schedule page. These will be EW slots that are outside of their scheduled events, and VTO slots that are contained within their productive events. Both the EW and VTO slots will be those that match the agents’ channels, queues, sites, teams, and skills.

Request popover

When agents click on a contiguous block of slots, the request popover will appear. The request will be for the contiguous block of slots, but agents select any slot or block of slots within it. They can then submit the request by clicking the request button.

After they submit a request, agents will see a Pending request placeholder for their request.

4. Action on EW or VTO requests

Click on Staffing > *Schedule change requests* and click on the Extra work and voluntary time off tab to see the requests. You can click Toggle preview to see what the request would change, if approved.

Slot status indicator

This status column tells you if the EW or VTO slots are still available, or have been filled. Hover over the icon next to the status to see details, including which channel and queue the original slot was for.

This indicator should provide useful information as to whether you should approve a request.

After requests have been approved/denied

Once you have approved a request, that requested event will show up on the agent’s schedule and staffing timeline. Once you’ve denied a request, the Pending request placeholder will no longer appear.

After a request has been approved or denied, agents will receive an email. Below is a sample email an agent would receive for an approved extra work request.

5. See metrics for EW or VTO events

Click on Reports > Schedules and select Extra work events to see metrics for all extra work events, or one of the event types eligible for extra work to see extra work hours, or Voluntary time off events to see the metrics for voluntary time off.