Schedule assistant

Use the schedule assistant to place and adjust events on your team’s schedules, following your scheduling rules while covering your forecast as well as possible. It can add breaks and meals for everyone at once, fix rule violations after manual edits, cover a volume change for the rest of today, or find a time for a one-off event such as a training. It works on current and future dates, up to 31 days at a time.

To open it, go to Schedule > Staffing timeline and select Schedule assistant.

Note: Schedule assistant appears if your company uses schedule generation. To turn it on, contact our team.

How the schedule assistant works

• It uses your scheduling rules. The same rules that check your schedule decide what the assistant places, so everything follows the same requirements. Schedule generation uses them too.
• It changes as little as possible. It moves as few events as it can while maximizing coverage, and every new or moved event improves coverage. If a queue’s net staffing is already above 0, it doesn’t change anything for that queue.
• It doesn’t change manual events. Time off, recurring events, Google Calendar events, and events someone created or edited by hand stay where they are.
• It changes whichever schedule is open: your primary schedule or the test schedule you’re viewing.
• It works on current and future dates. If the Staffing timeline shows past dates, Schedule assistant isn’t available. Set the dates to today or later.

For more on how Assembled’s scheduling optimization works, see the Assembled blog post.

How the date range affects repeating rules

The assistant handles up to 31 days. Rules that repeat on a schedule only apply when the date range covers their whole repeat period. For example, for a team meeting rule that repeats once every week:

• If you schedule a 3-day period, the meeting isn’t placed.
• If you schedule one calendar week, starting on your company’s first day of the week, the meeting is placed once.
• If you schedule 3 calendar weeks, it’s placed 3 times.

Update schedules with the schedule assistant

Important: The assistant’s changes are applied automatically when it finishes. To review them first, open a test schedule before you start, then publish it to your primary schedule when you’re happy with the result.

1. Go to Schedule > Staffing timeline. Choose the dates and filters for the people you want to schedule. The assistant starts with what you’re viewing.
2. Select Schedule assistant.
3. Check the Date range, choose who to schedule under Who should we schedule?, and choose the events under Which events should we schedule?. Then select Continue.
4. If you’re on a test schedule, choose whether to Improve it or Reset it.
5. Under Who needs a new schedule?, choose all selected people, only the people who are already scheduled, or only the people who aren’t. Each option shows how many people it includes.
6. Choose how to create shifts, then select Continue.
7. Review the summary, then select Update schedule.

For what each option does, see Schedule assistant options.

You see It will take us a few minutes to place your events. When the assistant is done, the changes are applied to the schedule and you get an email listing which events changed and how many people’s schedules were updated. Each run is recorded in scheduling history as Schedule generated by Schedule Assistant, where you can review the changes or undo them.

If you start the assistant again for an overlapping date range on the same schedule before the first run finishes, Assembled cancels the first run and uses the new one.

If the assistant didn’t place or move the events you expected, see Unexpected schedule generation results.

Update today’s schedule

You can use the schedule assistant on the rest of today, or part of it. For example, if a queue gets a sudden influx of contacts, add a forecast adjustment so today’s required staffing reflects it, then run the assistant to cover the extra volume for the rest of the day.

When the date range includes today:

• The next 5 minutes don’t change, so you have time to tell agents about changes to their schedules.
• Productive events can change even if they’ve already started. For example, the assistant might move an agent from one work type to another, splitting the current event.
• Default events change only if they haven’t started yet. The assistant might move a break scheduled for later today, but not one that’s in progress.
• Overnight shifts may change.

Place a one-off event

To add one event to several people’s schedules, such as a training session sometime in the next 5 days, let the assistant find the best time for each person.

1. Create an event rule for the event, and assign it to the people who need it.
2. Under Repeats, choose During custom date range.
3. Run the schedule assistant for the date range. It places the event once for each selected person, anywhere in that range.

Important: Custom date range rules are used only to place events. They aren’t used to check your existing schedule, so review the schedule when the assistant is done.

Schedule assistant options

Which events should we schedule?

Default events are placed only for people assigned to a matching scheduling rule. For example, if three sites each have a different required meal period, create a rule for each site, and the assistant follows all three.

If you choose default events and you have no event rules for them, you see We couldn’t find any default events with associated scheduling rules. If some of the people you chose aren’t assigned to the rules, you see Some of the selected people aren’t assigned to these rules, so we won’t schedule events for them. To fix either, select Manage scheduling rules and create or assign the rules.

What should we do with your test schedule?

Who needs a new schedule?

How would you like to update these people?

A person’s existing events can describe a different shift from their assigned working hours, because the assistant looks only at the date range you chose.