Forecast outliers and adjustments

Use outliers and adjustments to make your forecast reflect what you know about your business. Add an adjustment for an event you expect, such as a product launch that you think will raise volume by 50%, or a holiday that will lower it by 30%. Mark an outlier for something unusual that already happened, such as an outage, so its volume doesn’t distort future forecasts.

To open them, go to Forecast > Manage forecasts and select the Adjust tab.

Navigating the Adjust tab

For totals, see Forecast totals.

How outliers and adjustments work

• An outlier is a time range that’s left out of the history your forecast model learns from. Use it for past events you don’t expect to repeat.
• An adjustment changes the forecast for a time range, by a percentage or by a number of contacts in each interval. Use it for future events.
• An adjustment applies on top of the base forecast, the forecast before adjustments.
• When forecasts are regenerated, the adjustment is applied again to the new base forecast, so the adjusted total can change even though the adjustment hasn’t. See Forecast lock.
• Changes on the Adjust tab are a preview until you save them. Saving regenerates your forecasts across Assembled, including on the Staffing timeline.
• With a channel and queue selected, an outlier or adjustment applies to that queue. With a channel but no queue, it applies to the channel.
• With no channel selected, you can add outliers or adjustments to all channels and queues at once.

Add an adjustment

Important: Adjustments aren’t saved until you select Save adjustments. If you try to leave the page first, Assembled asks you to confirm.

1. On the Adjust tab, choose the Channel, the Queue if the adjustment is for one queue, and the metric to adjust.
2. Choose a date range that includes the dates you want to adjust.
3. In Edit outliers, adjustments, and totals, select the Adjustments tab, then Create adjustment.
4. In Add adjustment, enter an Adjustment name that describes the event.
5. Choose the Start and End dates and times, and the Time zone they’re in.
6. Under Adjustment, enter a value and choose Percent or the metric’s units, such as Contacts. See Adjustment values.
7. If the queue has child queues and you want to adjust them too, turn on Apply to child queues.
8. Select Save. The adjustment appears as a card, such as Adjust by 50%, and the chart shows its effect.
9. Select Save adjustments.

Your forecasts are regenerated with the adjustment. To change it later, select Edit on its card, make your changes, and select Save, then Save adjustments. To remove it, select Edit, then Delete, then Save adjustments.

Adjustment values

For example: an adjustment of 10 contacts across a full day adds 10 contacts to each of the day’s 96 intervals, so 10 × 4 intervals an hour × 24 hours = 960 contacts in total.

Keep in mind: An adjusted forecast is never below 0. Adjustments also apply on top of any forecast totals you’ve uploaded.

Add an outlier

Important: Outliers aren’t saved until you select Save outliers.

1. On the Adjust tab, choose the Channel, the Queue if the outlier is for one queue, and the metric.
2. Choose a date range that includes the event.
3. In Edit outliers, adjustments, and totals, select the Outliers tab, then Create outlier.
4. In Add outlier, enter an Outlier name that describes the event.
5. Choose the Start and End dates and times, and the Time zone they’re in.
6. If the queue has child queues and the event affected them too, turn on Apply to child queues.
7. Select Save. The chart marks the outlier’s time range.
8. Select Save outliers.

Your forecasts are regenerated without that period’s volume. To change or remove an outlier later, select Edit on its card, then save your changes with Save outliers.

On the Review tab, outliers are also left out of the accuracy comparison. See Manage forecasts.

Add outliers or adjustments to all channels and queues

1. On the Adjust tab, clear the Channel filter. The panel shows Configure forecasts across all channels and queues.
2. Select Add outliers or Add adjustments.
3. Enter a Description, and choose the Start time and End time.
4. For an adjustment, under Change by, enter a value and choose Percentage or Exact value.
5. Select Add outlier or Add adjustment. To add more, repeat steps 3 to 5.
6. Select Save outliers or Save adjustments.

These are saved as soon as you select Save outliers or Save adjustments, and your forecasts are regenerated for every channel and queue.