Staffing requirements for email and back office

Use the requirements calculation for email and back office to staff async work the way it actually gets done. Response time targets for these channels are usually hours or days, so you don’t need a team member free the moment each case arrives: you need enough capacity across your SLA window to finish the work before it breaches. Use Backlog volume on the Staffing timeline to see how many cases are waiting, and how many are forecast to breach your SLA.

To choose how requirements are calculated, go to Schedule > Staffing timeline, choose the Email or Back office channel, and select Configure staffing. The setting is under Requirements calculation.

How async staffing works

Required staffing for email and back office comes from these staffing parameters for the channel or queue:

• Service level: the percentage of cases you aim to respond to within your target, such as 90%.
• Target response time: your SLA window, such as 6 hours or 24 hours.
• Email productivity: how many cases one team member solves an hour.
• Unproductive shrinkage: the share of scheduled productive time that’s lost in practice.
• Reopens multiplier: for email, how much a reopened case counts as work.

Backlog volume also uses your business hours, to measure how long cases have been waiting against your target. To set business hours for each channel and queue, go to Configure > Business hours. See Business hours.

Requirements calculation options

Both options use the same parameters and the same volume forecast. They differ in when the work is staffed.

Complete all work in the interval they arrive in

This is the default. Assembled staffs each interval for all the work that arrives in it, as if every case had to be solved in the same interval. Required staffing follows your volume forecast closely, including its spikes:

Required staffing = volume ÷ (productivity per interval × (1 − unproductive shrinkage)).

With this option, Service level and Target response time don’t change required staffing. Use it if your SLAs are shorter than an hour, if your team handles email more like chat, or to model a conservative, worst-case staffing level.

Evenly distribute work across the SLA window (recommended)

Assembled spreads the work that arrives in each interval across your target response time, and staffs only the share of work your service level requires:

1. Hours of work = volume ÷ (Email productivity × (1 − unproductive shrinkage)).
2. Required hours = hours of work × service level.
3. Required staffing for that work = required hours ÷ target response time in hours. It’s added to every interval from when the work arrives until the target response time has passed.

If Service level or Target response time is 0, required staffing is 0, so set both before you choose this option. If the target response time is shorter than one interval, the work is staffed in its arrival interval.

For example: 100 emails are forecast to arrive between 9:00 and 9:30 AM. Team members solve 10 emails an hour, shrinkage is 0%, and your target is 90% within 4 hours.

• Hours of work = 100 ÷ 10 = 10 hours, and required hours = 10 × 0.9 = 9 hours.
• With this option, required staffing = 9 ÷ 4 = 2.25 people, added to every interval from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM.
• With Complete all work in the interval they arrive in and 30-minute intervals, productivity per interval is 5, so required staffing = 100 ÷ 5 = 20 people from 9:00 to 9:30 AM only.

Required staffing with this option looks much flatter than your volume forecast. That’s expected: cases still arrive in spikes, but the work doesn’t all need to be done at once. Use it for async work where your SLA gives you hours or days. It gives you a more realistic headcount target to schedule against.

Change the requirements calculation

1. Go to Schedule > Staffing timeline.
2. In Channels, choose Email or Back office. To set it for one queue, add a Queue filter with that queue.
3. Select Configure staffing.
4. Under Requirements calculation, choose Evenly distribute work across the SLA window (recommended) or Complete all work in the interval they arrive in.
5. To see the new requirements without saving, select Preview new requirements.
6. To keep the change, select Configure staffing again, then Save parameters.

Required staffing is recalculated with the option you chose. To switch back, choose the other option and save again. You don’t need to change your other parameters.

What changes when you switch

• Only required staffing is recalculated. Your volume forecast stays the same.
• Existing schedules don’t change. Schedule generation uses the new requirements the next time it runs.
• Your service level, target response time, and productivity settings are kept, so you can switch between the two options to compare them.

View backlog volume

Backlog volume shows past and forecasted cases waiting for a first response, and how many have breached, or are forecast to breach, your target response time.

1. Go to Schedule > Staffing timeline.
2. In Channels, choose Email or Back office, and no more than one queue.
3. In the chart, select Backlog volume.

The chart shows three series for the channel or queue:

The forecasted backlog is based on the cases your scheduled team members can solve, using your productivity and shrinkage. Use it for scenario planning, such as working out how to clear a growing queue:

• To test different assumptions, change Email productivity, Unproductive shrinkage, or the Reopens multiplier, and select Preview new requirements.
• To see what extra headcount would do, schedule more team members.
• Changing Target response time moves cases between the breached and not-yet-breached series. Service level doesn’t change the backlog.