Forecast totals

Use forecast totals to replace Assembled’s forecast with your own numbers, for example when your team forecasts a holiday week’s volume outside Assembled. You don’t need a value for every interval: give a total for any period, such as a day or a week, and Assembled spreads it across 15-minute intervals using your forecasted arrival pattern.

To upload totals, go to Forecast > Manage forecasts and select Upload totals. You can also add totals one at a time on the Adjust tab, or send them with the Assembled API.

Note: The CSV upload takes the same inputs as the API, so it’s a good way to test your data before you build an API integration.

How forecast totals work

• A total replaces the forecast for its channel, queue, metric, and time range.
• Volume totals, such as case volume, are spread across 15-minute intervals using the forecasted arrival pattern. To set every interval yourself, upload totals for each 15-minute interval.
• Totals for average handle time and case throughput are applied as the same value in every 15-minute interval of the range.
• Each metric you upload for must have a current forecast model for that channel and queue, because the model’s arrival pattern is used to spread the total. See Forecast models.
• Adjustments still apply on top of totals.

For example: you upload a total of 1,000 contacts from 00:00 on January 1 to 00:00 on January 8. Assembled doesn’t spread the 1,000 contacts evenly across the seven days. Instead, they follow your usual arrival pattern, with more contacts on busier days and at busier times.

Upload forecast totals

Important: An uploaded total replaces the existing forecast for that channel, queue, and time range, wherever the forecast is used, including the Staffing timeline.

1. Go to Forecast > Manage forecasts and select Upload totals.
2. In Upload forecast totals, drag your CSV file onto Drag and drop a CSV file here, or select Browse files… and choose the file.
3. Under Assign fields to columns, choose the column in your file that holds each field. To include an optional field, select its checkbox.
4. Choose the Time zone that the start and end times in your file are in.
5. Select Upload.

When the upload finishes, you see Forecast totals uploaded, and your forecasts are regenerated with the new totals.

Upload fields

If your company uses the case lifecycle model, the upload also has Unit of work volume, Average handle time (units of work), and Unit of work throughput.

File requirements

• Start and end times must fall on 15-minute boundaries, such as 9:00 or 9:15.
• A new total can’t partly overlap an existing total for the same channel and queue. Delete the existing total first.
• For example, if you’ve uploaded one total for January 1 to 7, you can’t then upload hourly totals for January 1 to 7.
• Uploading a total with exactly the same start and end as an existing one replaces it.
• Totals don’t add up from child queues to their parent queue. If your queues have parent and child queues, upload totals for both the parents and the children.

View, edit, or add totals

Uploaded totals appear wherever you see forecasts, such as the Staffing timeline and the Forecasted vs actual report. To manage them:

1. Go to Forecast > Manage forecasts and select the Adjust tab.
2. Choose the Channel and Queue, and a date range that includes your totals.
3. In Edit outliers, adjustments, and totals, select the Totals tab. Each total in the range has a card.
4. To change a total, select Edit on its card. To add one, select Create total.
5. In the panel, set the Start, End, Time zone, and Forecast value, and select Save.
6. Select Save totals.

Your forecasts are regenerated with the changed totals.

Note: In the Forecasted vs actual report, the end date is included in the range. For a total that ends at 00:00 on January 8, choose January 7 as the end date.

Delete totals

Important: Deleting totals returns those dates to Assembled’s forecast from your current model.

• One total: on the Totals tab, select Edit on the total’s card, select Delete, and then select Save totals.
• Every total in the date range: on the Totals tab, select Delete totals in range, then Delete to confirm.

To delete a large number of totals across many dates, contact our team.

Model a what-if scenario

You can use totals to see the staffing impact of a hypothetical, such as 35% of tickets being handled by an AI agent, or tickets per customer dropping by 50%. Assembled doesn’t calculate the hypothetical for you: you apply your assumption to your baseline volume, then upload the result.

Important: An uploaded total replaces the live forecast for that period, and there’s no separate scenario to switch on and off. Test scenarios on future dates that aren’t yet used for scheduling, and delete the test totals as soon as you’ve reviewed them.

1. Download your current forecast for the channel and queue you want to test. On the Review tab of Forecast > Manage forecasts, open More forecast actions and select Download forecasts.
2. In a spreadsheet, apply your assumption to each period. For example, to model 35% AI deflection for a queue forecast at 1,000 contacts in a week, calculate 1,000 × (1 − 0.35) = 650 contacts.
3. Save the adjusted totals as a CSV in the format above, and upload them.
4. Compare the result with your original forecast on the Staffing timeline or in the Forecasted vs actual report.

To go back to Assembled’s forecast, delete the totals.