Introduction

Assembled will automatically forecast contacts and reopens for you, but if you wish to override that forecast and use your own, you can either do so by uploading a CSV, using our API, or directly in our UI. The real power of this feature is that you don't have to provide a forecast for every 30 or 60-minute increment. Assembled can actually take a forecast over any time period and apply our forecasted arrival patterns, leaving the tedious work to us and allowing you to focus on the accuracy of your or your team's forecast over a broader period of time.

Note: if you or your team plan on using the API, the CSV upload is a great way to test out the behavior and data since the inputs are the same.

Uploading files

1. Navigate to Uploads > Forecast totals.
2. Drag and drop your CSV file or click on Choose a file...and select a file.

You'll have an opportunity to map columns from your file to the fields needed for Assembled.

• Channel: Channel of the forecast
• Queue (optional): Queue of the forecast. You don't have to provide a queue, in which case the forecast will be for the entire channel, however, if you do have specific queues it's recommended that you provide a forecast for each channel and queue combination.
• Start: Start time of the forecast value (in the timezone specified).
• End: End time of the forecast value (in the timezone specified).
• Case volume: Forecast total value
• Reopened cases (optional): Reopened total value. This is only relevant for asynchronous channels like email.
• Average handle time (optional): Numeric forecast for average handle time, expressed in minutes. This is only relevant for synchronous channels like chat. 
  • This is used if you want to overwrite Assembled's auto-AHT forecast. 
• Case throughput (optional): Numeric forecast for cases solved per hour. This is only relevant for asynchronous channels like email.
  • This is used if you want to overwrite Assembled's auto-generated case throughput forecast. 
• Timezone: The timezone of your start and end times. Be sure to select the same timezone as the timezone in your upload. 

Once you are ready to upload click Upload. You'll be able to view this data from any of the reports where you usually look at forecasts (Staffing timeline, Forecasted v Actual etc). 

How it works - data requirements

This upload can take data for any time interval but Assembled requires values down to the 15m interval for forecasting. What this means : 

• If you wish to have total control of the forecast, you can upload totals down to that level of granularity (15 min interval), and Assembled will just accept those values as the forecast.
• If your team is focused on forecasting contact volume over a wider time range (eg. over the course of a holiday week), you can provide a single bulk number for the entire week and Assembled will apply the necessary arrival patterns (15 min interval) to ensure that you're able to schedule your agents for that week.

Example: If you provide a start of January 1, 2022 00:00:00PT and an end time of January 8, 2022, 00:00:00PT, and a Forecast Total of 1,000 contacts, we would not just average 1,000 over the course of those 7 days. Instead, you would see those 1,000 contacts following historical arrival patterns.

Viewing your uploaded forecast

Once you've uploaded your forecast there are a few places where you can view these values. 

• Forecast>Configuration:
  • Select the channel/queue and time range of your totals.
  • You'll see all uploaded totals in the Totals tab.
  • You can even edit or delete the totals directly from the UI !
• Forecasted v Actual:
  • Select the channel/queue and time range of your totals.
  • Make sure to pick the end date that is one day before the end date in the upload. 

Considerations

• We do not support uploading totals for the same timeframe with different intervals.
  • Example: if you uploaded 1 week interval totals for 01/01-01/07 and now you are trying to upload 1 hr interval totals for 01/01-01/07, Assembled will throw an error. 
  • If you need to remove the previously uploaded totals, please reach out to support@assembledhq.com so that we can remove the previously uploaded totals. 

If you run into any issues please reach out to support@assembledhq.com!