About workforce management automations

What's my plan?

Zendesk Workforce management (WFM) automations are designed to streamline repetitive tasks. Automations allow you to manage certain agent activities automatically, such as ending agents' days when they forget to clock out. 

Similar to Zendesk automations, WFM automations perform an action when the conditions you define are met. Automations can reduce your manual workload and increase efficiency and accuracy.

This article contains the following sections:

• About WFM automations
• Structure of a WFM automation
• How WFM automations work

Related articles

• Creating workforce management automations to manage agent activity

About WFM automations

Note: If your WFM account was created before October 19, 2023, and you were previously using Rules, you must delete any rules before you can use automations.

Similar to Zendesk automations, WFM automations perform actions when the conditions you define are met. WFM automations are focused on managing agent activity.

Some uses for automations include:

• Correcting the time recorded if agents forget to clock out for the day. 
• Moving agents from a task or workstream to a general task or untracked time.

By setting up automations, managers are freed up from performing the repetitive tasks related to correcting agent timesheets.

Structure of a WFM automation

WFM automations have a set structure. You can think of the structure as an if statement. For example:

If an agent is [Clocked in] to [task] for over [20m] then [clock out agent]

The structure of a WFM automation consists of:

• A trigger, which is the event that determines when the automation activates. Currently, Zendesk WFM automation triggers are set to the Clock in event and can't be changed.
• One or more tasks that the trigger is related to. This can be any of your workstreams or general tasks.
• A set duration, which measures how long the event must occur before the automation activates.
• The actions that the automation will perform. Choose from predefined actions, such as clocking out an agent and ending their day or sending a message to their team manager.
• A list of agents that the automation applies to. Automations can apply to all agents in an account or only specified agents.

  

How WFM automations work

Like Zendesk automations, WFM automations perform actions when the defined conditions are met. The conditions of a WFM automation consist of the defined trigger, task, and duration time. 

When the conditions are met, the defined action is performed for the specified agents.

Note: Automations don't run retroactively. Actions are performed for agent activities that occur after the automation is created.