Trading shifts with other agents

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Workforce Management (WFM) or Workforce Engagement Management (WEM)

If an admin has configured your account to allow agents to trade shifts, agents can send trade requests to each other. Shift trade requests are subject to manager approval.

This article contains the following topics:

• Understanding how trading shifts works
• Trading your shift
• Taking a shift trade

Related articles

• Viewing and managing your schedule as an agent

Understanding how trading shifts works

Three users must agree to a shift change for it to be finalized: both agents and a manager. Understanding the overall process will help you know what to expect when trading shifts.

At a high level, trading shifts involves the following steps:

1. An agent requests a shift trade.
2. Other agents review trade requests in the shift pool.
3. Agents respond to the request with an offer of one of their own shifts.
4. The requesting agent accepts or rejects the offer.
5. After the requesting agent accepts a trade offer, their manager is notified and can approve, deny, or reply with a comment.
6. After a manager approves the trade, the request is resolved and the shifts are traded in the system. Both agents receive email notifications that the trade has been approved.

Trading your shift

As an agent, you use the Agent schedule app in Zendesk to request shift trades.

To request a shift trade

1. In Support, click the Zendesk Workforce Management icon () in the sidebar.
2. Next to Shift trades, click the options menu icon () and select Trade shift.

   

3. Select the date and time of the Shift to trade.
4. Choose who you want to Make your shift visible to. You can specify individual users, Everyone, My teams, or a location.

   If you specify individual users, they’ll receive an email notification about your request. Otherwise, your request is visible to the selected agents in the trade pool, but no notification is sent.

5. Select your Ideal return shift date. This helps those considering taking your shift understand your preferred swap date.
6. Click Send trade request.

   

7. Your request is added to the trade pool and visible to the agents you specified in the request.

   

Taking a shift trade

You can review trade requests from other agents in the shift pool.

After you accept a shift trade, a manager has to approve the trade before it's official.

To take a shift trade

1. In Support, click the Zendesk Workforce Management icon () in the sidebar.
2. Next to Shift trades, click the options menu icon () and select View shift pool.

   

3. All shift trade requests available to you are listed.

   To accept a shift trade, hover over the request and click Take it.

   
4. Select one of your shifts to trade. You can offer any shift, but it’s recommended to base it on the requesting agent's preferred shift trade date.

   

5. Click Send your offer.
6. After you send your offer, an email is sent to the agent who submitted the trade. They will see "(Agent Name) wants to take your shift" in the Agent Schedule app and can click Review. They can then choose to Accept or Reject your offer.

   

If accepted, the request goes to the manager of the agent who submitted the trade for approval. They may then accept, deny or react with a comment to the request.

Both agents receive an email notifying them of the manager's decision.