Setting up and reading WFM forecasts

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

In Zendesk Workforce management (WFM), you can run a forecast with one click.

When you select a workstream, Zendesk WFM begins calculating the future contact volumes and staffing needs. Depending on how much historical ticket data you have, it might take a moment to see the forecast for the selected workstream.

In some cases, there might not be enough collected data to show a full forecast. In such instances, the forecast will be repeated. For example, if only three months of data are available, Zendesk WFM will replicate this pattern for the rest of the year. You can contact Zendesk customer support to initiate a manual historical ticket data collection.

This article contains the following sections:

• Organizing workstreams
• Understanding inbound volume
• About required staffing
• Selecting the historical volume period

Related articles

• Forecast overview

Organizing workstreams

The workstreams you created appear on the left panel of the Forecast page. See Creating workstreams to create any additional workstreams or modify your existing workstreams.

To organize your workstreams, you can use the following options:

• Show or hide a workstream on your main trends chart by selecting the eye icon to show the workstream in the forecast.
• Workstreams with additional volume adjustments will have a chart icon next to them for easier identification.
• Recalculate your forecast at any time by hovering over a workstream and clicking on the options menu icon .

• You can recalculate all workstreams at once by clicking the recalculate icon next to All workstreams.

  All inbound volume calculations will be updated with new historical volumes. Workstreams with imported historical volumes will not be recalculated.
• Change the color of a workstream by hovering over the workstream and clicking the options menu icon .
• Group your workstreams in a folder to see a combined forecast for multiple workstreams. Click the folder icon () to create a folder, then drag your Workstreams there.

  Only ten or fewer workstreams can be visible on a chart at a time.

Understanding inbound volume

After your forecast is available, it's displayed on the Inbound volume chart. The color represents the color of the selected workstream. You'll be able to see historical data and future volume estimations. See WFM forecast overview.

On the chart, you can select daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly views of the incoming workload.

The Inbound volume chart marks where the historical data ends and the forecast begins. Every time you recalculate the forecast, the mark moves accordingly. Each value on the line marked as a historical value is the amount registered until the last recalculation. If Zendesk WFM doesn't have the full value for that time period (either not a full day or a full week), then the chart displays the values tracked so far. This may appear as a sudden drop because they are only partial volumes.

Hovering over the chart intervals shows you the values of expected volumes for the selected workstreams.

You can also expand the chart to a table view which can be exported. The table allows you to view the estimated incoming volumes and the values for each workstream shown based on the selected interval option.

Forecast allows you to adjust your expected volumes based on unique events (for example, marketing campaigns, feature sunset). See Editing WFM forecasts.

Zendesk WFM calculates the inbound volume every time the ticket changes workstreams.

About required staffing

Based on the forecast, Zendesk WFM calculates the staff count needed to handle the expected workload in the Required staffing chart. Colors represent the selected workstreams and you'll see the required staffing values when you hover over the chart.

The chart shows the projected required staffing count for upcoming dates. Historical required staffing calculations aren't stored.

You can also expand the chart to a table view which can be exported.

When Zendesk WFM calculates required staffing, Zendesk business hours aren't taken into account. Instead, the staffing requirements based on the historical times of incoming volumes are displayed so you can consider business hours adjustments if needed. For the day and week view, the staffing requirements value reflects the maximum FTE value attained on that time interval. For the month and year view, it's the sum of the required hours.

Forecast allows you to modify your required staffing parameters. See Editing WFM forecasts.

Selecting the historical volume period

For each workstream, you have the option to set the historical volume period. This allows you to decide which historical data you want to include or exclude in your forecast calculation.

A minimum of one month data is required for forecasting. If you enter a date with less than one month of data, the forecast will not be generated. Additionally, the system limits the use of historical data to a maximum of two years. Any data exceeding this two-year threshold will not be factored into the forecast.

Note: Once Zendesk WFM is activated for your account, it automatically collects six months of historical data from Zendesk. Zendesk WFM also includes spam tickets, which may be different from how you capture ticket volume in Zendesk Explore. See Understanding and managing suspended tickets and spam.

To select the historical volume period

1. Click the Forecast icon .

   

2. Hover over the workstream you want to use, then click the options menu icon .
3. Select Historical volume, then Use Zendesk data.

   

   You also have the option to import your own data into your workstream forecast. See Importing historical volume.
4. In the window, leave the toggle on to use all data. Alternatively, to ignore data from before a certain date, toggle it off and choose the date you would like to ignore prior to the date chosen.
5. Click Apply to forecast. The forecast recalculates based on the data from the date entered.