Sprinklr's Workforce Management (WFM) streamlines contact center operations and offers robust capabilities for Forecasting, Capacity Planning, Scheduling, Time Off management, and Real-time Adherence. It uses proprietary AI solutions to accurately predict forecasts, generate optimal capacity plans to understand staffing requirements, and build agent schedules. It ensures that the right agents with the right skills are available at the right time to deliver customer service.

Roles in Sprinklr WFM

The specific WFM roles can vary within each contact center depending on several factors, such as the size of the contact center, its operational complexity, the industry it serves, and the specific goals of the organization. Sprinklr’s WFM module caters to the following high-level roles:

1. Supervisor

2. Workforce Manager

3. Agent

4. Quality Manager

Supervisor

Supervisors are responsible for configuring and maintaining Sprinklr’s Workforce Management (WFM) system. Their key tasks include managing Real-Time Adherence (RTA), setting up configurations such as Request Dashboards and Persona Apps (like the Workforce Manager Persona App), and creating and managing Tiered Approvals. In addition, administrators configure alerts to notify relevant stakeholders about important events or issues within the WFM system.

Workforce Managers

Workforce Managers (also known as Workforce Planners) play a critical role in balancing operational efficiency with service excellence. They are responsible for forecasting and scheduling to ensure optimal staffing levels and the achievement of service goals. Workforce Managers create and manage the core components of workforce planning, including Workloads, Presets, Shifts, and Activities. They also oversee Forecast Scenarios, Schedule Scenarios, and various Policies (such as Schedule and Time Off Policies), along with managing Agent Preferences, Shift Changes, and Slot Management.

Agents

Agents in Sprinklr WFM are the primary point of contact for customers. They handle various forms of customer interactions, such as phone calls, emails, chats, and social media inquiries. Sprinklr’s WFM module allows agents to view their schedules and raise Time Off requests. Features such as Shift Trade and Shift Bidding aim to provide schedule flexibility and better work-life balance.

Sprinklr WFM High-Level Capabilities

Sprinklr WFM solution supports a wide range of industry-standard functionalities, which include:

Workloads

Create and manage Workloads to ensure optimal resource allocation. Workloads are combinations of Channels, Queues, and Skills that are used to generate Forecast Scenarios. With support for custom parameters, Workloads can be used to create Pre-trained Model or Runtime Model Forecast Scenarios. Learn more about managing Workloads.

Shift and Activity

Sprinklr’s WFM allows users to construct unlimited Shifts and Activities. You can define activities, define their priorities, configure variable start times to ensure they are scheduled appropriately. Shifts can have multiple start times with support for Shift Patterns.

Policies

Create Schedule, Shift Trade, Shift Change, Overtime, and Time Off Policies to help your contact center operate efficiently and flexibly. Customizable Schedule Policies ensure that shifts align with business needs and employee preferences, improving overall productivity. Shift Trade Policies allow agents to swap shifts easily, enhancing work-life balance. Time Off Policies provide clear guidelines for requesting and approving leave, ensuring adequate staffing levels and minimizing disruptions. Learn more about managing policies.

Forecasting

Sprinklr’s Multichannel Forecasting helps you to generate their capacity plans by providing insights into the expected volume of cases and determining the optimal number of agents required to handle them. Sprinklr employs a sophisticated forecasting approach, leveraging multiple AI algorithms along with an automated option to estimate future case volumes accurately. With support for What-If scenarios, it helps you see how different situations might affect your staffing needs, making it easier to plan and prepare for the future. You can import external forecast scenarios for a seamless transition if you have preconfigured forecasts.

Scheduling

Sprinklr WFM’s Scheduling allocates agents to tasks, shifts, or activities within a contact center. It supports automated or manual scheduling, bulk overrides, and importing external schedules. Schedule Scenarios help identify and address overstaffing or understaffing, ensuring optimal efficiency. "What If" analysis allows evaluation of different schedule scenarios for better decision-making. The scheduling process integrates business hours, holidays, and agents’ time off, aligning with guidelines like maximum weekly hours, preferred shifts, week-offs, and shift patterns. Learn more about managing Schedule Scenarios.

Time Off Management

Sprinklr WFM’s Time Off Management (previously known as Leave Management) enables contact centers to efficiently track and manage employee time off. This is done while maintaining operational continuity and compliance with company policies and labor regulations. Learn more about time off management.

Advantages of Sprinklr Time Off Management include:

• Streamlined Processes: The system-driven approval process streamlines and accelerates approvals by enabling both auto-approval and manual approvals through tiered approval workflows.

• Minimizes Overlapping Time Off: Helps supervisors review all time-off requests and selectively approve them, ensuring minimal overlaps.

Manual Shift Bidding

Sprinklr WFM’s Shift Bidding functionality enables agents to actively participate in the scheduling process. This process begins with creating shift bids or patterns and releasing them for bidding. The workflows and conditions for bidding are clearly defined, ensuring a transparent and competitive system. Agents are then able to select their preferred shifts, making the entire scheduling process more inclusive.

Once the shift bid is created, the system’s AI evaluates several ranking criteria to allocate shifts efficiently, considering agent preferences. When the bids go live, agents are notified and can drag and move their preferred shifts before submitting. Upon finalization by the supervisor, the updated schedule is automatically reflected on the agent's schedule page, ensuring smooth transitions and timely updates. Learn more about creating Shift Bids.

Shift Trade

Sprinklr WFM’s Shift Trade functionality (formerly Shift Swap) allows agents to trade shifts with one another based on configurable rules and conditions. Agents can specify their preferences for trading shifts, like creating a direct or open Shift Trade, making it easier to accommodate their schedules.

Slot Management

Sprinklr WFM’s Slot Management allows Workforce Managers to create and manage different types of slots (Time Off and Overtime) that agents can select from their calendars. Workforce Managers can define slot details such as date range, time off policies, and slot capacities and manage agent requests through a dashboard. Learn more about slot management.

Agent Preferences

The Agent Preference feature allows supervisors to define preference windows, apply constraints, and enable agents to submit their preferences within a controlled timeframe. This structured approach enhances scheduling accuracy, reduces manual effort, and promotes fair and balanced shift allocation.

Shift Change

The Shift Change feature allows agents to modify their Shifts or schedule. Agents can submit a Shift Change request to modify their schedule for a specific date by updating the Shift start time or adding, removing, or rearranging Activities within their existing Shift. This helps maintain accurate agent Adherence and allows Supervisors to manage such requests efficiently without manually updating each Shift.

Real-Time Adherence

Real-Time Adherence (RTA) enables supervisors to monitor, in real time, whether agents are adhering to their assigned schedules. It continuously compares each agent’s current activity, such as being on a call, on break, or available, with their planned schedule. This visibility allows supervisors to take timely corrective actions to maintain service levels, minimize customer wait times, and ensure optimal utilization of staffing resources.

Supervisors can also configure out-of-adherence alerts to receive notifications when adherence falls below a defined threshold. Additionally, agent adherence can be retrospectively corrected when necessary, for example, if an agent was pulled into an unscheduled meeting or training session, or experienced connectivity issues or system downtime that led to inaccurate adherence data. Refer to this section for details on managing Real-Time Adherence (RTA) in Sprinklr Workforce Management.

WFM Reporting

Sprinklr’s WFM solution offers both customizable and out-of-the-box reporting and analytics through Sprinklr Service’s unified architecture. Workforce managers and administrators can track KPIs such as forecast adherence, schedule adherence, conformance, and shrinkage, with the flexibility to configure dashboards to meet your specific needs.