What are forecast adjustments?
At Dialpad WFM, we build forecasting models based on your historical contact volumes.
By looking for patterns in how volume changes over time we predict the number of tickets your team is likely to receive. But, we know that historical data only paints part of the picture. Often, there are internal factors in your business that aren’t visible in the patterns of your telephony or ticketing system.
Planned activities like marketing campaigns, mass customer communications, product launches or price changes can dramatically impact inbound enquiries. This is where forecast adjustments come in. Forecast adjustments allow you to manually adjust the forecast volume for specific periods.
Covered in this guide
Creating a forecast adjustment
You can create a new adjustment by clicking the Adjustments button on the Forecasts page. This will open the adjustment page.
You can give your adjustment a name, tell us when you want the adjustment to start and end, and select the queues you want to adjust the volumes for. You can adjust the same volume for multiple queues or specify different volume adjustments for each queue.
Once you’ve made the adjustments, detailing when the changes take place and the volume, you can preview the effect on forecasted contact volumes and number of agents needed.
💡 Note: The preview charts show the total volume for all your queues not just the selected or adjusted queues.
Once you're happy hit save and your forecast adjustment will be applied to the chosen queues and periods.
Viewing adjustments
Any periods of active adjustments will be visible on your forecast charts. They are marked with a purple background and can be see when you hover over the adjusted period.
To view the details of the adjustment simply click anywhere on the chart within the adjusted period and this will open up the side drawer. Here you can see when the adjustment is active, the duration and the volume adjustments for each of your queues.
You can also see if you have any upcoming adjustment via the Adjustments button on the forecasts page. Clicking this will open the sidedrawer with a list of upcoming and previous adjustments. You can search this list to find specific adjustments.
Editing or deleting an adjustment
To edit or delete an adjustment open the adjustment side drawer following the steps above and click edit this will open the adjustment page allowing you to edit all the settings.
You can delete the adjustment via the side drawer or from the edit adjustment page. This will delete the adjustment permanently and return your incoming contact volumes and required agents to the original forecasted levels.