Entering Forecasting Settings
Use
Use this procedure to enter forecasting settings.
Prerequisites
You have completed entering all operational settings.
Procedure
In the Implementation Guide (IMG) for CRM, select the following path to define forecast settings:
Customer Relationship Management à Interaction Center Workforce Management à Forecasting Settings à Define Forecasting Parameters
In this IMG activity, you define special parameters used during forecasting or those used as a default when defining workloads in SAP Easy Access.
Use this IMG Activity to define how IC WFM forecasting considers rounding and workload smoothing rules, and whether or not to drop or make use of high / low historical values. This specifies default display values in Forecast iViews.
You set the global Drop Hi Lo Limit settings using this activity. You also have the option to override the global settings by defining Drop Hi Lo Limit settings for a volume indicator.
|
Field name |
Description |
User action / Notes |
|
Location Profile |
The location to which these forecasting parameters apply. |
Enter or select the location. |
|
Start Date |
A beginning date for the forecasting parameters definition. |
IC WFM considers these forecasting parameters valid for the range defined by the start and end dates. The date entries must not overlap. |
|
End Date |
An end date. |
If no end date is planned for this forecasting parameters definition, enter 12/31/9999 to specify an open-ended validity range. |
|
Stat Granularity |
The default display granularity for the Modify Forecast iView. |
Choose from quarter-hourly, half-hourly, hourly, daily or weekly. |
|
Round < 1 |
This value defines the global default value for how IC WFM should round when encountering a workload of less than one person. |
If the workload value is less than one, IC WFM checks this value to determine whether to round to the next integer value. This value can also be configured on an individual workload basis. |
|
Round >1 |
This value defines the global default value for how IC WFM should round when encountering a fractional person workload of greater than one person. |
If the workload value is greater than one, IC WFM checks this value to determine whether to round to the next integer value. This value can also be configured on an individual workload basis. |
|
Smth Range |
Smoothing Range, defines a range for distributing highly variable workloads within ¼ increments. |
The value should be greater than or equal to 2. See the example below. |
|
Drop Hi Lo Def |
Defines whether IC WFM should drop the highest and lowest historical values when generating volume forecasts. |
When not checked, use the Drop Hi Lo Limit settings from the volume indicator; when checked, use the Drop Hi Lo Limit settings defined in this activity. |
|
Drop Hi Lo Limit |
Defines the number of weeks of history required before drop hi/low will occur. Only used when Drop Hi Lo Def is checked. |
The number of weeks of history to be used in a forecast is selected on the forecast parameter iViews. See the example below for further information on how this value is used. |
Smoothing Range
Workloads can arrive in variable amounts, or with peaks and valleys which do not represent a feasible staffing scenario. For example, consider a workload based on email volume, which for 8 consecutive quarter-hour intervals might look like this:
8 0 6 0 10 0 8 0
(where the numbers indicate the number of agents required to handle the forecasted workload per quarter hour)
Scheduling 6, 8, or 10 agents to meet to this workload would result in a great deal of overstaffing. Instead, IC WFM can compute a running average of the smooth range value. For example, if this value is 2, then workload is averaged over 2 consecutive quarter hour units. The workload above would be smoothed to:
4 5 3 6 3 5 3 3
IC WFM can now more easily schedule 4 or 5 people to handle the volume of e-mails.
Drop Hi Lo Limit
When you configure IC WFM to drop the highest and lowest historical values in generating volume forecasts, you must ensure that the system still has enough data to create a useful forecast. For example, if you enter 3 in the Drop Hi Lo Limit field, IC WFM will drop the highest and lowest data points, leaving only three weeks of historical data for use in forecasting.
Result
You have entered the forecasting parameters configured within the IMG.