Tymeshift gives you the option to modify your Forecast by adjusting the incoming volumes (to increase or decrease) based on known upcoming events. Moreover, you can change your team's staffing parameters and see how it affects the FTE count.

• Adjust volume
• Excluding Historical Inbound Volume Outliers
• Edit FTE parameters

Adjust volume

The Forecast gives you the ability to adjust your expected volumes based on unique upcoming events (marketing campaigns, feature sunset, etc.). To adjust the Inbound volume, please follow the steps below:

1. Select a Workstream from the left side of the Forecast page.
2. On the right side of the Forecast page, click on the + icon to add an Inbound Volume adjustment. From here you can:
   • Rename your adjustment to give it more context (marketing, new feature release, etc.)
   • Select the date range to apply the Inbound Volume changes.
   • Specify the percentage or value of expected volume increase or decrease using +/- in the field.
   • Chose to enable or disable the adjustment and see how it affects your estimates for the Forecast and FTE count.
   • Create multiple adjustments to reflect upcoming events that might impact the expected volumes.
   • If needed, delete the modifications.
   • And don't forget to click the Save button to apply these adjustments or Cancel if you want to cancel them

Excluding Historical Inbound Volume Outliers
This feature gives you the ability to exclude historical data outlier from being taken into account when generating a forecast. This can be used for a number of reasons, for example, a one-off marketing campaign or an outage that could have caused your inbound volume to spike. Once you have saved the excluded outliers, it will take some time to recalculate but once it is complete, you will be able to see how the forecast looks like without those historical spikes affecting it. Do note that this option is not available for Imported Data and you will have to edit these within the import itself. To exclude these outliers: 

1. Select a Workstream from the left side of the Forecast page. The Exclude Outliers option will show up on the right side of the page.
2. Click on the + sign to add an outlier. 
3. You can then rename the Outlier. We recommend renaming this to accurately reflect the outlier as this could be useful in the future compared to a generic name. 
4. Choose a start and end time and date as well as the time you want to exclude.
5. Click on Save.

If you wanted to delete an excluded outlier, all you have to do is to click on the 3 dot options on the right of the outlier you created and delete them. If you wanted to delete all of the outliers created, you can simply click on the "Delete all outliers" button at the bottom of the column. 

Note: If the exclusion date range selected does not have enough data preceding it to remove the outlier (a minimum of 2 weeks is required), this specific outlier won't be replaced and a warning will be shown. The forecast will still be generated successfully.

Edit FTE parameters

We understand that not every Workstream can have the exact FRTs, AHTs, and even Shrinkage expectations, therefore, with Tymeshift Forecast you can modify the FTE count parameters according to your set business requirements. You can also set specific business hours and the channel preference for that workstream. The channel preference controls staffing parameters that will be used to build your staffing forecast.

This is how to modify your FTE Count parameters:

1. Select a Workstream from the left side of the Forecast page.
2. FTE Count parameter options will show up on the right side of the page, from here you can:
   • Select the Channel preference for your workstream. 
   • Adjust the Occupancy Rate for the Workstream.
   • Change the Average Handle Time (AHT) and select the values for hh:mm:ss and click OK.
   • Specify SLA of the First Response Time (FRT) and select the values for hh:mm:ss and click OK.
   • State the SLA attainment target.
   • Input the Shrinkage value.
   • Add the minimum number of staffing you need for that workstream.
   • Choose whether or not you want to specify your availability or business hours. 
   • You can also reset to the default values by selecting  .

Note: Shrinkage is the % value of unscheduled or scheduled activities (vacations, sick leaves, etc.) which prevent employees from performing their work. The industry standard is approximately 15-35%.