Iex Corporation

Other

Gary B Crockett

Paul Harold Leamon

Ronald M Castonguay

A method for scheduling personnel (e.g., agents) in a work environment based on personnel 'skill' levels. The method facilitates true skills-based scheduling of agents in a telephone call center using a simulation tool to predict what fraction of scheduled agents from each 'skill group' will be available to each 'call type' during each time interval being scheduled. A feedback mechanism is used to adjust net staffing and skills usage data between iterations of a call handling simulation until a given schedule being tested through the simulator meets some acceptance criteria.

Skills-based scheduling for telephone call centers

A method for planning, scheduling and managing personnel in an environment in which there is a varying workload by time of day and by day of week to be staffed with a team having a variable number of servers. The method begins by organizing the team of servers into a plurality of management units, each management unit having one or more groups of individual servers. One or more tour templates, each describing a bounded work shift having work rules and operating constraints, are then defined. A forecast is then generated of an event load expected to occur during a forecast time period and a number of servers required to service the expected event load during the forecast time period. The method then allocates expected event load among the plurality of management units according to a predetermined number of servers expected to be available at each management unit during the forecast time period. Thereafter, the tour templates are correlated with the forecast to generate a set of tours for each management unit, each tour defining a work schedule for the forecast time period for a theoretical server of the management unit. The individual servers of each management unit are then assigned to to the generated tours for the management unit.

Method for planning, scheduling and managing personnel

A method, using a call processor, for selecting one of a plurality of call centers in a telephone network. The method begins by generating a routing plan comprising one or more rules that control how calls are to be distributed among the call centers. For each call to be distributed, the rules in the routing plan are executed for a set of valid call center destinations until a destination for the call has been selected or until all rules have been executed. If all rules have been executed and more than one call center is still a valid destination for the call, the remaining call center destinations are then further evaluated according to the rules to select a destination for the call.

Rules-based call routing

A method for planning, scheduling and managing personnel in an environment in which there is a varying workload by time of day and by day of week to be staffed with a team having a variable number of servers. The method defines one or more tour templates, each describing a bounded work shift having work rules and operating constraints. Per-server preferences for particular kinds of work schedules within the limits imposed by the tour templates are also defined, as are various selection policy rules for determining which servers work when the number of servers exceeds the demand therefor. After generating a forecast of an event load expected to occur during a forecast time period and a number of servers required to service the expected event load during the forecast time period, the method correlates the tour templates with the forecast to generate a set of optimal tours, each tour defining a daily work schedule for the forecast time period for a theoretical server. Then, the individual servers are automatically scheduled to the generated tours according to the preferences and the selection policy rules.

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Plano, TX, United States of America

Gary B Crockett