Use this article to set up Workforce Management for your team: create workstreams, set permissions, and find the guides for forecasting, scheduling, and team performance. Workforce Management (WFM) gives you a complete picture of your support demand across both Fin and human teammates, so you can forecast accurately, schedule efficiently, and track team performance in one place.
Use Workforce Management to:
Forecast how many teammates you'll need based on conversation and customer ticket volume.
Schedule your team using week or day schedule templates, with the option to set up a two-way Google Calendar sync.
Track teammate adherence, conformance, and shrinkage in real time.
"Conversation" is used as shorthand for both conversations and customer tickets throughout this article. Supported channels: Email, Chat, Android app, and iOS app.
Note: Workforce Management is included in the Pro add-on. If your plan doesn't include the Pro add-on, you'll need to upgrade to get access. This article is for teammates with the "Can access Workforce" permission. Setting up workstreams and permissions also needs "Can manage Workforce".
Where is Workforce Management in?
Workforce Management lives in the sidebar under Workforce:
Schedule your team using week or day schedule templates, with the option to set up a two-way Google Calendar sync.
Forecast – predicted volume and teammate coverage.
Team Performance – per-teammate adherence, conformance, and shrinkage.
Expand Configure in the sidebar for:
Workstreams – group team inboxes into scheduling units and set a productivity metric.
Activity types – define the blocks that make up a schedule, and which ones count as productive time.
Calendar – connect Google Calendar, turn each sync direction on or off, and set up mapping rules.
Schedule templates – create and manage reusable week or day schedules. See How to build and edit schedules in Workforce Management.
Note: Access is controlled by the Workforce section of a teammate's permissions. Teammates also need "Can view all teammate and team details" turned on, or Workforce pages return a permissions error.
How to get started
Go to Workforce > Get started and work through the Get set up checklist. It has four steps:
Set up a workstream. Group team inboxes into a workstream, like "Billing", and set its productivity: how many conversations one teammate handles per hour. Teammates only appear in Workforce once they're in a workstream. See How to create workstreams below.
Create activity types. Define the blocks that make up your team's day, like "Inbox time", "Lunch", or "PTO", and mark which ones are productive. Only productive time counts toward coverage. See How to use calendar settings in Workforce Management.
Create schedule templates. Build reusable week or day patterns, then copy them across days and teammates. See How to build and edit schedules in Workforce Management.
Apply your first template. Apply a template to your team on the Schedule, then use the Forecast to compare scheduled headcount with predicted volume. See How to use the Forecast.
Each step has a button that takes you straight to the right page, and the checklist ticks off as you go.
Tip: If your team uses Google Calendar, ask teammates to connect it so schedules appear in their calendars and their time off syncs into Workforce. This is optional. See How to use calendar settings in Workforce Management.
Once schedules are live, use Team Performance to see adherence, conformance, and shrinkage alongside each teammate's status history and key Helpdesk actions. See How to track team performance.
How to create workstreams
A workstream is a group of one or more team inboxes. It's the main unit Workforce Management uses for forecasting, scheduling, and staffing views.
For example, a "Premier Support" workstream might group three team inboxes. When you view that workstream in the Forecast, you see conversation volume and teammate headcount for all three combined.
Teammates must belong to at least one workstream to appear in the Schedule, Team Performance, and Configure pages.
Create a workstream
Click New Workstream and give it a name. Names can contain only letters, numbers, hyphens, and spaces, and must be unique in your workspace.
Select the team inboxes to include.
Set the productivity value: the average number of conversations one teammate handles per hour. See How to use the Forecast for how to choose it.
Click Create. The new workstream appears immediately in the Workstreams list and is available to select when building schedules or viewing the Forecast.
Note:
Productivity is set manually per workstream and isn't calculated automatically. Update it if your team's throughput changes significantly.
Workstreams are based on team inbox membership, not real-time conversation activity.
If a teammate belongs to two workstreams and both are selected in the Forecast, they're counted twice in scheduled staffing. To see each teammate counted once, view one workstream at a time.
How the pieces fit together
Forecast
The Forecast shows whether you have enough teammates scheduled for the expected conversation volume. It's built automatically from an 8-week rolling average of your workstream's conversation history, with conversations Fin resolves on its own excluded. Required staffing is predicted volume divided by the workstream's productivity figure. If you know something the forecast doesn't, you can override it with a CSV import.
Schedules
There are two ways to get activities onto your team's schedule: apply a schedule template to roll out a repeating week or day pattern across a group of teammates, or add and edit activities directly on a teammate's row for one-off changes. You can combine both, and export any schedule view as a CSV.
Google Calendar
Each teammate connects their own Google Calendar, and a teammate with "Can manage Workforce" turns on each sync direction at workspace level. Push (Workforce → Google) puts the Workforce schedule in teammates' calendars; Pull (Google → Workforce) brings in Google Calendar events that match a mapping rule. Only a teammate's primary calendar syncs, from 8 weeks back to 8 weeks ahead. You can use Workforce without Google Calendar: templates and one-off activities work the same way, but time off must be added in Workforce by hand.
Note: If teammates see a Turn on Google Calendar sync banner instead of Connect Google Calendar, a teammate with "Can manage Workforce" needs to turn sync on for the workspace first.
Team Performance
Team Performance gives you a per-teammate view of how closely your team follows their scheduled hours: productive hours, adherence, conformance, and shrinkage. Click a teammate to see their day-by-day breakdown, then click a day to open a timeline with three lanes: Schedule, Status, and Actions. No changes to teammate behavior are needed; metrics are calculated automatically from schedules and Intercom status.
What permissions does Workforce Management need?
Workforce Management permissions live in their own Workforce section under Settings > Workspace > Teammates, in each teammate's permissions, separate from Workload Management. A teammate needs the permissions below, on top of the workspace having the Pro add-on, to access any Workforce page.
Permission | What it allows |
Can access Workforce | See Workforce in the sidebar and view the Schedule, Forecast, and Configure pages. Export schedules as a CSV. |
Can access Team Performance | View the Team Performance page and export teammate statuses. To see the Actions lane or export actions, the teammate also needs Conversation access set to "All conversations". |
Can manage Workforce | Edit your Workforce setup: workstreams, activity types, schedule templates, schedules, forecast overrides, calendar sync settings, and mapping rules. |
To set them:
Select a teammate, then open Permissions.
Under Workforce, tick the permissions you want to grant.
Click Save. The new permissions take effect immediately; the teammate doesn't need to log out or refresh.
Note:
Every Workforce page also needs "Can view all teammate and team details".
"Can manage Workforce" and "Can access Team Performance" are nested under "Can access Workforce", so a teammate needs "Can access Workforce" to be granted either.
If you previously used the permission labeled "Can manage Balanced assignment and Workload management", it has been replaced by the standalone Workforce permissions. No action is needed; existing access was carried over.
Workforce Management articles
Need more help? Get support from our Community Forum
Find answers and get help from Intercom Support and Community Experts