Use this article to read your team's forecast, understand how required and scheduled staffing are calculated, set your workstream's productivity figure, and override the forecast when you know something it doesn't.

The Forecast shows whether you have enough teammates scheduled for the expected conversation volume. Use it as your day-to-day planning view.

You can view periods down to one hour (filter to a single day), or per day when viewing two or more days. Use the filters at the top of the page to change what you see: Workstreams, All channels (Email, Chat, Android app, iOS app), timezone, and date range. When you select more than one workstream or channel, the table shows a separate Forecasted volume row for each combination.

The Teammates view shows scheduled headcount vs required staffing, color-coded: Covered (teal), Surplus (blue), Deficit (red). Toggle to Volume for the conversation volume chart. Use the date picker to choose Today, This week, This month, Past week, Past 4 weeks, or a custom range.

Select one day to see hour-by-hour figures:

Values in the table are rounded to whole teammates. Hover a bar on the chart for exact figures, for example “Surplus: 16.77, Covered: 5.23”.

Select two or more days and the table shows one column per day, with hours instead of headcount:

Click a day header, for example Wed, 10/14, to drill into that day’s hourly view.

When you select more than one workstream or channel, the table shows a separate Forecasted volume row for each combination, labelled like “Forecasted volume (Global CSS1 × Chat)”.

The Required, Scheduled, and Net rows combine all selected combinations.

Scheduled staffing counts the number of teammates with some productive time in a given hour. A teammate is counted all-or-nothing, never as a fraction.

When a teammate has both productive and non-productive time in the same hour, non-productive time only takes precedence if it covers the full hour:

In multi-day view, the table shows Scheduled hours (the sum of productive hours across the day) and Scheduled headcount (distinct teammates) instead of an hourly count.

The forecast generates automatically from historical conversation data in your workspace. It uses an 8-week rolling average: it looks at the last 8 weeks of conversation data for each workstream and channel, and uses that to predict upcoming volume.

A workstream needs at least 7 days of history for a specific workstream and channel combination before a forecast appears. Two things follow from this:

If a workstream isn't showing a forecast, check the history for that workstream and channel rather than for your workspace overall.

Productivity is the number of conversations one teammate handles in an hour of scheduled productive time. Workforce Management divides predicted volume by this figure to work out required staffing. You set it for each workstream you create.

To choose a starting figure, use Conversations assigned per active hour in the Teammate Performance report, filtered to the teammates or teams in your workstream.

Both figures are conversations per hour, but the "hour" means something different in each, so treat the report as a directional check rather than a pass/fail against your target.

Because of this, the reported figure can differ from your target:

To check whether the report is a good guide, open Team Performance for the same teammates and period:

If both are close to 100%, the report rate is a reliable guide for your productivity setting.

Sam is scheduled for an 8-hour shift: 7 hours of "Inbox Time" (productive) plus a 1-hour lunch (non-productive). The workstream productivity is 6 conversations per hour, so Workforce expects 7 × 6 = 42 conversations.

If Sam handles 42 conversations and is Active for exactly those 7 productive hours, both views agree: 42 ÷ 7 = 6.0 per active hour, on target.

Example 1: the rate looks worse than it is. Sam handles the same 42 conversations, but never switches to Away for lunch.

Sam's throughput didn't change, only their status hygiene did. In Team Performance, conformance will be around 114%, showing active hours exceeding productive scheduled hours.

Example 2: the rate looks better than it is. Sam is pulled into a 2-hour unscheduled meeting mid-shift and switches to Away, and also goes Away for lunch. They handle 30 conversations in their remaining 5 active hours.

The per-hour rate looks perfect because it only counts the hours Sam was Active, but the staffing plan was built on 7 hours. Here adherence of 71% (5 ÷ 7) surfaces the gap.

The report's denominator moves with teammate behavior; the Workforce denominator is fixed by the schedule. Read the per-active-hour rate alongside adherence and conformance when deciding how closely to align your productivity setting to the Reports figure.

If you know something the forecast doesn't, such as an upcoming campaign, a seasonal spike, or a new workspace with limited history, you can set a fixed volume for a workstream and channel over a chosen time range.

Overrides are imported as a CSV (comma-separated values) file from Workforce > Forecast > Import forecast. You can also export the automatic forecast from Forecast > Volume > Export forecast, adapt it, and import it back. Overrides apply to future hours on supported channels only, and a new import replaces any existing override it overlaps for the same workstream and channel. To remove every override at once, click Import forecast, open the ⋯ menu at the bottom left, and select Delete existing imports. This can’t be undone.