Understanding expected hours

Expected work hours

Expected work hours is the concept that lets Workforce Intelligence capture the hours in a day an associate is planning to or is scheduled to work. Capturing this time frame is useful for several reasons, including the following.

Expected hours gives Workforce Intelligence a window of time in which to calculate the productivity score. If an associate’s expected hours are from 8am to 5pm, the system knows the associate should be working during that time period and it is during that time period that the associate’s productivity truly matters.
Expected hours can be a performance indicator for associates. With this new data point you can answer questions like; “Was Abby productive during the entire shift?” and “Did Abby work as long as expected?”
Expected hours are also shown on the Calendar chart on the Timeline tab, the Time chart on the Dashboard, and on the Summary page.

Note: All calculated numbers displayed by Workforce Intelligence are based on the associate's expected hours, or shift. Production and non work time outside of the shift is not calculated into the hours or the percentages that appear in the graphs or tables on Dashboard and Summary page.

At the sign of first activity for a day, Runtime/Agile Desktop displays a dialog which asks the associate for the following information.

Start time
End time
Lunch duration
Other break duration

The system saves the entries so the next time the associate is prompted to enter expected hours for that day of the week, these entries appear as the default and the associate only has to note any changes. If there are no changes, the associate can simply confirm the times. Using the associate's entries, Workforce Intelligence calculates the expected hours used in scoring and other calculations.

Frequently asked questions

What happens if an associate does not enter expected work hours?

Because all calculations are based on the expected hours, if an associate does not enter his or her expected hours, there will be no data for that associate.

Note that if an associate clicks Cancel instead of entering expected hours, after the idle time interval (which defaults to 10 minutes) the associate will be shown the Off Computer Time window, followed by the Enter Expected Hours window. This process will repeat until the associate enters his or her expected hours.

What if the computer is not shut down at the end of the shift?

If the computer is not shut down at the end of the shift, Workforce Intelligence displays the dialog at the first sign of activity after six consecutive hours of idle time.

What if the associate reboots in the middle of a shift or there are multiple entries for expected hours?

The system checks to see if a shift has already been entered and, if so, it does not prompt the user to enter hours.