Patent ID: 8015042

Claim:
A method for performing long-range staff planning in a contact center, the method comprising: defining a plurality of resource descriptions, wherein each resource description comprises a group of agents that have similar characteristics including at least one capability, at least one performance measure, and at least one attribute specifying an amount of change in a number of agents in the group of agents during a specified time period; defining a time interval and a plurality of queues comprising contact volumes; specifying at least one criteria to be satisfied by a long-range staffing plan, wherein the criteria comprises a required quality of service for each queue of the plurality of queues and the long-range staffing plan comprises a long-range schedule for the plurality of resource descriptions; processing the plurality of resource descriptions and the contact volumes to identify required agent hours and staffing efficiency at each time interval, and multiplying the required agent hours at each time interval by the staffing efficiency at each time interval and number of agents in each group of agents to determine available working hours at each time interval for each resource description; and calculating an effect of applying the plurality of resource descriptions to each of the plurality of queues while satisfying the at least one criteria using discrete event based simulation on a computer system, wherein the calculated effect comprises two or more of forecasted service level, forecasted hours, and percentage occupancy of the agent, and includes a forecasted performance measure for each of the plurality of queues for each time interval and an overall performance measure for each of the plurality of queues, and in calculating the effect, a discrete schedule is created using a current hiring plan for one or more of the each group of agents and hours available to be worked by the one or more of the each group of agents during a time corresponding to the discrete schedule, and an agent is alternatively assigned to one or more of the available working hours at each time interval to calculate an incremental effect of adding the agent such that the agent is the only agent being added until the available working hours at each time interval are distributed.