Patent ID: 8577706

Claim:
A computer implemented method comprising: performing, by a computer, the steps of: (a) acquiring a planning period, revenue contact groups, service contact groups, and contact volume and average service time forecasts for the revenue contact groups and the service contact groups served over the planning period; (b) acquiring skill groups including a plurality of agents and agent skills, and scheduling rules for the plurality of agents; (c) acquiring revenue-based targets for the revenue contact groups and productivity-based targets for the service contact groups acquired in step (a); (d) acquiring agent schedule costs, lost sales, and communication and facility costs that contribute to total schedule costs; (e) acquiring initial current schedules for the plurality of agents acquired in step (b) over the planning period; (f) selecting one of the skill groups acquired in step (b); (g) un-scheduling the plurality of agents in the one skill group selected in step (f) by discarding the initial current schedules while keeping the plurality of agents in other skill groups on the initial current schedules; (h) updating the required staffing levels for the one skill group selected in step (f), while the plurality of agents in other skill groups are kept on the initial current schedules, to meet as close as possible the productivity-based targets for the service contact groups, and the revenue-based targets for the revenue contact groups affected by staffing levels of the skill group selected in step (f); (i) generating updated current schedules for the plurality of agents in the one skill group selected in step (f) so that the number of the plurality of agents scheduled most closely meet the updated required staffing levels found in step (h) while minimizing the total schedule costs; (j) repeating steps (f-i) until each skill group of the skill groups are selected and updated; (k) repeating steps (f-j) with each execution of these steps being an iteration, until one or more of stopping conditions are satisfied.