Skip to main content

Today's quick tip: What are virtual activities?

  • Updated

Virtual activities allow you to create forecasts that distribute call volume / AHT from a collection point to more than one activity. Typically, a collection point in a data source points to one activity. With virtual activities, you can distribute the forecasted calls from one collection point queue to many activities.

Virtual activities also allow viewing reports with details combining activities without having to go up to the Enterprise Model level, even if you choose not to forecast for the combined virtual activity. For example, if you have a subordinate activity of 'billing' in two Activities (Site 1 and Site 2), you can create a virtual activity combining the two. To view the combined details of these billing activities navigate to Report > Published schedule > Schedule analysis > Schedule analysis details, then in the options panel select the virtual activity from the Applies to activity drop-down. 

A virtual activity can include subordinate activities from multiple sites. However, a subordinate activity must already exist in at least one site before you can add it to a virtual activity. Additionally, if you have multiple virtual activities, a subordinate activity can belong to only one of them.

Create a Virtual Activity

  1. Navigate to Settings > Enterprise Model and select the top level of your organization.
  2. In the Subordinate or child activities tile, click Set up subordinate activities.
  3. Click New child activity tile.
  4. Click Add a Virtual Activity.
  5. Enter a name and optional description, then click Finish.

Add members to your virtual activity.

The subordinate activity you are adding must already exist elsewhere in the Enterprise Model.

  1. Navigate to your virtual activity and select Identify member Activities.
  2. Click New then select the activity from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click Save & add another or click Finish.

Reminders

You may only add phone "Activities," not sites, folders, or media types such as chat or email.

You may not include an activity in more than one virtual activity.

Build a distribution profile

Note: distributing the forecast volume to each activity is a manual process. Also, the setup page does not detect hours of operation or when an activity is closed (e.g., U.S sites closed on Thanksgiving). 

  1. In the virtual activity select Manage volume distribution tables. This is where you tell the system how much contact volume goes to each subordinate activity
  2. The table opens in a new window. Give your table a name and check the box if you want this table to be the default for this virtual activity, then click Next. 

    The default setting evenly distributes the volume between the member activities.
  3. Click the Edit (pencil) icon to change the distribution for the interval. Click the Copy icon to copy the settings to other intervals. Click Replicate to copy the intervals to other days.
  4. After adding the distribution for all intervals, click Finish.

When creating the forecast, WFM will distribute the call volume and AHT to the member activities as designated in the distribution table. 
 

Extra Credit

Should I use virtual activities if I have sites in different locations? Not necessarily. If your call routing does not consider physical location, virtual activities don't may not have any utility. Virtual activities are useful when you want to distribute the forecast volume for a collection point to different areas of your center, in the same physical location or not. Or when you want to view details for one or more activities in one report.

Related to