Free call center schedule template for Excel
One workbook for planning a call center: your agents, interval history, forecasts, time off, and a shift and break schedule with every shift's breaks and lunch. A workforce management (WFM) Excel template that works in Google Sheets too, with examples to copy and a note on every column.
No sign-up. Every cell is text, so dates, times and agent IDs stay as you type them. Choose the interval your phone system reports in: every 15 minutes, or every 30.
Why this call center scheduling template works
It's laid out the way call center planning works: by interval, by agent and by shift.
Built on intervals
History and forecasts go in by 15 or 30-minute interval, the unit staffing is worked out in, not by the day or the hour.
Breaks inside each shift
A shift's breaks and lunch are written on its own row, so you can see when each person is really off the phones.
Dates stay dates
Every cell is text, so Excel won't turn 2027-09-13 into 9/13/2027 or drop the leading zero from an agent's ID.
Lists that suggest
Employment type, fixed day off and time off types offer a dropdown, and still take a value of your own.
A note for every column
The Start here tab says what each column holds, and every tab has example rows to copy.
Plain and portable
No macros and no formulas to break. One clean table per tab, its header row frozen, that saves as a tidy CSV file.
What's in the template: six tabs
Six tabs, in the order you'd fill them in.
- Start here: how to use it, and what each column means.
- People: one row per agent, with their site, team, contract hours, days a week, lines of business and ID in your phone system.
- Volume history: contacts and average handle time for each interval, from your phone system's reports, with abandons and answers if you have them.
- Forecasts: the contacts and handle time you expect, interval by interval, for each line of business.
- Time off: whole days or part of a day, with its type and a note.
- Shifts: the roster (or rota), one row per shift, with its start, end, breaks and lunch, including shifts that run past midnight.
How to make a call center schedule in Excel, step by step
Five steps, and the tab each one uses.
- Collect interval history (Volume history). Contacts and average handle time for every 15 or 30-minute interval, from your phone system's reports. Six weeks is a start; eight or more is better.
- Forecast each interval (Forecasts). Average the same weekday and interval over recent weeks, then adjust for growth, holidays and anything you know is coming.
- Work out the agents needed. Erlang C turns each interval's contacts and handle time into the agents that meet your service level, like 80% answered in 20 seconds. Add shrinkage for absence and training, and cap occupancy so nobody's on the phone back to back.
- Build shifts that cover it (People, Time off, Shifts). Fit shifts, breaks and lunches to the agents needed, within each person's contract, availability and time off.
- Check, publish and follow up (Shifts). Check rest between shifts, overtime and breaks against your local labor law, send the schedule out, then keep it current as swaps and time off come in.
Planning questions, with the template
How much history do I need to forecast?
Six weeks of interval history is a start, and eight or more is better: enough to average each weekday's intervals over several weeks. A year or more shows seasons and holidays. It goes in the Volume history tab, a row per interval.
What goes into average handle time?
Talk time, hold time and the work after the contact, averaged over the interval's handled contacts, in seconds. Take it from your phone system's interval reports, beside the contacts: one without the other can't give you staffing.
How many agents do I need for an interval?
Erlang C works it out from the interval's contacts, average handle time and your service level target. For example, 100 calls in a 30-minute interval at 4 minutes each is a workload of 13.3 Erlangs, as if 13.3 people were busy the whole time. To answer 80% within 20 seconds takes 17 agents on the phones, 78% busy. Try your own numbers in our free Erlang C calculator.
What is shrinkage, and how do I add it?
The time people are paid but not taking contacts: absence, training, coaching, meetings. Divide the agents you need by what's left: 17 agents with 25% shrinkage is 17 ÷ 0.75 = 22.7, so 23 people on the schedule. Breaks and lunches written into each shift are already off the phones, so don't count them in shrinkage too.
What service level should I aim for?
80% of calls answered within 20 seconds is the common target for voice, and clients' contracts often set their own. Chat is usually measured in seconds to first reply, and email in hours to respond.
What's occupancy, and why cap it?
The share of the time on the phones spent handling contacts. Above about 85 to 90%, people go from one call straight into the next, and it wears them down. Small teams hit it first, so check it beside the agents Erlang C gives you.
How do I make a call center break schedule?
Place breaks and lunches away from the interval peaks, and stagger them so not everyone is off at once, within the breaks your labor law and contracts require. The Shifts tab writes them on each shift's row, like Break 10:30–10:45; Lunch 13:00–13:30.
How do I schedule a shift that runs past midnight?
Give it the day it starts on, and mark the times after midnight as the next day: 22:00 to 06:00 (next day). The template's example night shift shows it, break included.
How do I forecast holidays and one-off events?
Start from the same holiday last year, or the closest normal day, then change the intervals you expect to move. Keep the changed rows in the Forecasts tab, so the history stays as it happened.
Questions about the template
Is it really free?
Yes. Download it with no sign-up or email address, and change it however you like.
Should I schedule in 15 or 30-minute intervals?
The interval your phone system reports in. Most report every 15 or 30 minutes; 15 shows more of the day's peaks.
Does it work in Google Sheets?
Yes. Upload it to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets. It opens in LibreOffice too.
Does the template calculate Erlang C staffing?
No. It holds the numbers staffing comes from: contacts and average handle time for every interval. Erlang C turns them into the agents each interval needs, and our free Erlang C calculator does that for a whole day you paste in.
Why is every cell text?
So the spreadsheet keeps what you type. Dates stay as 2027-09-13, times as 08:15 and agent IDs keep their leading zeros, even when a tab is saved as CSV.
Can I import it into scheduling software later?
Into Erlangly, as it is: each tab is one of its imports, so nothing is typed twice. How importing works.
Made by Erlangly, workforce management software for call centers. When the spreadsheet starts taking your whole week, see what Erlangly does.