Terms used in Erlangly

The words Erlangly and its guides use, in plain terms, from A to Z. Each guide's Terms used here links to the ones it uses.

Agent hours: Agents times hours: 4 agents over a 15-minute interval make one agent hour.
Agent state: What the ACD says an agent is doing: Available, On a call, Break, Aux… with a reason code.
Alarm: A wallboard tile's warning that someone has been in one state longer than the limit for it.
Binding availability: Only then: the times someone can be scheduled, and no others.
Client: A company you run contact centre work for: its lines of business, schedule periods and schedules.
Contract hours: The hours and days a week a person works: their minimum, maximum and days.
Coverage: The share of the hours needed that are staffed.
Deactivated: A user who can't sign in any more. Their history stays.
Draft: One generated set of shifts for a schedule period. Several can compete.
Exception: What someone did instead of their schedule, such as sick, late or overtime. Approved, it replaces the schedule for its time.
Handle time: The average time a contact takes to handle, in seconds, as your ACD reports it.
In adherence: Doing what the published schedule asks for at the time.
Interval: 15 minutes, or 30 if your organisation plans in half hours. Everything is forecast and staffed per interval.
Invitation: A link to choose a password, or with single sign-on to sign in with your provider, that works for 7 days.
Leaver: Someone with an effective date: their first day not working.
Left out: A day of the volume history forecasts don't use: a public holiday, or a day you left out, like an outage.
Lies over: Approved time off sits on top of a shift without changing it, and counts as away from the phone.
Line of business: One client's program, like Billing, with its own forecasts and requirements.
Live forecast: A line of business's published forecast for each day: the one staffing and scheduling use.
Long leave: Time off of two weeks or more.
No ACD data: Scheduled time with no state from the ACD. It counts neither way.
Occupancy: The share of agents' productive time spent on a call or in after-call work. Staffing keeps it at or under your maximum.
Opening hours: When an email or ticket line works its contacts: its work is planned within them.
Over: Hours staffed beyond the need.
Override: Your figure for an interval, in place of the calculated one.
Pattern set: Shift patterns given to people for dates, instead of their lines of business's.
Person: Someone on the roster, who can be scheduled.
Productive: Available, on a call or in after-call work.
Role: What a user can do: agent, supervisor, planner or admin.
Saved view: A named set of choices on the wallboard (line of business, team, who's shown) everyone can open.
Schedule: The draft in use. A new draft can take over from a day you pick.
Schedule period: The weeks you plan together, for one client.
Service target: The share of contacts to answer within a time, such as 80% in 20 seconds.
Shift pattern: The starts, lengths and break windows shifts may have.
Short: Hours needed but not staffed.
Shrinkage: Paid time agents aren't available for contacts: absence, training, coaching, meetings.
Special day: A day of a forecast marked closed, busier or quieter, or like a day that's gone by: every interval at once.
State mapping: Which of Erlangly's states each of your ACD's codes means.
Swap: Two people trading published shifts: asked, accepted, then approved by a supervisor.
Team lead: The person a team reports to, usually a supervisor, who sees the team on the wallboard and in reports.
Tile: One agent on the wallboard: their state, time in it, and what their schedule asks for.
Time off: Planned time away, asked for ahead and decided by a supervisor. Exceptions, like sick or late on the day, are separate: see Schedule adherence.
User: Someone who signs in. An agent's sign-in belongs to their person.
Violation: A labour-law issue that blocks: a change, a swap or publishing waits until it's fixed. See Labour rules.
Volume history: A line of business's contacts and handle time per interval, from your ACD or a spreadsheet: what forecasts learn from.
Waiting: For email and tickets planned to their response target: contacts not yet handled at the end of an interval.
Warning: A labour-law issue you can go ahead with once you've seen it: publish with a reason, or approve a swap anyway. See Labour rules.