About Zendesk WFM workstreams

Workstreams are part of your organization structure and serve as one of Zendesk Workforce Management’s (WFM) main building blocks. They're sets of tickets that agents work on and are similar to your regularZendesk channels, such as tickets, chats, and voice.


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Workstreams help organize your team's workload by grouping tickets based on specific conditions, like email or regional calls. They inform forecasts and schedules, ensuring efficient resource allocation. You can create, edit, and delete workstreams, and even combine or prioritize them through the Early Access Program. This flexibility allows you to tailor workstreams to match your team's unique needs and priorities.




Workstreams are part of your organization structure and serve as one of Zendesk
Workforce Management’s (WFM) main building blocks. They're sets of tickets that agents work on
and are similar to your regular Zendesk channels, such as tickets, chats, and voice.
You define workstreams based on specific conditions to create custom channels or
segmentations that reflect your team's work. For example, your team might respond to emails
from a specific ticket form or take calls from a particular region.
Your forecasts are generated based on workstreams, which in turn inform your
schedule.
This article contains the following sections:


Understanding workstreams
Creating workstreams
Editing workstreams
Deleting workstreams
Creating combined workstreams
Prioritizing workstreams (EAP)


Related articles

Adding and removing users from multiple workstreams in bulk
in Zendesk WFM



Understanding workstreams

Workstreams capture tickets created after you buy the Zendesk WFM add-on.
Workstreams take into account each time a ticket enters a workstream, including changes
made from one workstream to another.
When you run preview conditions on Workstreams, it shows how many tickets have
entered a workstream over the past 30 days.
The workstream's preview match does not reflect unique tickets entering a workstream. Each
time a ticket enters that workstream, it's counted, including when a ticket is reopened.
The Forecast (where your historical volume lives) is recalculated
when you change workstream conditions.
The example below illustrates the workstream count:

Tickets created before you buy the WFM add-on aren't matched to workstreams
in the agent activity page, but are counted towards the historical volume in the
forecast.
If the matching criteria are met only in an update made after the ticket is set to Solved,
the ticket fails to match the workstream.



Creating workstreams

When you first add Zendesk WFM to your account, ticket, voice, and chat workstreams are
created by default. You can also create additional workstreams.
You must be an admin or user with permission to access the Workstreams page.
For the best results, don't exceed 50 workstreams or
assign more than 5000 agents to a single workstream.


To add multiple users to workstreams at once, see Adding and removing users from multiple workstreams in bulk in Zendesk
WFM.

When selecting workstream conditions, keep in mind that Meet ALL of the following
conditions uses the and operator. This means that each condition in this
section must be true for a ticket for the workstream to identify it. Conditions in the
Meet ANY of the following conditions use the or operator. This means that at
least one condition in this section must be true for a ticket to be calculated in the
workstream.
Workstream conditions logic









Condition
Logic
Behavior



Meet ALL of the following conditions

include
All specified values must be present.


don’t include
All specified values must be absent.



Meet ANY of the following conditions

include
At least one specified value must be present.


don’t include
At least one specified value must be absent.




When a ticket doesn't meet the conditions of any workstreams, it’s labeled No Workstream in black under your Agent Activity. The No Workstream status is also displayed in the
Agent Status and in your Reports.
If a ticket meets the conditions for two or more workstreams simultaneously it’s labeled
Multiple Workstreams.

To troubleshoot issues with tickets marked as No Workstream that you
believe meet a workstream condition, see Why do I see some agent activity entries in black?.
To create workstreams

In Workforce management, click
Settings in the sidebar, then select Workstreams.
Cick the plus sign (+) icon, then select Workstream.

Enter a Workstream name.
(Optional) Describe the purpose of the workstream.
Choose a color for the workstream or add a custom color by clicking the palette icon.
The color you select is used in the forecast visualization.

Click the Conditions tab.
Choose a Contact via type. For example, tickets, chat or voice. You can define
by type with more granularity for tickets and voice channels.


Select additional conditions by choosing a specific group, tag, brand, or form that you
use in Zendesk.
Click Preview to verify the conditions and that the workstream will show you the
expected values.
Click the Agents tab and select which agents to assign to the workstream. You can
filter the agents list by Zendesk default group, team, and location.

Tip: Choose the team members that have the skill to perform the type of
work you're specifying for the workstream. This doesn't affect the forecast
calculations, but is used with the automated schedule.


Click Save.




Editing workstreams

When you edit a workstream and change its conditions, the updates are visible on the ticket
tracking only after a user updates the ticket.
To edit a workstream

In Workforce management, click
Settings in the sidebar, then select Workstreams.
Select the workstream you want to edit.
Make any changes, then click Save.




Deleting workstreams

Deleting a WFM workstream does not affect any historical data. However, since the
workstream no longer exists, it will affect data going forward, including your existing
schedules that include the workstream.

Note: Deleting a workstream is permanent and can't be undone.
To delete a workstream

In Workforce management, click
Settings in the sidebar, then select Workstreams.
Select the workstream you want to delete.
Click Actions, then select Delete.
Click Delete workstream to confirm. This action can't be undone.




Creating combined workstreams

Combined workstreams allow admins and users with permission to schedule multiple
workstreams at the same time and ensure adherence is properly tracked, regardless of which
workstream the agent is working in.
When generating schedules, the algorithm decides whether it's best to schedule a
user for a single workstream or a combined workstream for that specific period to ensure the
most efficient resource allocation.
You can also control how combined workstreams are used when generating schedules
using the Scheduling settings. When the Schedule combined
workstreams option is activated, the scheduling algorithm uses only combined
workstreams when creating a schedule. It will consider any individual workstreams that are
not part of any combined workstream afterwards.
General tasks and workstreams defined in your intraday variants are still
scheduled as defined in your location shifts.
To create combined workstreams

In Workforce management, click
Settings in the sidebar, then select Workstreams.
Click the plus sign (+) icon, then select Combined workstream.

Enter a name for the combined workstream.
Select the Workstreams you want to combine.

(Optional) Describe the purpose of the combined workstream.
Choose a color for the workstream or add a custom color by clicking the palette icon.
The color you select is used in the forecast visualization.
Click Save. The algorithm will now decide whether it’s best to schedule a user
for a single workstream or a combined workstream.
You can identify combined
workstreams in the All workstreams panel by their icons.



To use only combined workstreams activate the Schedule
combined workstreams setting. Instead of the default behavior where the algorithm
decides whether it’s best to schedule a user for a single workstream or a combined
workstream when creating a schedule, it will consider only combined workstreams and any
individual workstreams that aren't part of any combined workstream afterward.
To activate the Schedule combined workstreams
setting

In Workforce management, click
Settings in the sidebar, then select Workstreams.
Click the Scheduling settings icon next to All workstreams.

Select Schedule combined workstreams.
Click Save. The scheduling algorithm starts using only combined workstreams
when creating a schedule. It will consider any individual workstreams that are not part
of any combined workstream afterwards. Existing schedules are not affected by these
changes.





Prioritizing workstreams (EAP)


Note: Workstream prioritization is currently in an Early Access Program (EAP). You
can sign up for the EAP here.
You can prioritize your workstreams from highest to lowest. Prioritize
workstreams whose channels or nature of work are most important to your business. For
example, you may want to prioritize your Voice workstream first since phone calls can't wait
like emails.
The algorithm will still schedule all workstreams based primarily on the
forecast; however, priority adds a "bonus point" for a workstream to be selected by the
algorithm.
Setting the priority matters only when the forecasted demand is similar between
two workstreams or when the demand is fulfilled or really small. In these cases, priority
helps in the decision making to schedule the higher priority workstream first until their
forecasted demand is covered. Your other workstreams are then scheduled in sequence based on
their priority level. However, if the lowest priority workstream has highest demand, it
still gets scheduled before other workstreams.
To prioritize workstreams

In Workforce management, click
Settings in the sidebar, then select Workstreams.
Click the Scheduling settings icon next to All workstreams.
Select Custom workstream priority.
Click the dropdown menu next to a workstream and select a priority level.

Continue to set the priority for all of your workstreams, then click Save.



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