Custom contact centre workforce management software
Appfront builds custom workforce management for contact centres. Historical contact volumes are translated into a forecast per interval, from which the required staffing per channel and skill follows, and from that a schedule that meets the agreed service level. During the day you can see whether the plan still holds. Get in touch to discuss your situation.
What is contact centre workforce management?
Workforce management for a contact centre is the chain of forecasting, calculating, scheduling and adjusting. First you forecast how many contacts will come in per half hour, per channel. Then you calculate how many people are needed to meet an agreed waiting time, which is not a simple linear sum, as queues do not behave linearly. Next you build a rota that fits that, and during the day you check whether reality is following the plan.
That is fundamentally different from ordinary staff planning, where the number of people needed is known and the puzzle is who works when. In a contact centre, that required number is precisely the hardest question, and it changes every half hour.
Appfront builds this as custom software with an integration to your telephony or contact centre platform, so the forecast runs on your own history and actual volumes come in automatically during the day.
Forecasting per interval and channel
Volume per half hour based on history, seasonal patterns, weekdays and known events such as a campaign or an invoicing round.
Staffing that respects the queue
Calculation of the required staffing based on queue behaviour rather than an average, including allowances for breaks, meetings, training and absence.
Adjusting during the day
Comparison of forecast and actual volume per interval, with alerts when the service level is at risk and there is still time to act.
WFM or staff planning? The distinction
Appfront builds both, and the difference is greater than it seems. It lies in what is unknown.
The demand for staffing is unknown
The number of people needed follows from a forecast workload and an agreed service level, and changes every half hour. Forecasting, staffing calculation and intraday adjustment are the core; the rota is the outcome.
The demand for staffing is known
You know how many people are needed and want to build rotas with skills, contracts and preferences. Then look at staff planning software or, for visual planning of people and resources, planning board software.
Our development process for your WFM system
WFM stands or falls on the quality of the history. We therefore start with your own data and test whether the forecast holds up before any rota is produced.
We extract historical contact volumes from your telephony or contact centre platform and check whether they are usable: are there channels, skills and handling times in them, and are exceptional periods recognisable? We also record which service level applies per channel.
We design the forecasting model, the staffing calculation, the rota rules within your collective agreement and contract types, and the intraday screens for the traffic manager.
We build in short iterations with automated tests, structured logging and monitoring. You see working versions along the way and steer the work based on what your team actually needs in practice, rather than on a specification written months earlier.
Controlled go-live with validation and a safety net, followed by ongoing management, monitoring and further development as your channel mix or service agreement changes.
What custom WFM delivers in practice
What is needed varies by contact centre. These are the components that come up most often.
Forecast per channel and skill
Forecasting in half-hourly intervals for telephony, chat, email and messaging, with different handling characteristics per channel and the option to adjust manually for known events.
Staffing calculation
Translating volume and handling time into the staff required to meet a given service level, with adjustable allowances for breaks, meetings, training and absence.
Skills-based rostering
Rosters that take into account who handles which channel and which skills, with contract types, collective agreement rules and employee preferences.
Intraday monitoring
Comparison of plan and actual performance per interval, showing who is logged in, how far the position deviates and which corrective measures are still taking effect.
Adherence and quality
Insight into how far actual behaviour deviates from the roster, intended to improve the plan — not to hold employees accountable for minutes.
What-if scenarios
Working through what happens with higher volume, shorter handling times or additional staffing, so you can make well-founded decisions about recruitment or outsourcing.
Typical use cases in practice
WFM pays off as soon as contact volumes fluctuate and staffing represents a substantial cost.
Customer service for service providers
Energy, telecom, insurance and health insurance providers with sharp peaks around billing, policy renewals and outages.
Facilities contact centres
Organisations that work for several clients and must serve each client with a different service level and skills mix.
Public service delivery
Municipalities and implementing bodies with predictable peaks around schemes, assessments and seasonal applications.
Webshops and retail
Organisations with strong seasonal patterns and campaign peaks, where temporary staff must be deployed at the right moment.
Test your idea first: a working prototype in 1 day
With OneDayBuild, we turn your idea into something tangible in one day for €1,150, so you can see whether further development is worth the investment. Decide to go ahead with the full build? Then we credit the full cost.
Explore OneDayBuild →Technology we use
The calculation engine is the distinctive part; the rest is a standard web application with integrations. The precise choice depends on your processes, the systems to be integrated and your hosting preferences. We deliberately choose a stack your own team can manage and develop further, without dependence on per-user licences.
Why Appfront for your WFM system?
Appfront builds custom software for a wide range of organisations in the Netherlands. For WFM, we start with your own history and test the forecast afterwards against what actually happened. Only once that holds up does a roster based on it carry real meaning.
We keep the calculation engine explainable. A staffing recommendation that nobody can explain gets overruled by the team leader who thinks they know better — and then you are back at square one.
On every project we write clear documentation and make sure your own team, or a future supplier, can understand and manage the system. No black box: transparent code and clear agreements on monitoring, alerting and maintenance. You own the solution and pay no per-user licence fee.
See also our broader services around custom software, workforce planning software and helpdesk software. Unsure about the approach? Get in touch.
Security and privacy for your WFM system
A WFM system processes rosters, availability, absence and performance data of individual employees. Appfront builds according to the OWASP ASVS and with GDPR as a starting point, using role-based access: a team leader sees their own team, not the entire organisation.
Adherence and performance data is sensitive and affects the rights of the works council. We preferably display it in aggregated form, enable traceability only where that has been agreed functionally, and document the data flows for your record of processing activities.
More on our security approach: information security policy and CVD policy.
- Encryption in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest
- Role-based access following least privilege
- Audit trail for viewing and changes
- Secrets in a secure vault, not in code
- Documented data flows for your record of processing activities
- Performance data shown in aggregated form by default
Frequently asked questions about contact centre workforce management software
Answers to the questions we are asked most often.
The chain of forecasting, calculating staffing, rostering and adjusting during the day. What is special is that the number of people required differs per half hour and follows from a forecast workload and an agreed waiting time. It is a calculation problem that ordinary planning software does not solve.
Because queues don't behave linearly. Twice as many calls with twice as many people doesn't give the same waiting time, and the last few percentage points of service level cost disproportionately more staffing. An hourly average also hides peaks within that hour. That's why we calculate per interval, using a model that takes queuing behaviour into account.
Historical contact volume per interval and channel, average handling and after-call work times, and the rosters for the relevant period. This usually comes from your telephony or contact centre platform. The longer the history, the easier it is to recognise seasonal patterns, but we'll first check whether the data is usable before promising anything.
Yes, but with different calculation rules. Chat involves concurrent conversations per agent, and email is deferred work that must be completed within a deadline. That's a different kind of calculation from a telephone queue. We model each channel separately and add up the required staffing based on who has which skills.
Yes, and that's important for buy-in. Preferences, availability and shift swap requests can be factored into the model, within the limits of the collective agreement and contracts. The system shows what a preference costs in staffing, so the conversation is based on facts rather than feelings.
With restraint. Adherence is useful for seeing whether the plan was realistic and where something structurally goes wrong, but it becomes harmful as soon as staff are judged on minutes. We design reporting at team level and by pattern, and agree in advance with you and the works council what can and cannot be traced back to individuals.
Yes, this is one of the most used features. You can model what happens with higher volumes, shorter handling times after a process improvement, or additional staffing in a given period. That makes a recruitment request or a conversation with a client well-founded.
There are strong WFM packages, especially for large contact centres, and in those cases they are often the right choice. Custom software pays off for a mid-sized centre where such a package is heavy and expensive, for an unusual channel or skills mix, or when you want to integrate with a contact centre platform that the mainstream packages don't support.
Ready to build your workforce management software?
Tell us which channels you serve, which service level applies and where staffing is structurally going wrong now. We are happy to help you think through scope, integrations and the first version. A no-obligation first conversation will give you a clear picture of what is possible and whether custom software makes sense in your situation.