What it does
Opens the report a forecast scenario produces once it's run, so you can compare actual demand against forecasted demand by time, channel, and queue. It's the read-and-analyse end of WFM forecasting: a volume chart, a per-interval data table, snapshot versioning, and an Excel export. Available for every forecast scenario type.
Key facts
- Reached from Forecasting under Workforce Management in Copilot Service workspace: open a scenario, then View Output
- The report compares Actual Volume with Forecast Volume per period; turn on Show AHT to bring in actual and forecast average handle time alongside volume
- View control drives aggregation: Intraday shows individual intervals; the time hierarchies (Year > Month > Week > Day, etc.) roll it up for trend analysis
- Volume chart supports Aggregate vs Per-dimension (split by channel and queue), plus Smart zoom to focus a time range
- Every output refresh creates a snapshot version; the most recent snapshot is the one capacity planning uses, but you can rename snapshots and revert to an earlier one
- Export to Excel dumps exactly what's currently filtered on screen (date range, channels, queues, view) — not the whole dataset
- Actual values only populate once a snapshot is refreshed and the forecast period has moved into the past; future periods stay forecast-only until real data catches up
When to use / skip
This is where the client's planning team actually lives day to day once forecasting is on, so walk them through it in UAT rather than treating it as a footnote. If they only ever want a single staffing-demand number fed into capacity planning, they'll rarely open the report — but anyone validating forecast quality will.
Configuration decisions
- Which snapshot is treated as authoritative: capacity planning follows the latest by default, so agree a discipline for when to revert versus refresh
- Whether the team works intraday or at a rolled-up hierarchy for a given review — the two answer different questions and it's worth setting the habit early
- Whether Excel export is the sanctioned route for sharing forecasts with stakeholders, or whether that pulls people out of the tool and back into spreadsheets you can't govern
Gotchas
- Actuals lag by design. Someone will open a fresh snapshot, see future intervals with no actual volume, and report it as broken — it isn't, the period just hasn't happened yet.
- The export is filter-scoped, not a full extract. If someone exports a filtered view and treats it as the complete forecast, the numbers downstream will be wrong.
- Reverting to an earlier snapshot changes what capacity planning consumes. That's a real staffing input, not a cosmetic view setting.
Consultant notes
- The snapshot model is the bit clients trip over. Each refresh is a version, and the latest is what capacity planning reads, so a well-meaning refresh mid-review can quietly shift the plan under someone's feet. Set a rule for who refreshes and when before go-live.
- Push the planning team onto Show AHT early. Volume alone flatters the picture — a modest volume rise with climbing AHT is a very different staffing story, and the report will show both if you ask it to.
- The Excel export is a blessing and a trap. It's genuinely useful for stakeholder packs, but every export outside the tool is a number you can no longer govern or refresh. Decide up front whether exports are for sharing or for shadow planning, because they'll drift into the latter if you don't.
Check this if: the forecasting report UI changes, or snapshot/capacity-planning behaviour shifts in a release wave