Empower your contact center workforce with shift bidding and swapping in Dynamics 365

Empower your contact center workforce with shift bidding and swapping (Enhancing agent flexibility and autonomy through self-service workforce management).

Real-time User Journey

This journey illustrates how agents interact with these self-service features to balance their personal lives with work requirements:

1. Shift Bidding (Proactive): A supervisor publishes a set of “open” shifts for an upcoming holiday weekend. An agent, looking for extra hours, browses the Bidding Gallery in their Dynamics 365 workspace and places a bid on a high-priority morning shift.
2. Automated Awarding: Based on predefined rules (such as seniority or performance metrics), the system automatically awards the shift to the agent and updates their calendar instantly.
3. The Swap Request (Reactive): Later, a different agent realizes they have a personal conflict for a Tuesday shift. They select the shift on their calendar and choose Request Swap.
4. Marketplace Posting: The shift is posted to the team’s “Swap Board.” A qualified colleague sees the request and offers one of their own shifts in exchange.
5. Manager Approval & Routing Sync: Once both agents agree, the manager receives a notification. Upon approval, the Schedule Calendar and Unified Routing engine are updated in real-time, ensuring work is routed to the new shift holder without manual intervention.

Step-by-Step: How to Enable This Feature

To enable bidding and swapping, administrators must configure the Workforce Management settings in Dynamics 365:

• Step 1: Admin Center Access

Sign in to the Customer Service admin center or Contact Center admin center.

• Step 2: Enable Workforce Management Modules

Navigate to Operations > Workforce Management. Ensure “Shift Planning” is active, as bidding and swapping rely on existing shift structures.

• Step 3: Configure Bidding Rules

Go to Shift Bidding Settings. Define the “Awarding Criteria” (e.g., First-come-first-served or Seniority-based) and set the window for when agents can bid on open shifts.

• Step 4: Activate Shift Swapping

Under Scheduling Settings, toggle the Enable Shift Swapping switch to “On.” You can choose to allow “Auto-approval” if the swap meets all coverage requirements, or require “Manager Approval.”

• Step 5: Define Eligibility Profiles

Ensure agents are assigned to the correct Scheduling Profiles. This prevents, for example, a Chat-only agent from swapping into a Voice-only shift.

• Step 6: Update Agent Workspace

Verify that the “Bidding Gallery” and “Swap Board” components are added to the Agent Experience Profile sitemap so agents can see the options in their side navigation.

Infographic: The Workforce Autonomy Model

Feature	Description	Business Benefit
Shift Bidding	Agents compete for/request preferred open shifts.	Reduces the need for supervisors to manually fill gaps.
Shift Swapping	Peer-to-peer exchange of assigned shifts.	Increases agent satisfaction and reduces absenteeism.
Automated Rules	System-driven awarding based on seniority/skills.	Ensures fairness and eliminates administrative bias.
Manager Oversight	Final approval portal for all schedule changes.	Maintains total control over team coverage and SLAs.
Routing Integration	Real-time sync with the routing engine.	Ensures zero downtime during the transition between agents.

References

Empower your Contact Center workforce with shift bidding and swapping