At a glance
The Challenge
A two-person workforce management team supporting approximately 150 agents needed a way to catch late-start exceptions without continuously monitoring Real-Time Adherence. By using Aspect Intelligence to automatically add an investigation marker when a Begin Shift Late alarm cleared, the team cut reconciliation effort by more than half while retaining analyst control over every final schedule decision. Over six months, the workflow generated 3,412 automatic schedule updates, evidence that it became a sustained part of daily operations rather than a short-term test.
- Customer: Canadian financial services provider
- Workforce: Approximately 125–150 agents
- Industry: Financial services
- Aspect solutions: Aspect Cloud Workforce and Aspect Intelligence™
The Solution
The organization configured automatic schedule updates based on real-time adherence in Aspect Intelligence to add an internal schedule segment after a Begin Shift Late alarm cleared. That segment created a visible investigation queue for the workforce team, which could then determine whether the event reflected lateness, an absence, or a technical issue and apply the correct schedule code.
The Impact
- More consistent exception coverage: The automated segment helped the team proactively identify Begin Shift Late events that might otherwise have required later report review.
- Less reconciliation effort: The customer estimated that the workflow reduced the time staff spent on reconciliation by more than half.
- Sustained automation: From March through August 2026, 3,412 of 6,123 recorded schedule updates were automatic, representing 55.7% of the total.
- Human judgment preserved: The workforce team continued to investigate each flagged event and apply the appropriate final reason.
The organization
The customer is a Canadian financial services provider with a workforce operation supporting approximately 125–150 agents. A small workforce management team oversees real-time adherence, schedule updates, reporting, and operational support.
The team’s size made prioritization essential. Real-time adherence could not be monitored continuously while analysts were in meetings or completing other work. Begin Shift Late events that occurred during those gaps could require later investigation through reports and supporting systems.
Motivation for change
The team needed a more dependable and proactive way to identify schedule exceptions without requiring an analyst to watch the real-time adherence view throughout the day.
1. A lean team could not monitor every event
The workforce operation had two people actively engaged in day-to-day workforce work. When both were occupied, the real-time adherence view could be unmonitored. This created a risk that Begin Shift Late events would be found later through reports or missed during manual review.
2. Each event still required interpretation
A late sign-in did not always indicate an attendance problem. The customer estimated that 80–90% of flagged events were ultimately excused, often because of technical issues. The team therefore needed automation to identify events while leaving the final decision to staff.
3. Manual reconstruction took time
Before the workflow, analysts could review real-time adherence, inspect reports, check collaboration activity, contact the employee, and then update the schedule. The process depended on someone noticing the event and following it through to resolution.
This created several challenges:
- Incomplete monitoring coverage
- Time-consuming report review
- Risk of missed Begin Shift Late events
- Repetitive schedule investigation
- Dependence on manual follow-up
- Limited analyst capacity
Why Aspect
The organization already used Aspect Cloud Workforce and Real-Time Adherence. Automatic Schedule Updates provided a way to convert a cleared adherence alarm into a schedule marker that the workforce team could investigate.
The team configured the workflow around Begin Shift Late events. When the alarm cleared, Aspect added an internal segment to the schedule. The organization also used Aspect Notifications to alert relevant stakeholders when the segment appeared.
The automated segment did not replace the analyst. Instead, it created a dependable signal that an event required review. The workforce team could then check available context, determine the cause, and replace the temporary segment with the correct schedule code.
The team’s goals were to:
- Identify more schedule exceptions
- Reduce dependence on continuous RTA monitoring
- Shorten reconciliation work
- Preserve human review for ambiguous events
- Improve the consistency of schedule records
- Free analysts for higher-value workforce tasks
The Results
Automatic updates grew to 55.7% of total updates
From March through August 2026, the organization recorded 3,412 automatic schedule updates and 2,711 manual updates, for 6,123 total updates. Automatic updates represented 55.7% of the recorded activity.
The automatic share increased from 32.9% in March to 60.8% in April. It then remained between 54.7% and 58.8% from May through August, demonstrating that the workflow became a sustained part of the team’s operating process.
- 2,711 manual updates
- 3,412 automatic updates
- 6,123 total updates
- 55.7% automatic share
“There’s just two workforce people that are actively engaged. So there’s a lot that we miss, be it sign-in lates or other unscheduled activities.”
Reduced reconciliation time by more than half
The automated segment gave the team a persistent signal for each qualifying event. Instead of relying only on live observation or reconstructing activity from reports, analysts could begin with the schedule marker and investigate what happened.
The customer estimated that this reduced reconciliation work to less than half the time previously required. Human investigation remained necessary, but the automated marker reduced the effort required to find the relevant events.
- Less reliance on after-the-fact report review
- Fewer opportunities for events to disappear into manual workflows
- A clearer queue of exceptions requiring investigation
- Continued analyst control over the final schedule reason
“We’re probably spending less than half the time that we would have in the past because there’s still the investigation piece that goes to that.”
— Workforce Management Manager, financial services provider
Caught more Begin Shift Late events without continuous monitoring
The workflow helped the team identify events that occurred while analysts were focused elsewhere. Once the alarm cleared, the system added a segment that prompted the workforce team to review the event and determine the appropriate disposition.
This was especially useful for a small team that could not keep the RTA view staffed throughout the entire day. The customer described the workflow as helping the team get closer to complete coverage than manual report review alone.
- A visible signal for qualifying Begin Shift Late events
- A repeatable investigation process
- Less dependence on continuous dashboard monitoring
- More consistent handoff from detection to schedule correction
“I think we’re hitting more of them and missing that manual human element of missing somebody on a report because there’s a segment that’s there that’s saying, ‘check me out, check me out, check me out.’”
What stood out
- Automation supported judgment: The workflow identified events while leaving the final schedule decision with the workforce team.
- The schedule became the investigation queue: Analysts could start with a visible segment rather than reconstructing every event from separate reports.
- Configuration mattered: Different operating groups used different grace periods, so thresholds needed to reflect local policies.
- Automatic and manual work operated together: Automation created the initial marker, while analysts applied the final reason.
- The customer saw additional potential: Real-time triggering and more configurable notifications could extend the workflow to additional adherence events.
Looking ahead
The customer identified real-time notification as the most important next opportunity. The current workflow acts when an adherence alarm clears. The team would also value notifications when an exception begins, allowing supervisors or other leaders to follow up before the employee returns to adherence.
The organization also sees potential to apply similar workflows to unexpected sign-outs, extended after-call work, and other schedule-adherence conditions. Any expansion would need configurable thresholds by employee group and event type to avoid unnecessary alerts.
Next areas of focus include:
- Real-time notifications when an alarm begins
- Configurable thresholds by group and event type
- Notifications routed to the appropriate leader
- Additional adherence-event workflows
- Clear reporting on automatic and manual schedule activity
Key learnings
- Use automation to surface exceptions, not to remove judgment from cases that require interpretation.
- Start with a high-frequency event that has a clear trigger and a repeatable investigation process.
- Match thresholds to operating policies rather than applying one rule across every group.
- Preserve a visible audit trail so analysts can follow an event from detection through final schedule correction.
- Measure automatic activity separately from business outcomes such as time saved, accuracy, or payroll impact.
- Ask what higher-value work analysts can perform when monitoring and reconciliation require less attention.
“It’s always an awesome opportunity when we can have our team focus on something else besides catching those day-to-day moments and being 100% engaged with RTA and other tools.”
