Enter the number of customers for forecasting

Once you have set up the Activity Calendar, go to Schedule and select Forecast from the toolbar. Enter the number of customers you expect per shift each day. The Forecast chart will show you the different shifts per day in each location where activities are performed and lets you specify the number of customers expected for those periods.

If your demand is fairly constant you can copy the data from one week to the next, making the minor changes after you copy. Or you can enter new data for each calendar week.

One thing to keep in mind - if you have shifts of different length for the same Activity on a given day, say, a full time plus a part time shift, you must split your volume between the shifts. Chances are the reason the second shift occurs is because the volume is higher during that period so enter the number that represents the additional number of customers expected for that shift. Be careful that you don't put your total volume in the first shift and the additional volume in the second shift - you'll have too many staff allocated!

An example of this would be a restaurant where, because they are busier around meals, brings in extra staff to cover those while maintaining a smaller full time staff to cover the day as a whole.

Another example might be a seniors center that offers special programs a couple of days a week that bring in larger numbers so they bring in extra staff for those programs.