Call Center Scheduling Software
Build and publish agent shifts with breaks, approve shift changes, fill gaps with overtime slots, and see adherence and shrinkage for every site. Scheduling and time tracking in one tool, so the schedule and the hours never disagree.
$5/user/month · All features included · 14-day free trial, no credit card
Screen recreated from the HiveDesk web app with sample data.
Everything you need to schedule agents
The scheduling tools a contact center uses every week, without a separate workforce management suite.
Weekly shifts you can publish
Build shifts in week, month, or day view. Keep them as drafts until they are ready, publish the schedule, and copy last week’s schedule forward when the pattern repeats.
Breaks inside every shift
Schedule lunch, meetings, and other breaks inside a shift, using your own break types with short codes. Staggered breaks are visible on the schedule, not in someone’s head.
Schedule types and holidays
Define your own schedule types for day, night, and weekend coverage, and add holidays so they show on the schedule and in attendance reports.
Shift change requests
Agents request a different shift from their account. Managers approve or decline it in one place, with every request on record.
Overtime slots
Post or import extra hours as overtime slots, let agents commit to them, and track commitments in a report. Overtime is planned, not discovered on payroll day.
Leave on the schedule
Approved time off appears on the schedule next to shifts, so gaps are visible before the day starts. Policies set yearly limits in days for each leave type.
Sites, countries, and time zones
Group agents by country and site, filter schedules and reports by site, and view reports in the time zone that matters to the queue.
Roles and permissions
Create custom roles so supervisors manage their own teams’ schedules while workforce managers see every site.
From the schedule to the floor
A schedule only helps if you can see whether people worked it. Because HiveDesk also tracks time, every shift is measured against what actually happened.
Live status against today’s shifts
Scheduled Activity counts every scheduled shift for the day and shows who is present, absent, on a half day, on leave, on a holiday, on a week off, or not yet logged in. Ongoing Sessions lists who is working right now. Supervisors with permission can check someone out or correct a break in a live session.
You set a late threshold and a shift tolerance in minutes, so a two-minute delay does not count against an agent unless you want it to.
| Team member | Site | Project | Started | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maria Gonzalez | Manila | Inbound Support | 8:58 AM | 3h 12m |
| Daniel Okafor | Louisville | Billing Queue | 9:02 AM | 3h 08m |
| Priya Nair | Bengaluru | Chat Support | 9:00 AM | 3h 10m |
| Tom Becker | Louisville | Tier 2 Escalations | 9:15 AM | 2h 55m |
Adherence by agent and site
The Adherence report puts each agent’s check-in next to the shift start and each check-out next to the shift end, and labels the difference. Filter by site, client, team group, project, or status, choose the time zone, and export to Excel or PDF for a client review.
Patterns show up quickly: the same three agents late after lunch, or a site that always logs out ten minutes early on Fridays.
| Team member | Site | Shift | Check-in | Check-in adherence | Check-out | Check-out adherence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maria Gonzalez | Manila | 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 8:58 AM | On time | 6:01 PM | On time |
| Daniel Okafor | Louisville | 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 9:02 AM | Late 2m | 6:00 PM | On time |
| Tom Becker | Louisville | 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 9:15 AM | Late 15m | 5:40 PM | Early 20m |
| Priya Nair | Bengaluru | 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 9:00 AM | On time | 6:04 PM | On time |
Shrinkage from real hours
The Shrinkage report compares scheduled hours with hours actually worked for each agent and date, and shows shrinkage hours and the shrinkage percentage. Filter by site, shift, team group, client, or project to see where availability is leaking.
Use the result as the shrinkage allowance when you plan next month’s staffing, instead of an industry average.
| Team member | Scheduled hours | Actual hours worked | Shrinkage hours | Shrinkage % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maria Gonzalez | 40:00 | 37:45 | 2:15 | 5.6% |
| Daniel Okafor | 40:00 | 35:30 | 4:30 | 11.3% |
| Tom Becker | 40:00 | 31:10 | 8:50 | 22.1% |
| Priya Nair | 32:00 | 30:40 | 1:20 | 4.2% |
| Team total | 152:00 | 135:05 | 16:55 | 11.1% |
Screens recreated from the HiveDesk web app with sample data.
How scheduling works in HiveDesk
- 1
Set your staffing target
Work out how many agents each interval needs, for example with the Erlang C calculator, and add a shrinkage allowance.
- 2
Build and publish shifts
Create shifts by schedule type, add breaks, review the week as a draft, and publish it.
- 3
Agents track time against the schedule
Agents clock in on the desktop app, web app, Chrome extension, or iPhone. Time, screenshots, and activity are recorded on desktop.
- 4
Watch the floor during the day
Scheduled Activity shows who is present, absent, on leave, or not logged in. Ongoing Sessions shows who is working right now.
- 5
Review adherence and shrinkage
Run the Adherence and Shrinkage reports by site or team group, export them, and adjust next week’s schedule.
How to build a call center schedule
Good call center schedules start with a number, not a calendar. Before you place a single shift, you need to know how many agents each part of the day requires, how much of their paid time will not be spent handling contacts, and which shift patterns your team can actually work.
1. Work out the agents you need per interval
Take your expected contacts for each 30- or 60-minute interval, your average handle time, and your service level target, and run them through an Erlang C calculation. The result is the number of agents who need to be logged in and available in that interval. Our Erlang C calculator does this for you. If you are new to the terms, see service level and occupancy rate.
2. Add a shrinkage allowance
Agents are never available for every scheduled minute. Breaks, meetings, coaching, training, sick days, and late starts all reduce the time they can take contacts. That gap is shrinkage. Divide the required agents by one minus your shrinkage rate to get the number to schedule. With 20 agents required and 30% shrinkage, you schedule about 29. If you already track time, use your own shrinkage history; the contact center shrinkage guide explains what to include.
3. Choose shift patterns that fit the demand curve
Most centers combine full-day shifts with a few shorter or staggered shifts to cover peaks. Twenty-four-hour operations often use rotations such as Pitman, DuPont, or 4/10 schedules. The shift schedule generator lays out common rotations so you can compare them before committing.
4. Stagger breaks and lunches
Breaks are the easiest place to lose service level. If half the floor takes lunch at noon, the queue builds at exactly the wrong moment. Schedule breaks inside each shift and spread them across the interval so coverage stays close to the target. Clear break codes also make it easier to see later whether agents took breaks when they were planned.
5. Publish early and handle changes in one place
Agents plan childcare, second jobs, and commutes around the schedule, so publish it as early as you can and keep it stable. When changes are needed, route them through formal shift change requests instead of chat messages, and post overtime slots for gaps instead of calling around. Some cities and states also have predictive scheduling laws that require advance notice for certain employers.
6. Measure adherence and shrinkage, then adjust
A schedule is a forecast of behavior. Compare it with what happened every week: who started and finished on time, which intervals were short, and how much scheduled time turned into worked time. Feed that back into the next schedule. Over a few weeks the shrinkage allowance gets more accurate and the schedule gets tighter.
Is HiveDesk the right fit for your center?
HiveDesk is built for small and mid-size contact centers and BPOs that want scheduling, time tracking, and reporting in one affordable tool. It is not an enterprise forecasting suite, and it does not pretend to be one.
| Capability | HiveDesk | Typical enterprise WFM suite |
|---|---|---|
| Shift scheduling with breaks, drafts, publish, and copy | Yes | Yes |
| Shift change requests and overtime slots | Yes | Usually |
| Adherence report (check-in and check-out vs. shift) | Yes | Yes, often intraday |
| Shrinkage report (scheduled vs. worked hours) | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic time tracking with screenshots and activity levels | Yes | Rarely |
| Timesheets, leave, and client invoicing in the same tool | Yes | Usually separate tools |
| Contact volume forecasting and auto-generated schedules | No | Yes |
| Skills-based scheduling and ACD/telephony integration | No | Yes |
| Pricing | $5/user/month, all features | Quote-based, often with implementation fees |
HiveDesk is a good fit if you
- schedule agents in spreadsheets today and want shifts, breaks, and changes in one place;
- need to prove hours to clients with screenshots, timesheets, and adherence reports;
- run remote or multi-site teams across time zones;
- want one price per user instead of separate scheduling, time tracking, and leave tools.
Look at an enterprise suite if you
- need schedules generated automatically from a contact volume forecast;
- schedule by agent skill across many queues and channels;
- need intraday adherence fed directly from your ACD or telephony platform.
Our roundup of workforce management software for contact centers compares the main options.
More than a scheduler
The same $5 plan covers the rest of the agent’s day.
Agent time tracking
Desktop apps record time, periodic screenshots, and activity levels. Agents can also track in the web app, Chrome extension, or iPhone app.
Timesheets and approvals
Tracked time becomes weekly timesheets by project and task. Supervisors review, edit, and approve them, then export to PDF or Excel.
Overtime management
A weekly overtime threshold and pay multiplier feed the Overtime report, alongside overtime slots and commitments.
Leave management
Leave policies with yearly day limits, custom leave types, and request approvals, all visible on the schedule.
Client billing
For BPOs: create invoices from tracked time with your tax rate, VAT number, and logo, and back them with screenshot reports.
Shrinkage management
Scheduled versus worked hours by agent, shift, and site, with PDF and Excel export.
Free scheduling tools and guides
Frequently asked questions
Call center scheduling software builds and publishes agent shifts, schedules breaks inside those shifts, handles time off and shift changes, and then compares what agents actually did against the schedule. In HiveDesk the schedule is connected to time tracking, so attendance, adherence, and shrinkage reports come from the same data as payroll hours.
No. HiveDesk does not forecast contact volume or generate schedules automatically from a forecast. Most small and mid-size centers set staffing levels with an Erlang C calculation or a spreadsheet and then build shifts in HiveDesk. Our free Erlang C calculator gives you the agent count to start from.
The Adherence report compares each agent’s check-in time with the scheduled shift start and each check-out with the shift end, using the late threshold and shift tolerance you set in minutes. You can filter it by site, client, team group, project, team member, time zone, and status, and export it to Excel or PDF. During the day, Scheduled Activity shows who is present, absent, on leave, or not yet logged in for today’s shifts.
Yes. Agents submit shift change requests from their HiveDesk account and managers approve or decline them under Schedules, so every change and decision is recorded in one place instead of a chat thread.
Managers post overtime slots, or import them in bulk, for the hours that need extra coverage. Agents commit to the slots they want, and the Overtime Commitments report shows who signed up for what. Separately, a weekly overtime threshold and pay multiplier feed the Overtime report so you can see overtime hours and cost.
Yes. Agents can be grouped by country and site, and schedules and reports can be filtered by site. Reports let you choose the time zone they are shown in, which helps when a team in Manila covers a US queue overnight.
Not yet. Agents view schedules and submit time-off and shift change requests in the HiveDesk web app, which works in any browser, including on a phone. The iOS app is used for clocking in and out, with GPS location recorded at clock-in and clock-out.
HiveDesk is $5 per user per month with every feature included: scheduling, time tracking, screenshots, attendance, adherence and shrinkage reports, timesheets, leave management, and invoicing. Accounts start at 3 users. There is a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
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