The purpose of this step is to estimate the total number of engagements that the team can deliver in a cycle. This number will limit the total number of engagements that the Plan Guidance can recommend, so that the Master Plan recommendations are achievable.

To estimate the Team’s capacity for the next cycle, select the Capacity subchapter from the Master Plan chapter in the plan chapters menu:

Master Plan Capacity tab

                                                                   Master Plan Capacity tab
Cycle Length Calculated automatically based on available working days between the start and the end date of the cycle
Public holiday Are pre-populated automatically
Vacation Days User input, represents an estimated average number of vacation days that the Reps will take during the cycle
Available days Calculated automatically by subtracting the public holidays and vacation days from cycle length
Non Customer facing activities User input, days dedicated to different types of non customer facing activities. NOTE: Preparation time, i.e., for a meeting, is in this category, but the meeting itself will fall into the customer facing activity.
Customer Facing days Calculated = Available Days - Non Customer facing Days, represents the average number of days/rep available for customer facing activities
Contacts / day / rep User input, represents the average number of engagements a Rep can deliver in a full working day across channels, see discussion below
Contacts capacity / rep Calculated as Customer Facing days x Contacts /day/rep and represents the total number of engagements a Rep can deliver in the cycle
Reps Prepopulated and represent the number of Rep positions in the team that are not vacant. Vacant positions are excluded from the Capacity Planning and Planning in general
Contacts capacity / rep Calculated as Contacts capacity / rep x Reps and represents the total number of engagements the Team can deliver in the cycle

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NOTE that the numbers above represent estimated averages per Rep, and not targets or the reality of each Rep. In the Adapted Plan stage, each Rep will be able to model their own capacity.

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How to calculate and interpret Contacts / day / rep

When estimating the Contacts / day / rep there are two ways to consolidate the contacts across different channels:

  1. Simple Sum: if we assume that on an average day a Rep can deliver 4 F2F visits, 4 Remote detailing, 4 Phone calls and 6 emails then the we can compute the number of Contacts / day as the sum or the above, resulting 18 Contacts / day
  2. Sum using channel weights: taking the above example and assuming that we assign the following weights to the channels: F2F = 1, Remote = 0.8, Phone = 0.5, Email = 0.2, the Contacts / day = 4x1 + 4x0.8 + 4x0.5 + 6x0.2 = 10.4 weighted Contacts / Day

It is up to the user to use one or the other conventions for cross channel Contacts / day, and they need to be careful in the Plan Guidance to compare capacity with the right measure of Recommended Contacts: compare it with Total Recommended contacts if using Simple Sum and with Weighted Recommended Contacts if using Sum using channel weights