---
sourceDocument: Australia IT Service Management
sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/it-service-management

 Release :

    - australia

ft:locale :

    - en-US

ft:publication_title :

    - Australia IT Service Management

ft:clusterId :

    - itsm

bundleId :

    - itsm

workflow :

    - Technology


---

# Demand Forecast components

# Demand Forecast components in Workforce Optimization for ITSM {#ariaid-title1}

Release version: Australia  
Updated March 12, 2026  
![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 4 minutes to read
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## Summary of Demand Forecast components in Workforce Optimization for ITSM

Workforce Optimization (WFO) for ITSM provides components to enable demand forecasting within the IT Service Management environment, helping you predict and manage workload for support agents.
It includes roles, configuration tables, scheduled jobs, and data retention policies designed to collect and analyze incident and interaction data for forecasting resource needs.
Show full answer Show less  
**Important:** Starting with the Brazil release, WFO for ITSM is being prepared for future deprecation and will no longer be installed on new instances, though existing support continues.

## Key Features

* **Forecast Configurations:** Predefined configurations collect data for various interaction types including chat interactions, P1 incidents, non-P1 incidents, and walkup interactions.
* **Metric Retention Policy:** Default policy stores forecast metric data hourly for up to three years, ensuring historical data availability for accurate forecasting.
* **Resource Forecast Formulas:** Formulas translate collected data into resource forecasts, converting interaction counts and durations into agent time requirements. This includes separate calculations for chat, incidents (priority-based), and walkup interactions.
* **Forecast Parameters:** Parameters such as average agent work time per day and average interaction durations allow customization of the resource calculations to reflect your operational realities.
* **Forecast Properties:** Properties control data granularity and forecast periods, such as historical data points used, seasonal frequency (daily, weekly, monthly), and number of forecast periods, enabling you to tailor forecasting horizons and accuracy.
* **Roles:** Specific roles control access and administration of forecast configurations, with administrative rights for CRUD operations and read-only access for forecast users.
* **Tables:** Dedicated tables store forecast configurations, parameters, and group associations, allowing structured management and application of forecasting rules.
* **Scheduled Jobs:** Automated jobs collect and process historical and daily data, update metrics in MetricBase, and compute future resource forecasts based on collected data and defined formulas.

## Key Outcomes

* Enables proactive workforce planning by forecasting demand based on historical incident and interaction data.
* Improves resource allocation and scheduling accuracy by converting various interaction types into estimated agent workload.
* Supports long-term data retention to identify seasonal patterns and trends for better forecasting accuracy.
* Provides configurable parameters and properties allowing you to adapt forecasts to your organization's specific work patterns and agent capacities.
* Facilitates secure and controlled management of forecasting configurations through defined roles and access controls.
* Integrates with ServiceNow's MetricBase for efficient storage and retrieval of forecast-related metrics.  
Workforce Optimization for ITSM installs roles to administer ITSM Manager Workspace
Demand Forecast, properties to configure default behavior, scheduled jobs to collect data for the configurations, tables to store data, forecast configurations to collect data for incidents and interactions and a
retention policy to store metric data.
Important:  
Starting with the Brazil release, Workforce Optimization for ITSM is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer installed on new instances but will continue to be supported. For details, see the [Deprecation Process \[KB0867184\]](https://support.servicenow.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0867184) article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

## Forecast configurations {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__section_ip2_z5g_jvb}

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| Name | Description |
|-|-|
| Chat Interactions Created | Collects data for chat interactions. |
| Non P1 Incidents Created | Collects data for all incidents that are not tagged as priority 1. |
| P1 Incidents Created | Collects data for priority 1 incidents. |
| Walkup Interactions Created | Collects data for walk up interactions. |
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## Metric retention policy {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__section_ql2_dvg_jvb}

The WFO Forecast time series metric retention policy is available by
default for all forecast configurations. By default, this retention policy stores data at a
one-hour interval for the past three years.

## Formulas to create resource forecast configurations {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__section_pzh_fvg_jvb}

{#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__table_jdg_hvg_jvb__entry__2}

| Name | Formula to create this resource forecast configuration |
|-|-|
| Chat Interactions to Agent Conversion | `([FC:Chat Interactions Created] * [FP:Average Chat Duration]) / [FP:Average Agent Work Time Per Day]` |
| Incident and Interaction Resources | `[FC:Incidents Created to Agent Conversion] + [FC:Chat Interactions to Agent Conversion] + [FC:Walkup Interactions to Agent Conversion]` |
| Incidents Created to Agent Conversion | `(([FC:P1 Incidents Created] * [FP:Average P1 Incident Work Time]) / [FP:Average Agent Work Time Per Day]) + (([FC:Non P1 Incidents Created] * [FP:Average Non P1 Incident Work Time]) / [FP:Average Agent Work Time Per Day])` |
| Walkup Interactions to Agent Conversion | `([FC:Walkup Interactions Created] * [FP:Average Walkup Duration]) / [FP:Average Agent Work Time Per Day]` |
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## Forecast parameters {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__section_avf_3vg_jvb}

{#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__table_xcq_kvg_jvb__entry__2}

| Name | Description |
|-|-|
| Average Agent Work Time Per Day | Average time an agent works in a given day. |
| Average Chat Duration | Average duration of an agent chat for each incident or interaction. |
| Average Non P1 Incident Work Time | Average time an agents spends working on all incidents that are not categorized as Priority 1. |
| Average P1 Incident Work Time | Average time an agents spends working on all incidents that are categorized as Priority 1. |
| Average Walkup Duration | Average duration an agent spends on a walkup interaction. |
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If you create forecast parameters for a forecast configuration, the values set in the
configuration are used instead of the default forecast parameters listed in the forecast
properties section. For information on configuring forecast parameters, see [Modify forecast parameters to
visualize forecast data](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/e0~lqCVqDVVyhoJpwPLjxQ "Configure and tweak forecast parameters to see how the forecast behaves when you vary the period length, periods to forecast, or algorithm. You can view the modified forecast on the time-series visualization.")

## Forecast properties {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__section_pyn_nvg_jvb}

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| Name | Description | Example |
|-|-|-|
| sn_agent_forecast.historical_data_points | The hourly historical data points to be used for the forecast. The maximum allowed data points is 26280. The default value is 8760 and represents the hourly data points for a one year time period (24 hours x 365 days x 1 year). | For example: 24 hours x 365 days x 3 years = 26280 |
| sn_agent_forecast.seasonal_frequency | The seasonal frequency of a repeated pattern. The default value is 168. | For example: * Daily data pattern = 1\*24 = 24 * Weekly data pattern = 7 \* 24 = 168 * Monthly data pattern = 30 \* 24 = 720 {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__ul_gvq_vvx_2nb} |
| sn_agent_forecast.forecast_periods | The number of periods/seasons to forecast. A period is the length of a season.The default value is 5. | For example: * If the length of a season is daily which is equal to 24 hours (1 day) and the forecast period is 30, then the number of periods to forecast is equal to 24 \* 30 = 720 hours. * If the length of a season is weekly which is equal to 168 hours (1 week) and the forecast period is 5, then the number of periods to forecast is equal to 168 \* 5 = 840 hours. {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__ul_anh_2wx_2nb} |
| sn_agent_forecast.number_of_historical_days_in_timeseries_chart | The number of historical days that will be plotted in the time-series chart in Manager Workspace. | For example, if the number is set to 90,then the number of days is counted from the current day to 90 days ago. |
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## Roles for Demand Forecast {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__section_txz_pvg_jvb}

{#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__table_jx5_c3c_3nb__entry__3}

| Role title \[name\] | Description | Contains roles |
|-|-|-|
| Forecast admin \[sn_agent_forecast.admin\] | Grants administrative rights to create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) forecast configuration tables. | * sn_agent_forecast.users * clotho_admin {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__ul_rzz_wjc_3nb} |
| Forecast user \[sn_agent_forecast.user\] | Grants read access to forecast configuration tables. |   |
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## Tables for Demand Forecast {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__section_fcz_rvg_jvb}

{#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__table_csw_svg_jvb__entry__2}

| Table | Description |
|-|-|
| Forecast Configuration \[sn_agent_forecast_configuration\] | Define data collection definition and resource conversion formula configurations. |
| Forecast Parameter \[sn_agent_forecast_parameter\] | Define forecast parameters required for the formula. |
| Forecast Configuration group \[sn_agent_forecast_configuration_m2m_sys_user_group\] | Associate resource conversion formula with assignment groups. |
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## Forecast configurations available by default {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__section_irh_5vg_jvb}

By default, forecast configurations are available for the following groups:

* Deskside Support
* IT Service Desk
* Application Support
* Technical Support
{#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__ul_r1m_rxr_zmb}

## Schedule jobs for Demand Forecast {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__section_lkz_5v1_3nb}

{#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__table_up4_kj2_1nb__entry__2}

| Name | Description |
|-|-|
| Collect historical data for automated forecast configurations | * On-demand job to collect historical data * Collects historical data daily for every hour for the past three years {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__ul_y3l_vsr_jnb} |
| Collect daily data for automated forecast configurations | * Runs daily at 2 am * For each table defined in the Data Collection Definition configuration, it fetches the records from the previous day for each hour for every group and stores it in the MetricBase * You can access the time series for the collected data using the MetricBase list command on the Group \[sys_user_group\] table * Uses the WFO Forecast retention policy for data retention {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__ul_nm4_3tr_jnb} |
| Forecast resources for future | Calculates the forecast resources for the future based on the collected data. * Runs daily at 3 am * Collects hourly data every day for the formula forecast configuration * Stores the data in the Agent Forecast metric in MetricBase * Uses forecast properties to set the data collection frequency or time period to store the data. The forecast properties will not be used if a [published forecast parameter](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/e0~lqCVqDVVyhoJpwPLjxQ "Configure and tweak forecast parameters to see how the forecast behaves when you vary the period length, periods to forecast, or algorithm. You can view the modified forecast on the time-series visualization.") exists for a data collection definition. {#configurable-wfo-itsm-demand-forecast-reference__ul_x5b_zwr_jnb} |
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