US Patent 7383199 Method for forecasting and managing multimedia contacts

Multimedia contacts are forecasted, propagated, and managed for each period in a range. The number of contacts received in a period is forecasted using historical methods and is propagated to succeeding periods based on the business goals, such as how quickly a certain contact type is to be handled. After the contacts have been propagated, a total contacts to handle is determined for each period, and the staffing requirements are calculated therefrom.