Use the Shifts connector wizard to connect Shifts to Blue Yonder Workforce Management (Preview)

• Applies to:

  Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 for frontline workers

Overview

The Shifts connector wizard in the Microsoft 365 admin center enables you to integrate the Shifts app in Microsoft Teams with your workforce management (WFM) system. Your frontline workers can seamlessly view and manage their schedules in your WFM system from within Shifts.

The wizard creates a connection to your WFM system and a connection instance, which apply the sync settings and team mappings that you choose. Sync settings determine the schedule information that's synced between your WFM system and Shifts. Team mappings define the sync relationship between your WFM instances and teams in Teams.

You can create one or more connection instances, each with different sync settings. For example, if your organization has multiple locations with different schedule requirements, create a connection instance with unique sync settings for each location. Keep in mind that a WFM instance should only be mapped once to a Microsoft team at any given time. However, it's possible in the wizard to have different connection instances with the same mappings. This means that you can create connection instances with duplicated mappings.

With your WFM system as the system of record, your frontline workers can efficiently manage their schedules and availability in Shifts on their devices. Frontline managers can continue to use your WFM system to set up schedules.

Terms used in this article

Term	Definition
Connection	This is where you configure your Blue Yonder WFM details by providing your service account name, password, and service URLs. This enables access to all your WFM (workforce management) instances created in your Blue Yonder WFM system.
Connection instance	This is where you configure: - The synchronization settings that determine how and which schedule information syncs between Blue Yonder WFM and Shifts - Team mappings to define the relationship between your WFM instances and teams in Microsoft Teams
WFM instance	This term refers to a site within your Blue Yonder WFM system.

Integrate Shifts with Blue Yonder Workforce Management

The Microsoft Teams Shifts connector for Blue Yonder enables you to integrate Shifts with Blue Yonder Workforce Management (Blue Yonder WFM) to manage your schedules and keep them up to date. In this article, we walk you through how to run the wizard to set up a connection and connection instance to Blue Yonder WFM through the connector.

Note

You can also use PowerShell to integrate Shifts with Blue Yonder WFM. To learn more, see Use PowerShell to connect Shifts to Blue Yonder Workforce Management.

Before you begin

You must be a Microsoft 365 global admin to run the wizard.

Prerequisites

Before you get started, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

• Blue Yonder WFM version 2020.3, 2021.1, or 2021.2.

  Note

  If you have Blue Yonder WFM 2020.3 or 2021.1, apply the 2020.3.0.4 or 2021.1.0.3 patch. This patch fixes an issue where users get a persistent error message in Shifts. It also fixes an issue that prevents users from updating their availability in Shifts.

• Your Blue Yonder WFM service account name and password and service URLs:

  • Federated authentication URL
  • Cookie authentication URL
  • Employee self-service URL
  • Retail web API URL
  • Site manager API URL
  • Administration API URL

  If you don’t have this information, contact Blue Yonder support. The account is created at the root enterprise level by a Blue Yonder enterprise administrator. It must have API Access, Client Admin, Store Manager, and Worker access. The account and password are required to create a connection.

• Federated SSO authentication is enabled in your Blue Yonder WFM environment. Contact Blue Yonder support to make sure federated SSO is enabled. They'll need the following information:

  • federatedSSOValidationService: https://wfmconnector.teams.microsoft.com/api/v1/fedauth/{tenantId}/6A51B888-FF44-4FEA-82E1-839401E9CD74/authorize where {tenantId} is your tenantId
  • proxyHeader: X-MS-AuthToken

• At least one team is set up in Teams.

• You added a Microsoft 365 system account as a team owner to all teams you want to map.
  Create this account in Microsoft 365 and assign it a Microsoft 365 license. Then, add the account as a team owner to all teams that you want to map. The Shifts connector uses this account when syncing Shifts changes from Blue Yonder WFM. Therefore, we recommend that you create an account specifically for this purpose and not use your personal user account.

• The teams you want to map don't have any schedules. If a team has an existing schedule, remove the schedule entities from the team before you map a Blue Yonder WFM instance to it. Otherwise, you'll see duplicate shifts.

Remove schedule entities from teams you want to map

Note

Complete this step if you're mapping Blue Yonder WFM instances to existing teams that have schedule entities. If you're mapping to teams that don't have any schedules or if you're creating new teams to map to, you can skip this step.

Use PowerShell to remove schedule entities from teams.

1. First, you'll need to install the PowerShell modules and get set up. Follow the steps to set up your environment

2. Run the following command:

   Remove-CsTeamsShiftsScheduleRecord -TeamId <Teams team ID> -DateRangeStartDate <start time> -DateRangeEndDate <end time> -ClearSchedulingGroup:$false -EntityType <the scenario entities that you want to remove, the format is @(scenario1, scenario2, ...)> -DesignatedActorId <Teams team owner ID>
   

   To get a list of scenarios for the EntityType parameter, run Get-CsTeamsShiftsConnectionConnector. Schedule data will be removed for the date and time range that you specify.

To learn more, see Remove-CsTeamsShiftsScheduleRecord.

Run the wizard

Create a connection

1. In the left navigation of the Microsoft 365 admin center, choose Setup, and then under Featured collections, select Frontline workers.

2. Select Connector Management Console.

3. To create a new connection, choose Add connection.

4. In the Choose your connector pane, choose Blue Yonder Workforce Management, and then select Next to create a Blue Yonder WFM connection.

5. In the Connection settings pane, give your connection a unique name. It can't be longer than 100 characters or have any special characters.

6. Enter your Blue Yonder WFM service account name and password and service URLs. If you don't know one or more of your connection details, contact your Blue Yonder WFM partner.

7. When you're done, select Save connection.

Note

If you need to create another connection, go to the Connector Management Console page, and then select Add connection.

Create a connection instance

After you create a connection, you can set up one or more connection instances in that connection.

You'll see all the connections you've created on your Connector Management Console. Under the connection where you want to create a new instance, select Create instance.

Choose settings

On the Settings page, you choose the information to sync from Blue Yonder WFM to Shifts, the sync frequency, and whether Shifts users can make changes to the data.

1. Enter a name for your connection instance. It can't be longer than 100 characters or have any special characters.

2. Enter your Microsoft 365 system account. This is the account that you created as a prerequisite that is a team owner of all the teams you want to map.

3. Under Email notification recipients, choose who receives email notifications about this connection instance. You can add individual users and groups. The email notifications contain information about setup status and any issues or errors that may occur after the connection instance is set up.

Tip

You'll be given the following options for the next group of settings:
Shifts users will not see provider data: Data won't sync between UKG Dimensions and Shifts.
Shifts users can see provider data: Data syncing is unidirectional from UKG Dimensions to Shifts.
Shifts users can see and change provider data: Data syncing is bidirectional between UKG Dimensions and Shifts.

4. Choose your basic, Time card, and Request settings from the options listed above.

5. Then, choose your sync frequency.

   Important

   Before you disable a feature by selecting the option Shifts users will not see provider data, be aware that:

   • If the setting Schedules, groups, shifts, and activities is disabled, then all other settings, such as Time off and Employee availability, and more, will also be disabled.
   • If the setting Open shift is disabled, Open shift request will also be disabled.
   • If the setting Time off is disabled, Time off request will also be disabled.

   Important

   If you chose any of the following options to disable open shifts, open shift requests, swap requests, or time off requests, there's another step you need to do to hide the capability in Shifts.

   • Open shifts: Shifts users will not see provider data
   • Swap requests: Shifts users will not see provider data
   • Time off requests: Shifts users will not see provider data

   After you run the wizard, make sure you follow the steps in the Disable open shifts, open shifts requests, swap requests, and time off requests section later in this article.

6. When you're done choosing your settings, select Next.

Map Blue Yonder Workforce Management instances to teams

Choose the Blue Yonder WFM instances that you want to connect to Shifts, and then map each WFM instance to a team in Teams. You can map up to 400 instances.

Then, map each instance to a team in Teams. You can map an instance to an existing team or you can create a new team.

1. On the Mapping page, start by choosing which WFM instance(s) you want to map to Microsoft Teams team(s).

2. Tick the checkbox for each WFM instance you want to map. Instances will only map if you check their boxes.

3. Next, search for and choose the correct Microsoft Teams team. Keep in mind that teams that are already mapped to a WFM instance in this connection instance won't be available to map again.

4. Choose the time zone. The closest city will be automatically filled in, but you can change it.

5. When you've mapped all your teams, select Next.

Review and finish

Before finishing, review the summary of the connection instance creation process. If you need to make changes during the connection instance creation process, choose Back. When you're ready, select Finish.

The wizard starts the process to set up the connection instance, which may take some time to complete. If you try to edit the connection instance before the setup is complete, you most likely won't be able to view the mappings you created previously.

The email notification recipients you chose will receive email notifications about setup status in case there are any errors.

Select Done to exit the wizard.

Disable open shifts, open shifts requests, swap requests, and time off requests

Important

Follow these steps only if you chose any of the following options to disable open shifts, open shift requests, swap requests, or time off requests in the wizard. Completing this step hides the capability in Shifts.

• Open shifts: Shifts users will not see Blue Yonder WFM data
• Swap requests: Feature is disabled for all users
• Time off requests: Feature is disabled for all users

Without this second step, users will still see the capability in Shifts, and will get an "unsupported operation" error message if they try to use it.

To hide open shifts, swap requests, and time off requests in Shifts, use the Graph API schedule resource type to set the following parameters to false for each team that you mapped to a Blue Yonder WFM instance:

• Open shifts: openShiftsEnabled
• Swap requests: swapShiftsRequestsEnabled
• Time off requests: timeOffRequestsEnabled

To hide open shifts requests in Shifts, go to Settings in Shifts, and then turn off the Open shifts setting.

Manage your connection and connection instance

After a connection is set up, you can manage and make changes to it in the Microsoft 365 admin center or by using PowerShell.

Use the Microsoft 365 admin center

The Connector Management Console page lists each connection and connection instance that you've set up, along with information such as health status and sync interval details. You can also access the wizard to create new connections and connection instances and make changes to any of your existing ones. For example, you can update sync settings and team mappings.

To learn more, see Use the Microsoft 365 admin center to manage your Shifts connection to Blue Yonder Workforce Management.

Use PowerShell

You can use PowerShell to view an error report, change connection settings, disable sync, and more. For step-by-step guidance, see Use PowerShell to manage your Shifts connection to Blue Yonder Workforce Management.

Related articles

• Shifts connectors
• Manage the Shifts app in Teams