Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for automating the activation of agents in particular workgroups. A call queue server receives incoming communications. A scheduling server is coupled to the call center server over a network and analyzes historical communication data to calculate a forecasted load for a particular time period. The system uses the forecasted load to create agent schedules for the workgroups for the particular time period. The system programmatically activates and deactivates the agents into and out of the workgroups at scheduled points in time based on the calculated schedules. The call center server routes each of the queued communications to a particular agent that is activated on a particular one of the workgroup.