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Optional Building Blocks of Siebel Assignment Manager

Siebel Assignment Manager provides several optional building blocks you can use with your assignment rules. A brief description of each is provided in the following subtopics; more information about each of these topics is provided in other chapters throughout this guide.

Assignment Rule Sequencing

When you assign sequence numbers to assignment rules, Assignment Manager evaluates those rules in ascending order of the sequence numbers. Assignment rule sequencing provides a means for you to prioritize the rules that apply to any given assignment object by order of importance, thereby limiting the number of rules that Assignment Manager processes for assignment. For example, you might want to run Assignment Manager only for your higher priority rules first, and then if those rules pass, stop processing additional rules because candidates are already successfully matched.

Assignment Workload

Assignment Manager allows you to apply predefined workload distribution rules to assignment rules to balance workload among candidates. Alternatively, you can create and apply your own rules for this purpose. Candidates that have workloads in excess of the maximum workload are eliminated from the assignment rule. This workload distribution prevents employees from being overloaded. Each assignment rule can include multiple workload criteria.

Assignment Scoring

You can add scores to assignment rules to rate candidates and select potential assignees. Candidates that qualify for an assignment rule have the assignment rule score added to their total score. For example, if you have an assignment rule with the Score field set to 20 points, each candidate that meets the rule's criteria has 20 points applied to his or her total score.

You can also assign a candidate passing score value to each assignment rule. After the total score for a candidate is calculated, Assignment Manager compares this score with the candidate passing score for the assignment rule. If a candidate's score is less than the candidate passing score, the candidate does not meet the criteria and is not assigned.

Alternatively, you can add scores for the same candidate across multiple assignment rules.

Assignment Skills, Expertise Codes, and Weighting Factors

Skills are a special criteria type that you can use to minimize the number of assignment rules. One assignment rule can match different candidates to various objects based on the object characteristics and candidate skills.

Skills are the type of criteria you use most frequently for implementing assignments in a customer service environment. For optimal assignment, you determine the criteria that you want to evaluate for each candidate to make sure that the candidate possesses the proper skills to handle the task.

The Siebel Business Applications provide predefined skills, and you enable and configure those skills at the criteria level using Siebel Tools. However, you can also create new skills using Siebel Tools. After you enable skills, Assignment Manager matches skills based on an assignment criteria comparison method in the same manner in which attributes are matched. Assignment Manager then applies scores and other filters to find the best candidate after a match has been made.

You can apply expertise codes that define an employee's expertise level for a particular skill with weighting factors to weigh skill scores to measure competency in a certain area for each candidate. Assignment Manager uses expertise codes to rank skills to find the most suitable candidate. For example, assume you do not want to assign a novice to a service request that requires an expert. By using expertise codes, you can prevent assigning objects to underqualified candidates.

Server Key Mappings

Server key mappings allow you to define multiple rule groups that you want a specific server to load and process, thus allowing you to use different servers for different business purposes. Server key mappings use an internal key-based routing mechanism to route requests to a particular server; however, this routing is done in the background and is not apparent. You can also specify multiple servers to load the same rule group.

Assignment Policies

Assignment policies are specialized workflow policies used to create dynamic assignment triggers. Assignment policies allow you to define policies that can act as triggers to execute a workflow process, such as dynamic assignment. A policy consists of one or more policy conditions. When the policy conditions are met, the policy action is executed. Assignment Manager provides preconfigured policies for each of the predefined assignment objects. To use assignment policies, you must first activate them using Siebel Tools.

Denormalization

Denormalization is an assignment mode in which Assignment Manager introduces duplicate data to facilitate specific visibility requirements. In Siebel Assignment Manager, you use the prebuilt contact denormalization and product denormalization features to denormalize positions or organizations.

Email Activity Assignment

Assignment Manager can assign or route inbound emails created by Siebel Email Response to an appropriate agent. The Communications Server, that is, the Communications Inbound Manager server component, works in conjunction with Siebel Email Response to create inbound emails as activities.

To assign inbound emails, the assignment administrator creates assignment rules and criteria for the Activity assignment object. For more information about routing inbound emails, see Siebel Email Response Administration Guide (Workflow section). See also Siebel Communications Server Administration Guide.

Multitiered Assignment

By default, Assignment Manager assigns people and organizations independently. Multitiered assignment allows Assignment Manager to consider the relationship between people and organizations when determining the proper assignment. This feature requires configuration of assignment objects using Siebel Tools before implementing.

Availability-Based Assignment

Assignment rules can be created for employee-based objects using availability-based assignment, which allows Assignment Manager to check an employee's calendar and to consider the employee's availability when determining assignment eligibility. This feature requires advanced configuration of assignment objects using Siebel Tools before implementing.