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About Assignment Criteria Values

For assignment criteria that use the Compare to Object, Compare to Person, or Compare to Organization comparison method, each criteria includes one or more values. Criteria values are details associated with criteria that are compared to an object or candidate.

A criterion can have multiple values. A criterion value represents the actual string, number, or date literal that is used in matching. There are predefined criteria values available dynamically based upon the criterion selected, or you can create your own criteria values. Criteria values can be based on MLOVs, picklists (a popup pick applet from where you can choose a record), or simple free text fields. Depending on the Inclusion method, candidates that meet the criteria value have the criteria value score added to their total score. Criteria values can be defined as constants or can use wildcard characters to include a wider selection of potential matches between assignment rule and object.

A criterion can consist of only one attribute, such as a service request priority, or can consist of multiple attributes, known as a composite criterion. For example, Account City State Country is a composite criterion because it has three attributes: City, State, and Country. For more information about attributes, see Assignment Attributes.

Figure 1 shows a Language Code criterion that uses four languages as criteria values (German, Spanish, Italian, and French). Assuming this assignment rule's candidate passing score is 10 points, and each language is worth 5 points, candidates for this assignment rule that possess expertise in at least two of these languages qualify for the assignment rule.

Figure 1.  Sample Assignment Criteria Values

Assignment Attributes

Assignment attributes are logical attributes of the object or candidate that can be used for matching. For example, Service Request priority, Account City, and Employee Salary are assignment attributes. Each criteria value can include one or more assignment attributes. For example, the Account City State Country criterion has three attributes: one each for City, State, and Country. This type of criterion is known as a composite criterion. Each of the assignment attributes appear as list columns in the criteria value applet.

Figure 2 shows a Product Line Wildcard assignment criteria that uses the Compare to Person comparison method. The assignment criteria also uses the Include All inclusion method and includes two criteria values. Each criteria value includes two assignment attributes. In this case, only candidates that possess an Expert expertise in monitors and graphic cards qualify for the assignment criteria. Furthermore, 25 points are added to the qualifying candidates score.

Figure 2.  Sample Assignment Attributes

Assignment Attribute Columns

Assignment attributes can have one or many attribute columns. The parent assignment attribute is an abstract logical attribute to test for a value match, and attribute columns provide mapping of assignment attributes to workflow policy component columns. Workflow policy component columns define the column and the table name from where Assignment Manager retrieves the data for the attribute from the database. The same assignment attribute can be used for different assignment objects. For example, consider the Account State criterion. You can apply this criterion to many assignment objects. For account objects, it means the physical state in which the account resides. For opportunity objects, it might be the state value for the accounts associated with a specific opportunity. In these instances, you define multiple assignment attribute columns for the Account State attribute and define the assignment object and the workflow policy component column to indicate where to get the data from.

An assignment attribute can have multiple attribute columns for the same assignment object. For example, for the Opportunity assignment object, Account City could either mean the primary city associated with the opportunity itself or the primary city associated with the account associated to the opportunity. In this instance, the Account City assignment attribute has two attribute column records for the Opportunity assignment object. And you should define the Sequence property on the assignment attribute column object. The sequence determines the order in which the data is retrieved in the event there are multiple attribute columns for the same attribute for the same assignment object.