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About Assignment Rules

Siebel Assignment Manager uses assignment rules to match assignment objects to candidates. Multiple assignment rules can be active for each assignment object. An assignment rule can also apply to multiple objects.

Each assignment rule has an activation and an expiration date that you can use to denote a range of dates for when the rule should be active. If you specify an activation date and no expiration date, the rule is active from the date denoted by the activation date onwards. If you specify an expiration date and no activation date, the rule is active until the date denoted by the expiration date. If you do not specify neither the activation date or the expiration date, the rule is always active.

NOTE:  Assignment Manager uses the database time to determine whether a rule is active or not.

Assignment rules use scores 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.

Each assignment rule also has a candidate passing score value. 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. For information about how the total score for a candidate is calculated for each assignment rule, see About Assignment Scoring.

The following subtopics describe some of the assignment rule fields.

Assignee Filter Field

Table 4 shows the filters used by Assignment Manager to determine which potential assignees are assigned to the object from each assignment rule.

NOTE:  If you do not use scores, the candidate passing score on the assignment rule and all qualifying candidate scores are treated as zero. Therefore, every qualifying candidate (every candidate that passes all required criteria) is assigned depending on the assignee filter.

The assignee filter determines how candidates are evaluated as potential assignees to the object.

Candidates Source Field

For each assignment rule, the administrator determines whether Assignment Manager takes candidates from the rule (statically) or dynamically from the object row by indicating the candidates source.

Person Candidates Source

• From Rule. The candidates are the people (positions and employees) defined for an assignment rule and are statically assigned. This is the default value for person candidates.
• All People. The candidates are all the people (positions and employees) in the database and are statically assigned.
• Teams. The person dynamic candidate teams you define in Siebel Tools (the value of the Team Type property in the Dynamic Candidate object) appear in the Person Candidates Source list of values (LOV) field in the assignment rule. You choose one of these values to indicate that candidates for the assignment rule should come dynamically from the relevant attribute on the object row. Two teams—Activity Account Team and Activity Asset Team—are provided as seed data, but you can add your own teams using Siebel Tools.

Organization Candidates Source

• From Rule. The candidates are the organizations defined for an assignment rule and are statically assigned. This is the default value for organization candidates.
• All Organizations. The candidates are all the organizations in the database and are statically assigned.
• Teams. The organization dynamic candidate teams you define in Siebel Tools appear in the Organization Candidates Source list of values (LOV) field in the assignment rule. You choose one of these values to indicate that candidates for the assignment rule should come dynamically from the relevant attribute on the object row. There is no organization dynamic team seed data provided; you need to configure your own teams according to your business needs.

For more information about determining person and organization candidates, see Step 3 in Assignment Methodology. For more information about defining dynamic candidate teams for each assignment object, see Configuring Assignment Objects for Dynamic Candidates.

Check Employee Calendar Field

For each assignment rule, the administrator can designate whether Assignment Manager checks the employees' calendars when determining assignment eligibility. By checking the Check Employee Calendar field in the Assignment Rules List view, Assignment Manager checks for employee availability.

This feature is used only for employee-based assignment objects, and requires the installation of the Siebel Field Service application as it depends on a field service component, the Appointment Booking System. You must first configure the Activity and Service Request assignment objects using Siebel Tools before this feature is available. For more information about the Check Employee Calendar feature, see About Availability-Based Assignment.

Exclusive Field

For each assignment rule, the administrator can designate whether that rule is exclusive.

If a rule is exclusive and has assignees, then all assignees from other rules are discarded. If there are multiple exclusive rules, the exclusive rule with the highest scoring assignee is chosen as the only exclusive rule. If there are no exclusive rules, then the primary rule is the rule with the highest scoring assignee and the primary assignee is the highest scoring assignee. In this case, no assignees from the other rules are discarded; however, if the assignment object does not allow for more than one assignee, then only the primary assignee is assigned.

You make an assignment rule exclusive by checking the Exclusive flag in the Assignment Rules List view.

For more information about exclusive rules, see Step 7 in Assignment Methodology.