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Skills

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Skills are assignment criteria values attributed to specific assignment rules, objects, employees, positions, and organizations. Assignment Manager uses skills to match assignment rules, objects, employees, positions, and organizations. By default, sales objects do not use skills. For information about assigning skills to employees, positions, and organizations, see Assigning Skills to Employees, Positions, and Organizations. For information about associating skills to objects, see Creating Criteria Values as Skills with Expertise Codes.

The Siebel application provides predefined skills, however, you can create new skills using Siebel Tools. For information about the predefined skills and creating new skills, see Creating Skills and Using Skill Tables.

You enable and configure skills at the criteria level using Siebel Tools. For more information, see Assignment Criteria Configuration.

After skills are enabled, Assignment Manager matches skills based on the assignment criteria comparison method:

If a skill uses the Compare to Object criteria, Assignment Manager matches the skill (or object attribute value) specified in the assignment rule to objects that include this skill. Objects that include the specified skill qualify for the assignment rule.
If a skill uses the Compare Object to Person criteria, Assignment Manager matches objects that include this skill (or object attribute value) specified in the assignment rule to employees or positions that possess this skill. Employees or positions that possess the specified skill qualify for the object.
If a skill uses the Compare Object to Organization criteria, Assignment Manager matches objects that include this skill (or object attribute value) specified in the assignment rule to organizations that possess this skill. Organizations that possess the specified skill qualify for the object.
If a skill uses the Compare to Person criteria, Assignment Manager matches the skill (or object attribute value) specified in the assignment rule to employees or positions that possess this skill. Employees or positions that possess the specified skill qualify for the assignment rule.
If a skill uses the Compare to Organization criteria, Assignment Manager matches the skill (or object attribute value) specified in the assignment rule to organizations that possess this skill. Organizations that possess the specified skill qualify for the assignment rule.

In each of these cases, Assignment Manager applies scores and other filters to find the best candidate after a match has been made. For more information about assignment criteria comparison methods, see Assignment Criteria. For information about assigning skills to employees, positions, and organizations, see Assigning Skills to Employees, Positions, and Organizations.

Expertise Codes

Assignment Manager uses expertise codes to rank skills to find the most suitable candidate. For example, you do not want to assign a novice to a service request that requires an expert. Using expertise codes allows you to prevent assigning objects to underqualified candidates.

Expertise codes are predefined for the following skill types (or assignment criteria):

Language Code
Product
Product Line
Product Line Wildcard
Product Wildcard

The three predefined expertise codes are Novice, Intermediate, and Expert. Expertise codes are stored in—and can be modified, added to, or deleted from—the List of Values Administration view. For procedures, see Creating Expertise Codes. Expertise codes apply only to skills and are global; after they are defined, assignment criteria share the same set of expertise codes.

After you select an expertise code for a skill, Assignment Manager matches assignment rules based on the assignment criteria comparison method. If the expertise code belongs to a skill that uses the:

Compare to Object criteria. The assignment rule passes if the skill's expertise code is equal to, or higher than, the object's expertise code.
Compare Object to Person criteria. The assignment rule passes if the candidate's expertise code is equal to, or higher than, the object's expertise code.
Compare to Person criteria. The assignment rule passes if the candidate's expertise code is equal to, or higher than, the skill's expertise code.

For more information on assignment criteria comparison methods, see Assignment Criteria.

Weighting Factors

Optionally, you can apply weighting factors to expertise codes. While you can use expertise codes to eliminate underqualified candidates, using weighted expertise codes allows you to weigh skill scores to find the most suitable candidate by further eliminating overqualified candidates. For example, you may not want to assign an expert to a service request that can be handled by a novice.

Using weighted expertise codes allows you to prevent assigning objects to overqualified candidates by applying a weight to the skill score. Each expertise code has a defined value, which is its weighting factor. The expertise code with the highest defined weighting factor represents the maximum weighting factor (Max Weighting Factor).

The weighting applied to a skill or criteria score is the percentage defined by an expertise code's weighting factor over the maximum weighting factor, see Table 9 for an example.

Weighting factors are only applied if the expertise code is defined for both the skill items and the object attributes. If the expertise is not defined for both, the weighting factors are ignored. Weighting factors are also calculated differently for candidates and organizations based on the comparison method chosen for the assignment rule.

For the Compare to Person, Compare to Object, and Compare to Organization comparison methods, the weighted score is determined as follows:

Score=Criteria Score + Skill Score*(Weighting Factor/Max Weighting Factor)

For the Compare Object to Person and Compare Object to Organization comparison methods, as neither of these comparison methods can define skill scores, the weighted score is determined as follows:

Score=Criteria Score*(Weighting Factor/Max Weighting Factor)

Assignment Manager applies the weighted skill scores and other scores to find the most suitable candidate when a match is made.

Weighting factors for expertise codes are stored in—and can be modified, added to, or deleted from—the List of Values Administration view. For procedures, see Defining Weighting Factors. Weighting factors for expertise codes apply only to skills and are global; after they are defined, assignment criteria share the same set of weighting factors for expertise codes.

Weighting factors weigh expertise codes by applying a specified percentage to the skill score. Table 9 shows sample weighting factors that can be used for the three types of predefined expertise codes.

Table 9.  Sample Weighting Factors for Expertise Codes

Expertise Code	Weighting Factor	Percentage of Skill Score
Novice	2	If skill is matched, adds 40% of score for the skill (or criteria value)
Intermediate	5	If skill is matched, adds 100% of score for the skill (or criteria value)
Expert	3	If skill is matched, adds 60% of score for the skill (or criteria value)

In this example, candidates with an intermediate expertise for the matched skill are favored over other candidates, because they receive 100% of the skill score. This may be desired if your organization has many more service representatives with an intermediate expertise than service representatives with an expert expertise. In this case, you make sure that service requests that require only an intermediate expertise are assigned to service representatives with an intermediate expertise.

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