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About the Required Field for Assignment Criteria

This topic is part of About Assignment Criteria.

The Required field on an assignment criterion gives you the ability to make certain that an object or candidate meets this criterion for the assignment rule. If so, then the candidate's score is increased, giving that candidate a better chance of being assigned.

You make an assignment criterion required, required when available, or not required by selecting the corresponding choice from the picklist in the Required field in the Criteria list for the assignment rule: Always, When Available, or Never.

Required Assignment Criterion

With a required assignment criterion, the object or candidate must meet this criterion. You can make a criterion required by selecting Always from the picklist in the Required field.

• For a criterion with a Compare to Object comparison type, if the object does not have the attribute to meet the criterion, then that assignment rule fails and none of the candidates from that rule qualify for assignment.
• For a person-based criterion (with a Compare to Person or a Compare Object to Person comparison method), if the criterion is not met, then that person candidate fails and does not qualify for that assignment rule. Therefore, further person-based criteria are not evaluated for that person candidate.
• For an organization-based criterion (with a Compare to Organization or a Compare Object to Organization comparison method), if the criterion is not met, then that organization candidate fails and does not qualify for that assignment rule. Therefore, further organization-based criteria are not evaluated for that organization candidate.

For example, an assignment rule can have a required assignment criterion based on service request severity, with a Compare to Object comparison method and a criteria value of 1-Critical. In this case, if the object to be assigned has a service request severity of 1-Critical, then the object qualifies for the assignment rule. An object without a service request severity value or that has a different service request severity value does not qualify for this assignment rule.

Required When Available Assignment Criterion

With a required when available assignment criterion, the object or candidate must meet this criterion if the object or the candidate has the attribute available. You can make a criterion required when available by selecting When Available from the picklist in the Required field.

For example, an assignment rule can have a required when available assignment criterion based on service request severity, with a Compare to Object comparison method and a criteria value of 1-Critical. In this case, if the object to be assigned has a service request severity of 1-Critical, then the object qualifies for the assignment rule. An object that has a lower service request severity value does not qualify for the assignment rule. However, an object without a service request severity value does qualify for the assignment rule, because the criteria value is NULL, or not available.

NOTE:  If an assignment criterion uses a Compare Object to Person or a Compare Object to Organization comparison method, and has Required set to When Available, but the attribute value does not exist on a person or organization, then this criterion fails. This behavior is different than when the Compare to Object comparison method is used, in which case the criterion would pass.

Nonrequired Assignment Criterion

Use a nonrequired assignment criterion to further determine a suitable match between candidates and assignment rules. You can make a criterion nonrequired by selecting Never from the picklist in the Required field.

Use nonrequired criteria that include scores to apply scores to candidates. If an assignment rule satisfies the criteria, then these scores are added to the total scores of the candidates for this assignment rule. By using nonrequired criteria with scores, you can add a higher score to candidates that satisfy this criteria, while keeping candidates that do not meet the criteria.

• If a candidate fails a nonrequired criterion, then no score is added to the candidate; however, the candidate does not fail. Person candidates are evaluated for the rest of the person-based criteria and organization candidates are evaluated for the rest of the organization-based criteria.

  For example, use service-related criteria (such as Service Request Priority) for an assignment rule that is applied to service-related objects (such as Service Request). If you create an assignment rule with Service Request Priority as nonrequired criteria, then Assignment Manager does not qualify any accounts for the criteria because Service Request Priority does not apply to accounts.

• If an assignment rule uses only nonrequired assignment criteria, then the assignment rule passes even if the minimum score for the rule is not satisfied, because the assignment criteria are not required. To avoid this behavior, you can alter Assignment Manager so that assignment rules pass only when the minimum score for the rule is satisfied, even if the assignment criteria are not required.
• To require that an assignment rule satisfies the minimum score for the rule to pass, you can use the UseRuleMinScore parameter. If you set this parameter to TRUE, then each assignment rule score must be equal to or greater than the rule minimum score to pass. Also, candidates must have a total score from the rule greater than or equal to the rule minimum score in order to qualify for that rule as well.
• When running the Assignment Manager (AsgnSrvr) and Batch Assignment (AsgnBatch) components from the Server Manager command-line interface (srvrmgr), you can change the value for the UseRuleMinScore parameter. For dynamic assignment, you change the default value of the UseRuleMinScore parameter in the Assignment Request (In Process) workflow policy.