Assignment Concepts

Siebel Assignment Manager routes business entities and work items to the most appropriate candidates by enforcing business rules set by sales, service, and marketing organizations. Assignment Manager does this by matching candidates (that is, employees, positions, and organizations) to predefined and user-configurable assignment objects. To assign the most qualified candidate to each object, Assignment Manager applies assignment rules that you define to each candidate.

To define assignment rules, you select:

• Objects to which each assignment rule applies.

• Rule groups to which each assignment rule belongs.

• Candidates for each assignment rule. Candidates can be persons (employees or positions), organizations, or both.

• Criteria for each assignment rule.

• (Optional) Values for assignment criteria.

For rules that match attributes of an assignment object with attributes of candidates, you can optionally define:

• Skills to match assignment rules to candidate attributes.

  A skill is a generic row-level attribute that qualifies a person, organization, or assignment object row. For example, if an employee speaks English and Spanish, then language is the skill he or she possesses, and English and Spanish are the skill items. Employee, position, and organization skills are used to store skills possessed; the skill tables for objects are used to store skills required. Assignment Manager uses skill tables to do skill matching by comparing skills on the object with the skills of an employee, position, or organization to determine if they pass the rule.

• Expertise levels to weigh skill scores (to measure competency in a certain area for each candidate).

• Scores for each assignment rule, criterion, and value and a personal score for each individual candidate.

  For example:

  • In a sales organization, you can create an assignment rule that scores positions (candidates) based on territory definitions (criteria) for an opportunity (object).

  • In a service organization, you can create an assignment rule that scores employees (candidates) based on product expertise (criteria) for a service request or product defect (object).

  Using the sum of scores at the assignment rule level, Assignment Manager assigns the best candidate for each rule and the best candidates for the object.

• Defining workload distribution rules to balance work among the candidates.

  Define workload distribution rules if you want to distribute the workload rules evenly between the candidates or if your business logic includes limits on the maximum amount of work that can be handled at one time.

You can also customize the way Assignment Manager makes assignments by:

• Defining how attributes are matched by:

  • Using different comparison methods

  • Making criteria required (compulsory) or optional

  • Using inclusion and exclusion methods

  • Using workload distribution rules

  • Using wildcard values

• Defining how assignment rules are matched by using:

  • Assignment rule groups

  • Assignment rule sequencing

• Defining how candidates are assigned based on person and organization relationships using multitiered assignment.

• Creating and configuring your own entities, including:

  • Assignment objects

  • Assignment criteria

  • Assignment attributes

  • Workload distribution rules to make assignments based on current workload

  • Dynamic candidates and candidate teams that are assigned dynamically depending on the object row assigned

• Running Assignment Manager in different operating modes to process assignments:

  • Interactively in real time

  • Dynamically when object rows are created or attributes on object rows are changed by connected or mobile users

  • Periodically assigning objects in batches

• Running Assignment Manager against reporting tables to test the desired behavior of assignment rules and rule groups before running against production tables.

• Checking availability before assigning employees to objects.

• Defining which servers are used to run selected groups of rules.

• Delegating the task of creating business logic through rules and criteria to others.

Summary of Assignment Manager Customization Tasks

Table 4-2 summarizes the Assignment Manager customization tasks and where you can find more information.

Table 4-2 Assignment Manager Customization Tasks

Task	For More Information, See …
Define assignment rules	"Process of Defining Assignment Rules"
Match attributes of an assignment object with attributes of candidates	"About Assignment Skills, Expertise Codes, and Weighting Factors" "Process of Defining Criteria Values as Skills with Expertise Codes and Weighting Factors"
Defining workload distribution rules to balance work among the candidates	"How Siebel Assignment Manager Balances Workload Among Candidates" "Process of Defining Assignment Workload"
Define how attributes are matched	Chapter 5, "Assignment Rule Administration"
Define how assignment rules are matched using rule groups and rule sequencing	"Creating Assignment Rule Groups" "Adding a Sequence Number to Assignment Rules"
Define how candidates are assigned based on person and organization relationships using multitiered assignment	"Configuring Assignment Objects for Multitiered Assignment"
Create and configure your own entities	Chapter 5, "Assignment Rule Administration" Chapter 6, "Basic Configuration for Siebel Assignment Manager" Chapter 7, "Working with Dynamic Candidates" Chapter 10, "Advanced Siebel Assignment Manager Configuration"
Run Assignment Manager in different operating modes to process assignments	Chapter 9, "Running Siebel Assignment Manager"
Running what-if analysis on possible assignments before making actual assignments	"About Running Assignment Manager in Reporting Mode"
Define which servers are used to run selected groups of rules	"How Siebel Assignment Manager Uses Server Key Mappings to Load Rules to a Particular Siebel Server"
Delegate the task of creating business logic through rules and criteria to others	Chapter 8, "Assignment Rule Administration for Delegated Assignment"
Check availability before assigning employees to objects	Chapter 11, "Availability-Based Assignment"