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Assign Command

The Assign menu command produces a dialog box containing a list of field service employees who are ranked using administrative criteria. You select the employee who is best suited for ownership of the selected service request.

The Assign menu command activates Assignment Manager in interactive mode to provide a ranked list of field service engineers who are qualified and available to work on a service request. Assignment Manager can also run in dynamic and batch modes for any Assignment objects, including Accounts, Opportunities, and Campaigns. For more information about mobile users and Assignment Manager, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.

Assignment Manager evaluates employees for assignment by using the following rules:

• Check calendar. If this option is enabled, then an employee must have calendar availability to perform the task. Calendar availability is based on the assignment rule, the Earliest Start field and Latest Start field for a schedule, and the Duration field for an activity. If the employee is not available, then the employee is removed from the list of candidates.
• Assignment availability. Assignment Manager passes a list of potential employees to the Appointment Booking System (ABS). The ABS checks the service schedules (including the geographic service region assignments) for the employees and the activities already on their calendars. The ABS then returns the list of available employees to Assignment Manager. In an optional step, Assignment Manager can request that the ABS create and schedule a new activity for the selected employee. For more information about the ABS, see Scheduling Using Siebel Scheduler.
• Workload. For each specified workload rule, the number of activities assigned to the employee that meet all of the workload criteria is calculated. This number is reduced by the maximum workload. This result is used to generate a score that is inversely proportional to the workload rule weight [workload score = weight x (1 - (current workload/maximum workload)]. For example, if the workload rule is for Unassigned and Critical Service Requests, and if the maximum workload for this rule is 10 and the weight for this workload is 20, then an employee workload of 10 or greater receives a score of zero, and an employee with a workload of 2 receives a score of 16.
• Attribute match. For each specified condition, the criteria are evaluated. If a condition is met, then the score equals the specified weight. Otherwise, the score is zero. If the condition is not met, and the condition is required, then the total score for that employee or position is zero.
• Expertise weighting. For each condition that uses advanced weighting, the score for the condition is adjusted by using the advanced weighting criteria. For the employee column that is matched, the expertise for that attribute type is also applied. For example, if a condition specifies a product (product expertise) match, with a weighting of 15, and expertise weightings of Expert, Intermediate, and Novice are 3, 2, and 1, respectively, then the resulting scores for this factor are 15, 10, and 5, respectively.

The total score for an employee is a sum of the scores for each individual factor, modified by the factors that override the total score and set the score to zero (check calendar, required attribute matches, and so on). The highest score represents the best employee for assignment.

The Assignment Engine is configured for the Service Request object to either automatically assign the highest scoring employee (using SmartScript) or to run in interactive mode. In interactive mode, the user selects the Assign command, and Assignment Manager returns a ranked list of employees in the Assign Employees dialog box. The user can then select an assignee. For more information about setting up interactive assignment for Siebel objects, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.

NOTE:  You can see all assignment rules by navigating to the Administration - Assignment screen. For more information, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.