How do I manage assignment objects and assignment rules for Help Desk?

You can use assignment rules to automatically assign Help Desk requests to queues when the requests are created or updated. You can schedule these rules to run automatically.

Help Desk requests and employee objects are treated as work objects and queues are treated as candidate objects. You can define rules to select the best queue for each request. To create the work objects and corresponding rules use the following setup tasks: Manage Service Assignment Objects and Manage Service Assignment Rules.

Defining Help Desk request assignment rules requires some forethought. Before beginning this procedure, you must consider the following:

The breakout of queues and agent assignment to the queues.
The attributes of help desk requests you want to use as criteria for your rule assignments.
The attributes of the employee records that you want to use as criteria for your rule assignments. The available attributes include:
- Legal Employer or Entity
- Country
- Business Unit
- Department
- Job
- Location
- Bargaining Unit
- Collective Agreement
The rule sets you create.
The rules to include in each role set.

Note:

The queues must be created prior to following this procedure.

Manage Help Desk Assignment Objects

In this procedure, you select attributes from the Help Desk request assignment object that you want to make available in your rules. This procedure however, isn't mandatory, as ready-to-use fields are provided for all the objects.

To manage assignment objects:

In the Setup and Maintenance work area, go to the following:
- Offering: Help Desk
- Functional Area: Assignment and Routing
- Task: Manage Service Assignment Objects
  
  The Manage Service Assignment Objects page appears.
Add the queue attributes you want to be available when setting up your rules:
1. Click HR Help Desk Request Queue or Internal Service Queue.
2. In the Details region, click the Attributes subtab.
3. Add attributes to the list by clicking the Add icon, and select View Object Attribute from the drop-down list.
4. Click Save.
Add the help desk request attributes you want to be available when setting up your rules:
1. Click HR Help Desk Request or Internal Service Request.
2. In the Details region, click the Attributes subtab.
3. Add attributes to the list by clicking the Add icon, and select View Object Attribute from the drop-down list.
4. Click Save.

Manage Help Desk Assignment Rules

In this procedure you define the rules for assignment.

When assigning work items to queues, follow these guidelines when defining your matching rules:

The rule set must be defined with Number of Candidates = 1. The application allows only one queue to be assigned to a help desk request.
You have the option to select or deselect the Use Score option on a rule set. If you select Use Score, then for every rule in the rule set, you must indicate the amount to increase the score when the rule is true. You must then associate the rule set to queues that receive that score. All of the rules in a rule set are executed, and the queue with the highest total score is selected.
If the rule set has multiple rules and you didn't select the Use Score option, you must define the criteria for each rule to be mutually exclusive from other rules in the rule set. This ensures that the resulting queue assigned by the application is predictable in all situations.

To manage Help Desk request assignment rules:

In the Setup and Maintenance work area, go to the following:
- Offering: Help Desk
- Functional Area: Assignment and Routing
- Task: Manage Service Assignment Rules
On the Manage Service Assignment Rules page, select the category HR Help Desk Request Queuing Rules or Internal Service Request Queuing Rules.
Create a new rule set by clicking the Add icon in the Rule Sets work area, and then enter the required information.
Create rules for the rule set by clicking the Add icon in the Rules work area.

The Create Rule screen appears.
Enter a name for the rule in the Name field.
From the Rule Applies If drop-down list, select Any conditions met.
Add a condition by clicking the Add icon in the Conditions work area, and then define the required attribute.

For HR Help Desk:
- Select either the HR Help Desk Queue, HR Help Desk Request, or HR Help Desk Request Primary Employee Contact object and the available employee attributes are displayed in the attribute drop-down list.
For Internal Help Desk:
- Select either the Internal Service Queue, Internal Service Request or Internal Service Request Primary Employee Contact.
If an attribute is hierarchical, such as Category Name and Product Group, Not In Including Children and In Including Children operators are displayed as choices. They indicate the following.
- Not In Including Children: Indicates that the rule applies if the specified attribute value matches the top level of the attribute. This option doesn't include the attribute values of the children of the current attribute. For example, if the condition is set for the Category Name attribute with value Benefit Enrollment, the rule applies only if the value of the top-level attribute matches Benefit Enrollment.
- In Including Children: Indicates that the rule applies if an attribute value matches with any of the attributes in the parent-child hierarchy of the current attribute. For example, if the condition is set for the Category Name attribute with value Benefit Enrollment, the rule applies even if the value of any of the child attributes matches Benefit Enrollment.
Optionally, add more conditions.
Select a queue to which the requests meeting the conditions must be assigned by clicking the Add icon in the Action Assign Queue work area.
Click Save and Publish.

The request assignment is now defined.

Note:
Republish the assignment rules each time the rule is changed. You also must republish the rules each time the associated queue is deleted, enabled, or disabled.