Considerations for Configuring Assignment

Assignment is the process of selecting a candidate object and executing the association with a work object. Assignment consists of three phases:

• Setup phase: Setting up assignment processing through assignment configuration

• Matching phase: Matching rules or mappings are evaluated to find the right assignees from a list of possible candidates

• Assignment phase: The assignment of matching candidates is handled

An assignment configuration is predefined for each sales application providing assignment processing. This assignment configuration is available from one of these setup tasks:

• Manage Customer Center Assignment Objects

• Manage Sales Assignment Manager Objects

• Manage Sales Lead Assignment Objects

You can use these setup tasks to add or remove assignment attributes, define the relationship between each work object and candidate object, and define mapping sets and mappings that drive territory-based assignment and rule categories that drive rule-based assignment.

Note: Use the Manage Sales Assignment Manager Objects task for opportunity assignment.

The predefined assignment configuration also includes the mapping sets and mappings that drive territory-based assignment.

To best plan the configuration, consider these points.

• Assignment objects

• Attributes

• Related candidates

• Mappings sets and mappings

• Rule categories, rule sets, and rules

Assignment Objects

An assignment object is a data entity or a collection of data treated as a unit, such as a sales account, an opportunity, or a lead. During assignment configuration, carefully consider which of your business objects require assignment, and create work objects only for those.

A set of assignment objects is predefined for the assignment of territories or resources to accounts, partners, opportunities, leads, and deals.

Attributes

You use attributes to further define assignment processing. For example, you might want to assign a sales representative (resource) to an opportunity (assignment object), based on the risk level of the opportunity. In this case, you select the attribute of the opportunity work object that corresponds to risk level, and the attribute of the resource candidate object that corresponds to name or email. Selecting these attributes makes them available for mappings and for conditions on your rules. Therefore, ensure that you select the attributes that reflect the criteria that you want to use for matching candidate objects to work objects.

Several attributes are predefined as assignment attributes for each assignment object.

Related Candidates

Candidate objects are related to work objects, and, for each relationship, the appropriate assignment mode (such as matching and scoring) and processing options are predefined. You must not modify these predefined settings except for the No Matches Handling option for the Sales Lead work object. The No Match Handling option controls the assignment action when no matching candidate is found. By default, this is set to Remove current assignment. You can change this to Retain current assignment, which retains the current candidate assignment when no matching candidate is found. You can also change it to Error, which generates an error if no matching candidate is found.

Mappings Sets and Mappings

Assignment mapping sets and their related mappings drive territory-based assignment. The mapping sets determine which mappings are used, and the sequence mapping sets are used in territory-based assignment. The mappings identify the dimensions, attributes, and territory filtering used in the assignment processing.

Default mapping sets and their related mappings are predefined.

Rule Categories, Rule Sets, and Rules

The application provides default rule categories. These rule categories identify the type of rule processing being performed, such as matching, scoring, classification, or territory. Rule sets group the assignment rules and determine the additional processing performed, such as using scores for each candidate and filtering the candidates assigned to top or random matches. Rules are defined to execute rule-based assignment. Rules are designed to return candidates if they match a set of criteria, are within a defined scoring range, or are of a specific classification.

Create rules using work objects, candidate objects, and attributes that you already established. When designing your rules, carefully consider how you want to match candidates to work objects. For example:

• Do you want resources assigned based on their geographic location, their product knowledge, on the status or score of an object, or a combination of any of these attributes?

• Do you want to match candidates only, or do you want to match candidates and score them?

• In a multiple-candidate scenario, do you want to assign all matching candidates or only those who achieve higher than a specific score?