Automatic assignment of reviewers to products

Reviewers whose names have been added to the signal management components of the application are eligible for automatic assignment to products. You can either assign reviewers to products when adding or editing a product, or use a process that automatically assigns selected reviewers to products for which there are new cases since an indicated time period.

The automatic assignment process affects only products that have been set up to participate in automatic assignment. (You must have checked Participates in auto-assignment when adding or editing the product.) The process looks at products for new cases since the time period you select, and allows you to distribute the products evenly over selected reviewers. Because these products might already have assignments (due to previous cases), the automatic assignment process can result in re-assignments. Products for which there are no new cases (since the last period), but that have been set up to participate in automatic assignment, have their reviewer assignments cleared.

The following table shows how assignments of reviewers to products that have been set up to participate in automatic assignment are affected by the automatic assignment process:

Assignment status	Have new cases	Do not have new cases
Already Assigned	Re-assigned if you select them. Retain previous assignments if you do not select them.	Assignments are cleared.
Unassigned	Assigned if you select them. Remain unassigned if you do not select them.	Remain unassigned.

How reviewers are distributed over products

The application does the following during the automatic assignment process:

1. Orders the products in ascending order of the number of new cases.
2. For the first product in the ordered list, assigns the first reviewer in the list of Selected reviewers that you have chosen.
3. For the next product in the ordered list, assigns the next reviewer in the list of Selected reviewers.
4. Continues to assign products until all products have been assigned. When the application reaches the end of the list of Selected reviewers, the applications starts again with the first reviewer in the list.

When a product that is already assigned to a reviewer is re-assigned, no attempt is made to retain the currently assigned reviewer. However, it is possible for the product to be re-assigned to the same reviewer coincidentally.

You can force a product that appears in new cases to retain its current assignment by excluding it from the automatic assignment process.

Overriding automatic assignments

At the end of the automatic assignment process, the application displays the automatic assignments that have been made to products and you have the opportunity to override assignments. You can also override the automatic assignment for a product on the Automatic Assignment page or by editing a product and changing the reviewer.