Understand Skills-Based Routing

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Describe common use cases for skills-based routing.
  
• Describe how skills-based routing works.
  
• Set up skills-based routing.
  

Follow Along with Trail Together

Want to follow along with an expert as you work through this step? Take a look at this video, part of the Trail Together series.

(This clip starts at the 10:37 minute mark, in case you want to rewind and watch the beginning of the step again.)

Support Customers in Their Preferred Language

Sita likes what she sees in queue-based routing, but Ursa Major recently expanded sales of solar panels to Mexico and Canada, and Sita thinks she might need more sophisticated controls. She wants Omni-Channel to route customer cases to agents who speak the customer’s preferred language and who have the right knowledge to solve the issue. For example, if a customer who speaks Spanish has a problem with their bill, then Sita wants Omni-Channel to assign the case to an agent who speaks Spanish and understands the billing system.

Sita asks Maria to investigate skills-based routing for Omni-Channel.

Get the Right Work to the Right Agent

Skills-based routing looks at the skills required to complete a work item (requested skills) and matches these to the skills that are assigned to the agent (agent’s skills). Omni-Channel routes the work to the first agent who has the required skills and who is available (that is, has the capacity to take the work item). Work items can have multiple skills, and agents can have multiple skills.

To route work by skills, use a setup flow to define mappings between work-item field values and skills. Create one skill mapping set for each object. Skills-based routing rules support case, chat transcript, contact request, lead, messaging session, order, social post, and custom objects.

When Omni-Channel receives a new work item, it looks at the required skills, the work’s priority, and the routing model (Least Active or Most Available) to determine how to route the work.

Ursa Major Solar is supporting customers in three countries who use a variety of products, and those customers have a wide range of needs. Maria confirms that skills-based routing would let Ursa Major Solar’s contact center route work to the best agent for the job—improving the quality of customer service.

Set Up Skills-Based Routing

To set up skills-based routing, you need a list of the skills that agents must have to resolve different work items. Talk with your contact center to find out what those are.

Maria talks to Ursa Major Solar’s support managers. She learns that the company needs agents who possess language skills, technical skills to troubleshoot solar panels, and business skills to resolve issues with orders and billing. Here’s the list she makes.

Maria wants to set up skills-based routing with skills for English, French, and Spanish; for hardware technical support and software technical support; and for orders and billing. Here’s what she does.

1. From Service Setup, enter Omni-Channel in the Quick Find box, then select Omni-Channel Settings.
   
2. Select Enable Skills-Based and Direct-to-Agent Routing, then click Save.
   
3. To create the Service Resource Layout, enable Field Service.
   

1. From Setup, enter Field Service Settings in the Quick Find box, then select Field Service Settings.
   
2. Enable Field Service, and click Save.
   

4. Enter Omni-Channel in the Quick Find box, then select Skills.
   
5. Click New.
   
6. Enter a name for the skill.
   

1. Maria creates a skill called Spanish.
   

7. Optionally, enter a description of the skill.
   
8. Skip Skill Type.
   
9. Skip the Assign Users and Assign Profiles sections. Instead, you add these skills in Service Resources in a minute.
   
10. Click Save.
    
11. Maria repeats steps 5–9 to define more skills from her planning list.
    
12. She then adds Skills as a related list to the Service Resource object.
    

1. From Service Setup, click Object Manager.
   
2. Enter Service Resource in the Quick Find box and select Service Resource.
   
3. Select Page Layouts then select Service Resource Layout to edit it.
   
4. Click Related Lists and drag Service Resource Skills onto the page layout. If it’s already there, you’re good to go!
   
5. Click Save.
   

Create Service Resources for Agents

Service resources represent individual agents. Maria creates a service resource for each agent.

1. From the App Launcher, find and select Service Resources.
   
2. Click New.
   
3. Enter the following values:
   

• For Name, enter the name of the agent.
  
• Select the Active checkbox. A service resource must be active to receive work items.
  
• For User, use the lookup icon to select the agent.
  
• For Resource Type, select Agent.
  

4. Click Save.
   

Assign Skills to Agents

Assign skills to your agents to track their areas of experience and their level of proficiency for each skill. For an agent to receive work, the agent must be assigned every skill specified in the routing configuration, no matter the skill level. Here’s how Maria assigns skills to Ursa Major Solar’s agents.

1. From the App Launcher, find and select Service Resources.
   
2. Click the service resource that you just created.
   
3. Select the Related tab.
   
4. Scroll to the Service Resource Skills section and click New.
   
5. Select a skill. You can optionally enter a skill level 1 (novice) – 10 (expert).
   
6. Enter a start date, and if needed, an end date. For example, if an agent must be recertified in a particular skill every 6 months, enter an end date that’s 6 months later than the start date.
   
7. Click Save.
   The service resource’s skill now appears in their Skills related list.
   

Define Skills-Based Routing Rules

To route work by skills, define the mappings between work-item field values and skills. Create one skill mapping set for each object.

1. From Service Setup, enter Skills-Based Routing Rules in the Quick Find box, then select Skills-Based Routing Rules.
   
2. Click New Skill Mapping Set.
   
3. Provide a name and developer name for the mapping set and select the type of object to be routed. Then click Next.
   
4. Select the fields to use for routing your cases. Then click Next.
   
5. For each field, select the field value and corresponding skill.
   You can also specify a skill level and set skills to additional. For additional skills, you can specify the order in which skills are dropped if after the specified timeout no agent with that skill is available.
   
6. When you have mapped field values to skills for each field, click Done.
   

Enable Skills-Based Routing Rules from the Routing Configuration

The routing configuration that is used by the queue through which the work item is routed must be enabled to use skills-based routing rules.

1. Locate the routing configuration associated with the queue.
   

1.  From Setup, enter Queues in the Quick Find box, then select Queues.
   
2.  Edit the queue and note the routing configuration name in the Configuration with Omni-Channel Routing section. (You may want to write the name down.)
   

2. Click Cancel.
   
3. From Setup, enter Routing in the Quick Find box, then select Routing Configurations.
   
4. Edit the routing configuration that is used by the queue through which the work item is routed.
   
5. Select Use with Skills-Based Routing Rules.
   
6. Select Save.
   

Resources

• Salesforce Help: Route to a Skill
• Salesforce Help: How Does Skills-Based Routing Work?
• Salesforce Help: Prepare to Route to Skills