Intelligent routing

Intelligent routing is the process of comparing the characteristics of a new assignment with the characteristics of the workforce to route the assignment to the most appropriate operator. Like a supervisor who thoughtfully distributes work to her team, intelligent routing in your application can significantly affect the productivity and throughput of a work group.

An intelligent routing algorithm can examine many factors, such as backlogs, the presence or absence of operators, operator skills, the urgency or priority of an assignment, and a customer's location or time zone. Your system includes the following three standard activities as examples:

• Work-.ToSkilledGroup — Implements skill-based routing. This activity sends an assignment to a randomly selected operator within a specific work group. This operator is available between the time the assignment starts and is due, and has the minimum skill proficiencies to complete the assignment. Using indexes maintained in the Index-OperatorSkills class, this activity operates efficiently.
• Work-.ToLeveledGroup — Sends an assignment to an operator within a specific work group who has the least urgent total worklist, based on a computed score.
• Work-.SampleToSkilledGroupList — Demonstrates use of the getAvailableSkilledOperatorsList() function. Part of the Routing library, returns a list of operators who are available and meet the required skill requirements. Your routing algorithm can apply additional filtering and criteria to select which of the operators on the list receives the assignment. (If none of the operators in the group meet the standard function qualifications, the list contains only the work group manager's Operator ID.)

Skill-based routing is an important type of intelligent routing. Skill-based routing compares the skill proficiency of operators in a work group with the required and desired skills to perform an assignment accurately and quickly. For example, an assignment might require an operator who passed the NASD Series 7 exam, and might prefer that the operator have a speaking proficiency in Spanish.

Skill-based routing affects only which work queue or which operator worklist receives an assignment. Skill-based routing does not prevent an operator who does not meet the skill profile used in routing from accessing an assignment in a work queue and performing the assignment.