Fields for operator teams, work queues, and schedules

Use the Work tab to identify the skills, teams, work queues, and work schedule for an operator. The work queues are searched for assignments when users click Next assignment on the Case Manager portal.

Routing

In this section, you identify properties of the operator that relate to the assignment of work, including: organization, skill, work queue, and whether the operator is able to receive work assignments.
Field Description
Organizational Unit Click Update to select an organization, division, and unit from the pop-up window.
Teams Select the name of a team (a Data-Admin-Team instance). Teams are the basis of many standard management reports.

The system does not constrain team membership based on organization structure. Members of a team may belong to different organization units, divisions, or even different organizations.

It is mandatory to have only one team selected, and this has in impact on what Work Queues are visible in Case Manager Portal for the user.

Click the plus sign to add the additional teams to which this user belongs.
Reports to Optional. Select the operator ID of another user to whom this operator reports.

The specified value is used by the display shown when you click Reporting structure. The field has no additional uses.
Reporting structure Click to display the reporting structure for this operator, based on the values specified in the Reports To field for this operator and for other operators. A new window opens displaying the reporting structure. The system assembles and displays a hierarchy (tree) view.

In the displayed hierarchy, the names of operators who are not available are marked with a distinctive light blue background.
Skill Optional. Identify a skill name — the name of a skill rule ( Rule-Admin-Skill rule type) associated with this user.

Routing activities and security tests can access skill information recorded here to determine which assignments this operator can perform. Order in this array is not significant.
Rating Optional. Select a user proficiency rating for this skill between 1 and 10, where 10 indicates highest proficiency. (Some skill rules may allow only a narrower range of ratings, such as 1 to 3.)
Work queue Optional. Enter a list of work queues that may contain assignments for this user. When this user clicks the Get Next Work menu item to obtain an assignment, the system searches the work queues listed here in order (unless the Merge work queues box is selected.) The Get from work queues first check box controls whether the system searches the work queues or the worklist first, and other aspects of the search algorithm.

This array is visible only if the Use all work queue assignments in user's team check box is not selected.

Your changes to this array may take effect only after the LookupList cache is rebuilt and the later operator logs in.

This list does not restrict the ability of users to open and complete assignments placed in other work queues. Normally, users can fetch assignments directly from any work queue defined for their own organization unit, bypassing the Get Next Work facility.

For general information on this facility, see Maximizing user productivity with GetNextWork.

Operator is available to receive work Select to allow applications to route additional assignments to the worklist of the user who is identified by this operator ID data instance.

Clear to prevent routing shapes in flow executions from adding assignments to this user's worklist.

This check box affects only routing activities. This check box does not affect the ability of this user to log in, enter work items, or complete assignments already on the worklist. It does not prevent another operator or manager from transferring assignments to the worklist.

If selected and at runtime a router activity (with parameter CheckAvailability set to true) attempts to send an assignment to the worklist of this operator ID, the substitute operator if any is used instead. If no substitute is found, the router activity adds the assignment to the worklist of the manager of this operator's team.

Get from work queues first Select to cause the Get Next Work menu item retrieve assignments first from work queues listed below.
  • When selected, system retrieves an assignment from the user's worklist only when all of the work queues listed in the Work queues array are empty.
  • If not selected, Next Assignment, when clicked, retrieves the top assignment on the user worklist, and accesses work queues only if this user's worklist is empty.

Work queues can be set up so that only users who possess one of a list of access roles can remove assignments from them. Processing for the Next Assignment facility skips over any work queue that this user cannot fetch assignments from.

This processing ignores Error: assignments ( problem assignments ); they are never selected as most urgent.

Your application can alter or override the standard activities that support this button, providing a sophisticated means of prioritizing which assignments users work on. See Maximizing user productivity with GetNextWork.

Use all work queue assignments in user's team Select to have Get Next Work processing assemble and sort assignments in any work queue for which the Teams field (on the Work queue tab of the Work queue form) is the same as the Teams field of this operator (as set on the Operator tab).

This field is visible only when the Merge work queues check box is selected.

When enabled, selection and sorting occurs directly through efficient SQL operations on tables in the PegaRULES database. This is typically faster than activity-based searching and sorting
Merge work queues Select to cause Next Assignment item to consolidate assignments from all the work queues in the Work queues array below, then sorted by assignment urgency, returning the most urgent in any work queue.

When enabled, selection and sorting occurs directly through efficient SQL operations on tables in the PegaRULES database. This is typically faster than activity-based searching and sorting.

Scheduling

This area records future scheduled absences. Standard routing activities can examine this information before routing an assignment to a work queue, based on a Boolean parameter CheckAvailability. If the parameter is true and this operator is not available when the router activity runs, the assignment is routed to a substitute.

Complete these fields to control how assignments are routed for this operator when this operator is marked absent or unavailable. Routing rules can redirect the assignments to a substitute operator or to a work queue during those periods.

When an assignment is linked to a service-level agreement, the dynamic system setting Pega-ProCom.pyUseGoalTimeForAvailabilityCalculation affects this availability calculation.

Field Description
Business Calendar Optional. Identify the first key part ( Calendar Name ) of a calendar instance that identifies the working days and holidays of this operator. At runtime, the system uses the current date in format YYYYMMDD as the second key part to find a calendar data instance. At runtime, if no calendar with a second key part exactly matching today's date is found, the calendar that matches the first key part exactly and has as a second key part the latest date not greater than today's date is used.

Select a valid calendar carefully. To simplify and reduce maintenance over multiple years, this value is not validated when you save an Operator ID form.

As a best practice, if all or nearly all operators in an organization are in a single time zone and follow a common business day calendar, leave this field blank for those operators who share the organizational calendar and time zone. Complete the Calendar and Time Zone fields only for the operators who are exceptions.

Few standard rules depend on the value in this field; it is provided for application use. The calendar does not affect the ability of the operator to sign on, enter work, or perform assignments.

Your application can use this field to access a calendar data instance for the operator when calling date functions. For example, if the value of this field is HONGKONG and the current date is March 31, 2006, the system first searches for a calendar with key HONGKONG.20060331. If no calendar data instance exactly matches this key, the immediately preceding calendar instance if any that matches HONGKONG (such as HONGKONG.20060101) is used.

During log-in, if this field is not blank, both the calendar and the time zone are set on the requestor page as the calendar and default time zone (property pyRequestorTimeZone ). If blank, the system uses the calendar from the Organization data instance and does not set a time zone; the time zone is then typically defaulted to the time zone of the server node.

Unavailable From Optional. Identify one or more future date intervals during which this operator is not available. In testing the current date time against the date ranges here, the system uses the calendar (and the time zone of the calendar) associated with this operator.

Click the + icon to add a row. Click the calendar icon to select a date from the pop-up calendar.

Most operators cannot update this information directly. A team manager can update this information, for operators in the group. (The standard privilege named Data-Admin-Operator-ID.UpdateWorkgroupAvailability conveys this capability.)

The system purges past time intervals from this list each time the operator logs in.
To Identify the end date of the future interval.
Substitute operator type Select:
  • Operator — To attempt to route new assignments to another operator when this operator is not available to accept new assignments.
  • Work queue — To place new assignments for this operator into a work queue when this operator is not available to accept new assignments.
Decision tree to find substitute Optional. Identify the name (second key part) of a decision tree that the system can use to identify a substitute who can receive assignments sent to this operator. Select a decision tree that returns an operator ID or one that returns a work queue name, matching your selection in the Assignee Type field.

To find this decision tree, the system uses Data-Admin-Operator-ID as the initial value of the Applies To class.

Default to assignee Optional. Identify the operator ID or work queue name of a substitute for new assignments routed to the user identified by this operator ID instance when that user is unavailable.

The system uses the substitute operator or work queue if the First, use this Decision Tree field is blank, or the decision tree does not result in a valid operator ID or work queue value.