Skill-Based Routers

Skill-based routers assign records to users according to their skills. You can define any number of skills (e.g. language, product knowledge, service tier, certifications, industry knowledge, etc.) to ensure that records are always assigned to the most qualified user. 

Here are some common use cases for skill-based routers:

• Assigning Leads or Cases to reps based on their language abilities.
• Assigning Cases to agents based on service tier. 
• Assigning Leads to sales reps based on industry and/or product knowledge.

See our skill-based assignment feature page for more information.

Defining Skills

You’ll need to define skills before they can be used to assign records. See Creating Skills for step-by-step instructions on how to create skills and assign them to your users.

Create New Router

In the previous steps, we created skills and assigned them to users. Next, we’ll step through creating a skill-based router to assign records based on those skills:

1. Navigate to the Kubaru application.
2. Click the New Router button.
3. Enter a name for your router (e.g., “Support Cases”).
4. Select the Object you want to assign (e.g., “Case”).
5. Select the Field to Assign (e.g., “Owner”).
6. (Optional) Update the Evaluation Order. See Prioritizing Your Router for more information.
7. Click Create Router.
8. Select “Skill-Based Assignment” as the Assignment Method.
9. Click Select Skill to select one or more skills (e.g., “Spanish”) and/or skill groups (e.g., “Language”).
10. (Optional) Mark a skill as Required or add a Wait Time. See the How Skills are Evaluated section below for more details.
11. Select a Tie Breaker to be used when multiple users qualify to receive an assignment.

OPTION	DESCRIPTION
Round Robin	Records will be assigned to the router member who has gone the longest without an assignment.
Load Balance	Records will be assigned to the router member with the lowest active workload.

12. (Optional) Check Notify of Delayed Assignments to receive email notifications when records are waiting to be assigned.
13. Connect a Queue. See the Connected Queues article for more information about creating and connecting queues.
14. (Optional) Add Filters. See the Adding Filters article for more information.
15. Add Members. See Adding Members for more information.
16. (Optional) Adjust the Additional Settings below.

SETTINGS	DESCRIPTION
Overflow Behavior	Choose what should happen if there are no available members to receive assignments. See Overflow Behavior for more information.
Scheduling and Availability	The following settings can be configured to limit when assignments are made: Distribution Schedule: Select a distribution schedule to pause the router during non-working hours. See Distribution Schedules for more information. Assign During Off-Hours: Enable this if you want to use the distribution schedule as an SLA constraint without restricting when the router makes assignments. Holiday Schedule: Select a holiday schedule if you want to pause the router on holidays. See Holiday Schedules for more information. Assign During Holidays: Enable this if you want to use the holiday schedule as an SLA constraint while still assigning records on holidays. Assign Outside Member Schedules: Enable this if you want to use the member’s schedule as an SLA constraint without restricting when the member receives assignments. Assign During Member Holidays: Enable this if you want to use the member’s holiday schedule as an SLA constraint while still assigning records on holidays. Assign When Unavailable: Enable this if you want to assign records to router members even if their status is “Unavailable”. See Toggling User Availability for more information. Assign When Out Of Office: Enable this if you want to assign records to router members even if they are out of the office. See Out Of Office Schedules for more information. Must Be Logged Into Salesforce: Enable this to pause router members who are signed out of Salesforce or idle. See Must Be Logged Into Salesforce for more information. Pause During Phone Calls: Enable this to pause assignments to router members while they’re on a call. See Pause During Phone Calls for more information. Pause During Calendar Events: Enable this to pause assignments to router members whose Salesforce calendar indicates they’re unavailable. See Pause During Calendar Events for more information.
SLA Actions	The following SLA Actions can be enabled: Send Email Notification: Enable this to notify one or more users if records go unworked for a specified duration. See Unworked Record Notifications for more information. Reassign Record: Enable this to reassign unworked records after a specified duration. See Reassignment for more information. Track Response Time: Enable this to measure how long it takes router members to respond to assignments. See Tracking Response Time for more information.
Notifications	Configure the types of notifications that are sent when assignments are made. See Assignment Notifications for more information.
Matching	Enable matching to ensure similar records are assigned to the same user. See Assignment Matching for more information.
Field Updates	Configure one or more fields to be updated when a record is assigned. See Field Updates for more information.

17. Click the Activate button to activate your router. See Assignment Preview to learn how to check which records will be assigned before activating your router.

How Skills are Evaluated

You can configure the following settings which impact how skills are evaluated:

SETTING	DESCRIPTION
Required	Enabling the Required toggle for a skill or skill group will ensure records are only assigned to users with that skill.
Wait Time	You can set a Wait Time for skills and skill groups that are not required. This indicates how long Kubaru should wait for a skilled user to become available. After this time elapses, Kubaru will disregard the skill.
Don’t Wait	You can select “Don’t wait” if you’d like Kubaru to immediately disregard a skill if there are no available users with that skill.

Things to keep in mind

If you select both a skill group and an individual skill from that group, the configuration of the skill will take precedence over that of its group. This allows you to configure different settings for individual skills within the group. For example, you could set “Spanish” as a required skill while other skills in the “Languages” skill group are optional. 

You can view pending assignments in your Assignment Logs.

While an assignment waits, it will continue to be re-evaluated to ensure it still meets router criteria. If it subsequently no longer meets criteria at any point during this process, the pending assignment will be aborted.

You can select any territories that you have set up as skills by including the default skill group “Kubaru Territories”.