Subject: Help Needed: Imbalanced Case Distribution in CSM on Washington DC Instance

[mvanhassel]

Hello, ServiceNow Community!

I’m encountering a perplexing issue within our Customer Service Management (CSM) module, specifically related to the distribution of cases among our IT Field Support Agents. Despite efforts to achieve an equitable distribution through Matching and Assignment rules, one agent continually receives a higher case volume than the rest. This issue persists in our Washington DC instance, and we strive to maintain an Out-Of-The-Box (OOB) configuration as much as possible.

Here’s a more detailed look at our situation:

• Instance Version: Washington DC
• Issue Description: One agent is significantly overloaded with cases despite configuring Matching rules to distribute based on 'Last Assigned', 'Skill Matching', and 'availability'. The system does not reflect changes made to these settings, behaving as if adjustments were never applied.
• Customizations: We have minimal customizations and aim to keep our instance close to OOB to avoid such issues.
• Impact: This imbalance has led to operational inefficiencies, with the affected agent unable to keep up with the incoming case load, thereby causing delays in resolution times.

Steps we’ve taken so far:

• Thoroughly adjusted and reviewed the order and criteria of Assignment and Matching rules.
• Confirmed the accuracy of agent skills, availability, and group memberships.
• Searched for potential overrides by any custom business rules or scripts, though our instance remains mostly OOB.
• Dived into documentation and performed numerous tests over several days to troubleshoot the issue.

I’m reaching out to the community for insights on any of the following:

1. Has anyone experienced similar challenges with case distribution in the Washington DC version or any other versions of ServiceNow CSM?
2. Are there any known bugs or peculiarities in the Washington DC version affecting Matching and Assignment rules?
3. What diagnostic tools or logs within ServiceNow might offer deeper insights into why the rule adjustments aren’t being reflected in case assignments?
4. Could there be overlooked OOB settings or configurations that might influence case distribution in ways we haven't considered?

We’re keen on resolving this to ensure a fair workload distribution among our agents and maintain our service level commitments. Any advice, experiences shared, or guidance on further troubleshooting steps would be immensely valuable.

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to our query!