Dispatcher Workspace Agent "Rank Resources" > Default Logic

Stephen Gardner
Tera Contributor

2 weeks ago

On the Dispatcher Workspace the user has the ability to select a task card and then Rank the Resources by using the ranking/sorting button just above the resources. 

 

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My question is what logic is used for the "Default" selection?

 

Default seems to act strange. 

 

My Test Parameters:

- One WOT that has a skill of "XYZ"

- Four technicians scattered throughout the geography. 

- Two technicians have the "XYZ" skill. Remaining technicians have no skills.

 

Tests

- Rank by distance. PASS

- Rank by Skill. PASS

- Note, we are not using parts

- Rank by Default. ???

 

When I select Rank by Default

- Agents that have the required skill are not near the top of the ranking. They are ranked second and fourth. Keep in mind, no other technician as skills. 

- There does not appear to be a reason for the ranking based on distance either.

 

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My Logic:

I would have thought that a required skill would have ranked them very high. Then by Distance. Again, we don't have parts but if we did, I would think that would also play. 

 

Anyone know what the criteria is used for the Default Ranking?

 

Thanks for any help you can provide. 

 

 

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2 REPLIES 2

Faisal-Waheed
Tera Contributor

2 weeks ago

Hi Stephen,

I would not assume that Default is the same as mandatory skill first, then distance.


In Dispatcher Workspace, the Rank Resources option exposes multiple ranking modes such as Default, Distance, Skills, Parts, and Auto Assign Rules. The key point is that Skills and Distance are explicit sort criteria, while Auto Assign Rules is driven by Dynamic Scheduling / recommendation criteria. I have not seen public ServiceNow documentation that defines Default as a deterministic weighted formula of skill + distance + parts.


For your test case, the first thing I would validate is whether XYZ is configured as a mandatory skill or only as an optional skill/matching signal.


If XYZ is a true requirement, I would model it as a Mandatory Skill on the Work Order Task. With Mandatory Skills enabled, assignment tools should filter out technicians who do not have the mandatory skill first, and then rank the remaining eligible technicians by the other criteria.

Suggested checks:

  1. Confirm the WOT skill is stored in Task Skills [task_m2m_skill] and marked as mandatory, not only populated as a normal/optional skill.

  2. Confirm the system property work.management.use.mandatory.skills is enabled if you are using mandatory skills in FSM.

  3. If Dynamic Scheduling is enabled, confirm the configuration uses Matching Mandatory Skills for Dynamic Scheduling, not only Matching Skills for Dynamic Scheduling.

  4. In Dynamic Scheduling criteria, make the skill requirement a filter/threshold or give it a much higher weight than distance if the business rule is: qualified technician first, nearest technician second.

  5. Test using Auto Assign Rules, not only Default, because Dynamic Scheduling calculates ranking from configured matching criteria and weights.

  6. Enable assignment debug logging with com.snc.dynamic.scheduling.showlogs = true, then test the assignment again and review the Confirm Assignment popup/syslog to see why each technician was included or ranked.

  7. Also check your FSM Configurable Dispatcher Workspace app version. ServiceNow has released fixes around skill sorting/ranking in the resource panel, so an older app version can create misleading results.

My conclusion: what you are seeing may not be wrong behavior if XYZ is not mandatory and you are using Default. I would treat Default as a generic resource ordering, not as the business rule for “best technician.” If the requirement is must have XYZ, then rank by distance, enforce the skill as mandatory and drive the ranking through Skills / Auto Assign Rules / Dynamic Scheduling criteria, or create a custom recommendation/agent sorting criterion if the OOB scoring does not match your business logic.

Thank you!

Faisal Waheed
XAAS Solutions LLC

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Faisal Waheed

Stephen Gardner
Tera Contributor
In response to Faisal-Waheed

a week ago

Thank you! That is great information. 

  • The system property work.management.use.mandatory.skills is set to "True"

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  • When looking at task_m2m_skill.list I do not see my WOT. I only see a couple of incidents from other tests. 
    • Am I looking at the m2m skill list wrong or is there anything else that could cause it not to be included as mandatory? 

StephenGardner_0-1782315804387.png

 

Thank you again for your thoughts. 

SG

 

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