Assignment Lookup Rules and Assignment Rules

[gunnergraves]

When we implemented ServiceNow we built a custom routing table and implemented rules on our Incident Form that check for the correct routing groups, etc.   Over time that table has become large and difficult to maintain and we have been looking to go to more of an out of the box solution using assignment rules and data lookup rules.   I think it looks like we will have much the same problem as we do now as far as the table growing in complexity.   I have a couple of questions that go along with this.

1. Has anyone implemented a custom UI Solution that would make it easier to manage data lookup and routing rules?   Is there benefit to keeping the tables in sync?

2. Do Assignment Rules fire from the API? If I created a ticket without an Assignment Group via the API, would it route correctly?

3. Is there an easy way to make the data lookup rules fire for other fields?   Right now, it looks like my data lookup is only firing when certain fields are updated.

Any help is appreciated!

Gunner

[gunnergraves]

Thanks for your reply Chuck!   I took a look at the TechNow episode and the condition builder option looks like it could be a better way to implement our DIY solution and is great reference info.   I am still up in the air on if we should continue with our DIY solution rather than going back to more of an out of the box configuration though.   I am going to run the options by the rest of our team and I'll update this discussion with what we decide to do.

In researching the Assignment Lookup Rules they meet our needs, but they seem clunky in the UI.   I can only get it to fire when the Configuration Item value is updated and the assignment group field is blank.   Is there a way to manually trigger the data lookups rules to fire via client script or business rule?

[Chuck Tomasi]

Assignment rules are based on the same Data Lookup technology as the Impact/Urgency/Priority so I'd have to say yes, you can make them dynamic.

http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Data_Lookup_and_Record_Matching_Support

[gunnergraves]

I was missing the "Always Replace" flag on the Setter Field Definitions in the Data Lookup Definition.   Once I set that to true the fields started changing dynamically.    

[Chuck Tomasi]

Glad you got it working. Don't forget to mark the appropriate response correct to remove this from the Unanswered list and make it easier for others to find the answer should they have the same question in the future.                  

[gunnergraves · Accepted solution]

Thanks to Chuck and Sachin for providing the answers to my original questions below.

1. Has anyone implemented a custom UI Solution that would make it easier to manage data lookup and routing rules?   Is there benefit to keeping the tables in sync?

I did not receive feedback on this, but using the out of the box assignment lookup rules you can add the related list of rules to the Configuration Item form which gives you a pretty good user interface to maintain routing rules for that item.

2. Do Assignment Rules fire from the API? If I created a ticket without an Assignment Group via the API, would it route correctly?

I tested this in my developer instance and It looks like both Assignment Rules and Assignment Data Lookup Rules both work when creating an Incident using the API.  

3. Is there an easy way to make the data lookup rules fire for other fields?   Right now, it looks like my data lookup is only firing when certain fields are updated.

I was only having this issue with my data lookup rules because I did not set the "Always Replace" flag on the Setter Field Definitions in the Data Lookup Definition.   Once I set that to true the fields started changing dynamically.