Virtual Agent - Agent Chat routing

[gabriel_sk]

Hello guys,

I am trying to setup the Virtual Agent routing to Live Agent queues based on customer input.

I can "easily" achieve this with "Connect Support" (chat_queue) by passing the queue sys_id in an Action expression using "vaVars.LiveAgent_queue". The customer selects the queue when prompt and Virtual Agent route exactly to that selected queue.

Same is not working with "Agent Chat" (awa_queue). The customer selection is ignored and the routing always point to the same awa_queue.

Do you have any suggestion on how I can have Virtual Agent route to awa_queue based on customer input/selection?

Thanks a lot!

[Andy54]

Hi Chris, 

is there some better solution already or just this one? 

I need to route user based on his input (10 choices) to agent considering the language (2 languages) and skill of the agent. The only way that comes to my mind is to create 20 queues (10 choices for each language, so 20) and route it based on Context conditions in the queue. Skills will be also handled within the Queue as "Assignment eligibility".

Is this the correct approach? Thanks!

[Chris D]

You'll have 20 chat queues? That seems like a lot... Though fwiw, it is entirely possible for agents to be members of multiple chat queues so don't take this as "don't do it" - it absolutely can be done if that works for you.

Fwiw, I haven't used skill nor any chat routing conditions besides context.queue... from this perspective, if you find it easiest to just "hardcode" the queue into the VA topic(s) and map them to AWA queue conditions, by all means, I don't see an issue with that solution. Offhand, that seems like an appropriate solution in fact - the only thing which makes me double take is the sheer quantity of queues which has me question if there's not a better way to organize it but I think the fact of the matter is that different languages will always necessitate dedicated queues, so if you're saying those 10 queues are in fact distinct, then I can't propose anything else.

[Andy54]

Yeah the amount of queues was putting me off as well. But unfortunately I have not found any other solution. 

Basically right now I am taking an chat choices input from the user and set them to the context variable. On the queue side I have setup conditions based on the context. 

Then I am running Skill determination rules - however here I am encountering 2 issues. First, the Skill level does not seem to be taken into consideration at all. 
In the "Assignment Rules" I have dedicated record "Chat Assignment Rule With Skills " where "Enable Skills", "Evaluate skill level" and "Enforce Mandatory" skills are all set to true/checked. 
Found another property "glide.awa.skill_level.evaluate" which is set to false and protected. However I managed to change it through background script to check if this could be an issue. Regardless it does not seem to function.

Another issue that I am experiencing, on the "Skill Determination Rule" table (sd_skill_determination_rule) the context variable which is working in the Queues does not seem to be working here. Which is odd as both are mapped to the Interaction table. I found one reddit post that discusses the same issue however there is no answer, except that it seems like issue with some OOB functionality (https://www.reddit.com/r/servicenow/comments/h8f59c/skills_determination_for_advanced_work_assignmen...)

I decided to open a separate issue for this: https://www.servicenow.com/community/virtual-agent-forum/virtual-agent-routing-based-on-skill-level/m-p/2425044#M299

[cdukes001]

I have a couple of queues and trying to route all chats to a queue instead of assigning to an agent.  Has anyone been able to do this? 

[Chris D]

Technically the chats do get routed to a queue, but the work item is specifically assigned to one available agent (thus appearing in one agent's inbox) as per AWA. This is just standard AWA functionality that cannot be changed - you cannot have it appear in every available agent's inbox using AWA/Agent Chat. ServiceNow changed this assignment functionality from Connect Support but never kept an option available for this.

Technically, an agent from the assigned queue can go in and assign the Interaction and/or Work Item to themselves (I believe just the former should be needed but I've not tried) to grab the chat (away from whoever it is assigned), but that's a terrible experience for the agents and largely impractical imo.

My best recommendation would be an assignment rule with a timeout as short as possible (30 seconds or less - I think you may even realistically be able to pull off 15 seconds if your chat queue is 100% dedicated to chats) so it can bounce around to all the available agents as quickly as possible while still giving the first truly available agent a chance to grab it.