Assignment workbench overview
Summarize
Summary of Assignment Workbench Overview
The Assignment Workbench in ServiceNow Customer Service Management helps managers efficiently assign tasks to agents by evaluating and ranking agents based on configurable criteria such as skills and availability. It provides a clear interface showing agents in a selected assignment group, the criteria used for evaluation, and an overall ranking to streamline task assignments.
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Key Features
- Agent Ranking: Agents are ranked numerically based on how well they meet the configured criteria. Agents with identical criteria scores share the same rank.
- Dynamic Filtering: Managers can filter by assignment groups and skills, including mandatory skills, which immediately updates agent rankings and visibility.
- Configurable Matching Criteria: The workbench uses matching rules based on criteria like Availability Today, Matching Skills, and Assigned Cases. These can be customized or extended, including support for mandatory skills.
- Easy Access and Use: Accessible via the “Find Agents” icon on the task form (available only in certain task states and with appropriate permissions), the workbench allows sorting agents by criteria and assigning tasks with a single click.
- Supporting Plugins and Roles: The Assignment Workbench plugin is part of Customer Service Management, with a demo plugin available for testing. Roles such as assignmentworkbench and skilluser control access to its features.
- Performance and Display Settings: Properties allow customization of UI elements, such as the number of agents displayed per page (recommended max 50) and whether the workbench opens in a new window.
Practical Use for ServiceNow Customers
Using the Assignment Workbench enables customer service managers to assign tasks to the most suitable agents quickly and accurately, ensuring tasks are matched to skills and availability. This reduces manual effort and improves response times by providing a ranked list of agents based on your configured business rules. The ability to filter by assignment group and skills, and to handle mandatory skills, ensures assignments meet your organizational requirements.
Managers can confidently assign tasks knowing the system factors multiple criteria, and agents are ranked transparently. The integration with Customer Service Management plugins and role-based access controls ensures secure and seamless operation within your ServiceNow environment.
The assignment workbench enables customer service managers to assign tasks to agents efficiently and intelligently. The workbench uses configurable criteria, such as skills and availability, to evaluate the agents in a selected group and provide an overall ranking. Managers can view these results and click one button to assign a task.
- A list of the agents in the task assignment group.
- The matching criteria used to evaluate the agents.
- An overall ranking for each agent in the assignment group.
- A filter with the current assignment group and the skills identified for the task, including any mandatory skills.
Agents are ranked from 1 to any number based on the criteria configured for the workbench. The more criteria that matches, the higher an agent's rank. When the criteria for two agents is the same, the agents have the same rank. Point to an agent's rank to display the details.
- Changing the assignment group displays a different list of agents.
- Adding or removing skills can change the agent ranking.
Configuring the assignment workbench
- Availability Today
- Matching Skills
- Assigned Cases
- Create one or more matching criteria.
- Create a matching rule with the Selection criteria matching type.
- Open the matching rule and add the desired matching criteria.
If you are using mandatory skills, you must replace the Matching Skills criterion in this matching rule with the Matching Skills - Mandatory Skills Support criterion to match agents with mandatory skills required for a case.
Using the assignment workbench
) next to the Assigned to field on the task form. Sort the list of agents by any of the matching criteria by clicking the desired column header, which reorders the suggested agents based on the selected criteria.
Select a different assignment group from the Group list in the filter. The list of agents is updated based on the selection. If the selected group does not contain any agents, a message is displayed to select another group.
Add or remove skills from the Skills list in the filter. These selections are reflected in the Matching Skills column.
Skills that have been identified as mandatory for a task are displayed in the Mandatory Skills Added list. These selections are also reflected in the Matching Skills column. You cannot add or remove skills from this list.
Select an agent and click Assign to assign the task. The workbench closes and returns to the Case form. The Assigned to field is updated with the selected agent. Click Save on Case form to save this assignment.
Plugins
The Assignment Workbench plugin (com.snc.assignment_workbench) is activated as part of Customer Service Management.
The Case Assignment Workbench Demo plugin (com.snc.case_assignment_workbench_demo) provides demo data for the workbench.
Tables
| Table | Description |
|---|---|
| Matching Criteria [matching_dimension] |
Stores the matching criteria that can be used to create a configuration for the assignment workbench. |
| Select Criteria [matching_dimension_for_assignment] |
Stores the matching criteria for an assignment workbench configuration matching rules. |
| Matching Rule [matching_rule] |
Stores matching rules, including the matching rules that configurations for the assignment workbench. |
User Roles
| Role title [name] | Description | Contains roles |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment workbench [assignment_workbench] |
Provides access to the assignment workbench for customer service agents and consumer service agents. | Skill user [skill_user] |
Properties
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| assignment_workbench.find.agents.title | Title for the macro button.
|
| assignment_workbench.new.window | When enabled, opens the assignment workbench in a new window.
|
| assignment_workbench_no_of_agents | Number of agents per page. (To get better performance, do not use more than
50 agents per page.)
|