Routing and assigning customer service cases

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Routing and assigning customer service cases

    The case routing feature in ServiceNow enables automatic identification and routing of customer service cases to the most suitable agents based on defined matching and assignment rules. This ensures cases are assigned efficiently according to agent expertise, availability, and workload.

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    Matching Rules

    Matching rules specify the conditions a case must meet to be routed and identify the best-suited agents to handle those cases. These rules are created using the Matching Rule form and consist of two sets of conditions:

    • Case attributes: Conditions applied to the case data (e.g., account, product, priority) using a condition builder.
    • Agent resources: Conditions to select appropriate agents, which can be defined by:
      • Simple: Selecting specific users from a list.
      • Advanced: Filtering agents by roles, groups, skills, workload, or availability.
      • Scripted: Writing custom scripts for complex resource identification.
      • Selection Criteria: Creating matching criteria for use with the assignment workbench.

    Assignment Rules

    Assignment rules automatically assign cases to users or groups based on matching rules. They are created from the matching rule form and specify:

    • The task type table and conditions for assignment.
    • The user or group to receive the assignment.

    Assignment rules operate only if the task is not already assigned and are independent from matching rules, meaning changes in one do not automatically update the other. Custom scripts can be used to tailor assignment behavior further.

    Using the MatchingRuleProcessor API

    After defining matching rules, ServiceNow customers can invoke the MatchingRuleProcessor API to execute these rules and retrieve a list of suitable agents (identified by sysids) for routing cases programmatically.

    Reverse Matching

    Reverse matching leverages the same matching rules but functions in the opposite direction, matching tasks to resources instead of resources to tasks, providing flexibility in case management workflows.

    The case routing feature uses matching rules and assignment rules to identify customer service cases that meet certain conditions and then route those cases to customer service agents.

    Overview

    Create one or more matching rules that establish specific conditions that a case must meet before it can be routed to an agent. Then use an assignment rule to route those cases to agents based on product knowledge and availability. You can also invoke the MatchingRuleProcessor API to execute the matching rules and return a list of users (sys_ids).

    Matching Rules

    Matching rules are based on two defined sets of conditions, one that identifies specific case attributes and another that identifies the agent resources best suited to handle cases with these attributes. Matching rules are created using the Matching Rule form.

    To identify case attributes, select a table that stores the task type (for example, the Case table) and then use a condition builder to create one or more conditions that a case must meet before being routed. For example, you can build conditions for a specific account and product or for a specific product and priority level.

    To identify an agent resource, use one of the following resource matching methods:
    • Simple: select the resource name from a list of users.
    • Advanced: build conditions that filter the available agent resources. These conditions can be based on user role, agent group, specific skills, work load, or agent availability.
    • Scripted: create a customized script to identify agent resources.
    Another resource matching method, Selection Criteria, can be used to create a matching rule with selected matching criteria for use with the assignment workbench.

    Assignment Rules

    Use assignment rules to automatically assign task to users and groups. Create an assignment rule for a matching rule by clicking the Create assignment rule related link on the Matching Rule form. When the matching rule conditions are met, a case can be routed to a user or a group using the assignment rule. The assignment rule is applied only if the task is not already assigned to another user or group.
    Note:
    Matching rules and assignment rules are independent records with no synchronization. If you make a change in the Applies to component of the matching rule, it is not reflected in the assignment rule
    When you create an assignment rule, you select the following:
    • The table for the task type and the conditions that must be met before the task is assigned.
    • The user or the group to which the task is assigned.
    Alternately, you can create a script to further customize the assignment rule.