Assignment and matching rules in HR

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Assignment and Matching Rules in HR

    The HR system utilizes automatic case assignment to efficiently allocate HR cases to agents based on their current workload, required skills, and geographical location. The Auto Assign feature, triggered by a business rule, works in conjunction with matching rules to determine the most suitable agent for each case.

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    Key Features

    • Automatic Case Assignment: Assigns HR cases to agents with the least workload who possess the necessary skills and are located near the subject person.
    • Matching Rules: Utilizes the Resource Matching Engine to evaluate agents based on specified conditions. Each HR case has two primary matching rules: one prioritizing both skills and country, and the other focusing solely on skills.
    • Assignment Scripts: The hrAssignmentAPI script includes various methods to fetch eligible agents while managing upgrade compatibility through the hrAssignmentUtil script.
    • Skills Management: Ensures that HR group assignments are based on the required skills for cases, allowing for flexibility across multiple HR departments.

    Key Outcomes

    By effectively leveraging these assignment and matching rules, ServiceNow customers can:

    • Streamline HR case allocation, improving response times and service efficiency.
    • Customize agent assignment based on organizational structure and location, ensuring appropriate HR support is provided.
    • Verify and manage agent skills to enhance the accuracy of case assignments.

    For practical implementation, customers can add or modify assignment and matching rules as needed, and test these rules to ensure they function correctly within their HR workflows.

    The base system uses the automatic case assignment feature to assign an HR case to an agent. It attempts to assign an agent with the least number of cases assigned, has the skills required by the case, and matches the location of the subject person.

    Auto Assign business rule

    HR Case has a business rule called Auto Assign that invokes matching rule logic.

    When auto assignment is triggered, the matching rules logic obtains a list of agents. The number of agents returned is based on a parameter that specifies the length of the list. The default is one.
    Note:
    For specific HR services, the auto-assignment functionality can be skipped. See Case options in Configure an HR service.

    Matching Rules

    HR assignment rules use the Resource Matching Engine [com.snc.matching_rule] plugin that is activated with the Human Resources Scoped App: Core [com.sn_hr_core] plugin. You can specify a table and a condition. By default, the base system sets an assignment group for each table and leaves the Assigned to field empty.

    For HR cases that meet these conditions, the hr_AssignmentAPI script include is called to return a list of agents that are eligible for assignment. See Add or modify a matching rule.
    Note:
    The base system provides matching rules for every COE table and HR task table.
    Each HR table and task in the base system have two matching rules:
    • Agents by skills and country
    • Agents by skills
    The higher priority (lower execution order) rule for each pair is the match by skills and country.
    • If this matching rule does not find eligible agents, then the condition of the lower priority rule is still true and attempts to match by skills alone.
    • If the higher priority rule finds an agent, the assigned to field is no longer empty and the secondary rule does not match.
    • Either the getAgentsByCountryAndSkillsOrderLeastLoaded or getAgentsBySkillOrderLeastLoaded in the hr_AssignmentAPI script include are called.

    Assignment script includes

    The hr_AssignmentAPI passes the call through to the hr_AssignmentUtil script include to reduce upgrade issues. Rather than update hr_AssignmentUtil, you can add to hr_AssignmentAPI or another customer script include.

    The getAgentsByCountryAndSkillsOrderLeastLoaded or getAgentsBySkillOrderLeastLoaded in the hr_AssignmentAPI script include looks for the least ordered by country and skills.
    • These scripts also look at the agents in the assignment group.
    • They then look for agents that have the required skills for the case and are in the same country as the subject person.
    • The list of agents that are returned are sorted according to case assignment load defined as active cases of type HR case (or extension) or active HR tasks.
    Auto assignment for HR tasks is slightly different than HR cases.
    • The list of possible agents for an HR task is generated like an HR case.
    • But, after ordering the list, the task is checked for a parent HR case and if the agent assigned is on the list.
    • If it is, the agent is placed at the top of the list ignoring case load.

    Required skills

    If you have more than one HR department, you can remove the HR group assignment from the HR template and use assignment rules to assign the HR group. For example, if you have HR departments in both the U.S. and German offices, you can create an HR group for each office. You set up assignment rules to assign the HR group based on the location of the employee who submitted the HR case.

    If your organization is using HR skills to qualify HR case assignments, ensure that the assigned user or group members have the required skills. To determine whether skills are being used and assigned, check the following configuration options.
    • HR Administration > HR Services > HR Templates: Look at the template that corresponds to the assignment rule to see what skills, if any, are required.
    • HR Administration > Manage Roles > Manage HR Skills: Find the HR user assigned to the case and click the Skills: # button to see whether the required skill is assigned. If not, check the box to assign it, and click Save.

    Refer to Create rules to route and assign customer service cases for more information on matching and assignment rules.