Manage Digital Routing

Digital Experience uses digital skills and scripts to determine which agent or skill to route contactsClosed The person interacting with an agent, IVR, or bot in your contact center. to. You can create custom digital scripts in CXone Studio to determine how a contact is routed in CXone. You can also use Workflow Automation (WFA) to create rules for how contacts are routed. Studio and WFA work together to route digital contacts. WFA rules run independent of Studio scripts. You can use scripts and WFA rules together to customize the handling of digital contacts. You can also use routing queues to route digital contacts, however using digital skills and scripts is the recommended method.

You must create new digital skills in ACD. Using digital scripts is the recommended method for routing digital contacts. It's easier to build and troubleshoot the routing workflow using the visual interface of a Studio script. With routing queues, it can be a challenge to keep track of the many rules required to route contacts. You can also use Workflow Automation to create rules that work with digital skills.

You can still use these steps to configure existing routing queues, but queue creation has completely migrated to ACD skills.

You need to select a default Studio script and a default skill for each channel you create. To configure this for existing channels go to ACDDFO > Points of Contact Digital.

Create a Digital Skill

Required permissions: Skills Create and Skills Edit

Agents using CXone Agent need to have the Digital Engagement attribute enabled and be assigned to a digital skill to handle digital interactions. Agents using MAX can handle digital interactions if they have either the Digital Engagement attribute or a digital skill assigned to them.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to Contact SettingsACD Skills.

  3. Click Create New > Single Skill.

  4. Set the Media Type to Digital. DigitalClosed Any channel, contact, or skill associated with Digital Experience. skills will always be Inbound unless you are using Personal Connection or BYOC.
  5. Enter a Skill Name.
  6. Select the Campaign you want the skill to be part of.
  7. To use rich content in your outbound message, select a Message Template.
  8. To add a sub-skill to this skill, select the checkbox. This only applies if you use digital routing queues for contact skill assignment. This is not the recommended routing method. Using Studio scripts is the recommended method to manage contacts and assign skills.
  9. Configure the remaining optional fields in the Skill Information section as needed.

  10. If you want to use screen popsClosed A configurable pop-up window with information about the contact. It appears on an agent's screen after a certain event, usually when the agent connects to a contact. for this skill, use the POPURL action in Studio. This capability is only supported for the CXone Agent suite.
  11. If your organization uses dynamic delivery, use the Routing Configuration section to customize the routing experience for this skill. To do so, select an Evaluation Criteria and configure any related settings.

    Content in this section is for a product or feature in controlled release (CR). If you are not part of the CR group and would like more information, contact your CXone Account Representative.

    • Skill Proficiency: This is the default setting. Routing decisions prioritize the agent with the highest configured proficiency level for the skill.

    • Preferred Agent: Routing decisions prioritize the agent who last handled the same case or contact. If you select this option, you must configure these settings: 

      • Focus Metric: Specifies which agent is the preferred agent. Choose between: 

        • Per Case: The agent who most recently handled an interaction linked to the customer case.
        • Per Customer: The agent who most recently worked on the interaction.
      • Focus Lock: Specifies what happens when the preferred agent is unavailable. Choose between:

        • When Offline: The interaction waits in queue until the preferred agent becomes available. If you select this option, set the Fallback Time to the number of minutes to wait for the preferred agent to become available. When the Fallback Time is exceeded, the interaction routes to another agent based on skill proficiency. The receiving agent becomes the new preferred agent for the case or contact.

        • When Available: The interaction immediately routes to another agent based on skill proficiency. The receiving agent becomes the new preferred agent for the case or contact.

      Any interaction that enters the queue without an applicable contact or interaction history routes to an available agent based on skill proficiency.

  12. If you want to change the default service level settings for this skill, modify the fields in the Service Level section. This only appears if you are configuring an Inbound skill.

  13. To require agents to manually accept or reject interactions for this skill, select the Accept / Reject checkbox. If an agent rejects an interaction, it returns to the queue. This capability is only supported in Agent. This skill setting is related to a feature in controlled release (CR). If you are not part of the CR group and would like more information, contact your CXone Account Representative.
  14. To enable a countdown timer for agent responses, go to Agent Response section. This capability is only supported in Agent. You can also do this later.

  15. To unassign contacts after a timer expires, go to the Customer Response section. This capability is only supported in Agent. You can also do this later.

  16. Click Create. Complete additional configurations to customize or manage your skills.

Configure General Routing Queue Settings

In the general routing settings, you can configure routing options that apply to all of your digital channelsClosed Any channel, contact, or skill associated with Digital Experience..

Digital routing queues work like this: 

  1. A message enters Digital Experience from a supported channel.
  2. Digital Experience compares the message to the filtering rules for all queues and routes it to the best match.
  3. If the message matches more than one queue, Digital Experience routes it based on priority.
  4. If the interaction doesn't match any rules for any queues, it's routed to the fallback queue.
  5. If no fallback queue is configured, the interaction goes to the backlog.

Mowgli Kipling is the contact center administrator for The Jungle, a subsidiary of Classics, Inc. He set up a routing queue for his Facebook channel. Within that queue, he wanted to route his English and Portuguese customers separately. He wanted to give interactions related to Jungle cats to his more experienced agents, since the cats cause a lot of problems. He also wanted to ensure that interactions involving social media influencersClosed People on social media with established reputations and large followings who can impact the opinions and actions of their audiences. are given priority.

Mowgli created two queues called JungleFB-EN and JungleFB-PT, and two sub-queues called JungleCats and Influencers. He added the appropriate filters to each queue and sub-queue, and then added both sub-queues to each of the queues. He put the new queues at the top of the queues list to make sure appropriate interactions are routed to it first, even if they fit criteria for other queues.

For JungleFB-EN, the sub-queues are weighted so that interactions from influencers take higher priority than those concerning Jungle cats. However, the Jungle cats who live in Brazil generate a lot of interactions, so in JungleFB-PT, those interactions have higher priority. In both queues, Jungle cat interactions are routed to a subset of skilled agents.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to DFO > Routing.

  3. Configure the default Digital Experience routing behavior in the Prioritize routing and Routing fallback fields.

  4. Configure how you want Digital Experience to assign interactions to agents in the Preferred agent - Route to preferred agent, and Preferred agent - Fallback time fields. If you're part of the controlled release program, you can now configure this at the skill level when you create a digital skill. You may not be able to see these global settings anymore.

  5. Specify the number of days of inactivity allowed before a contact is closed in Contact Activity Timeout. Inactivity is defined as no messages being sent by the contact or agent for an interaction. You must enter a value between 1 and 90 days. 30 days is set as the default for the maximum days of inactivity allowed. This will apply to all routing queues. If you want to set different inactivity timeout settings for different queues you can configure a workflow automation task to do that.
  6. Select the default status you want Digital Experience to assign to messages when agents send replies to contacts from the Default reply type drop-down list.

  7. Click Save.

Configure Filters for Queues and Sub-Queues

Filters provide the rules that tell Digital Experience how to route interactionsClosed The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation. to your agents' digital inboxesClosed Area where cases appear in the digital interaction workspace in an agent application. When interactions come in, the system compares them to the rules for each queueClosed Digital First equivalent of a skill; routes each contact to an agent assigned to handle that type of contact, starting with the first queue in the list. It continues until it finds a match. If a routing queue has sub-queues, Digital Experience compares interactions to each sub-queue's filter rules until it finds a match.

If a interaction matches the rules of more than one routing queue, Digital Experience uses the highest-priority queue in the list. For example, Mowgli wants Facebook complaints about jungle cats to go to TheJungleFB queue and not the general complaint queue, so he makes sure TheJungleFB queue is higher in the priority list.

A queue must have at least one filter. Agents in the queue must have permissions for the channels that route messages to the queue.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.
  2. Go to DFO > Routing Queues.

  3. Locate the routing queue or sub-queue you want to work on and click the associated Filters link.
  4. Click Add routing queue filter.
  5. Enter a Filter name.
  6. From the Filtered case priority drop-down, select the priority cases should have if included in this filter. The smaller the number, the lower the priority (0 is the smallest number, so it is the lowest priority). This overrides the Prioritize routing general routing setting.
  7. Click Save.
  8. Select a Condition type from the drop-down. Click Create condition for selected type. The next page will allow you to configure the criteria for the condition. After configuring a condition, you can add more.
  9. If you added multiple filters, use the up and down arrows to order them. As with queues, incoming cases are compared to the first filter in the list, then the next, and so on down the list. Therefore, the filter at the top should be the most specific and the filter at the bottom should be the broadest.

Add Sub-Queues to a Routing Queue

You can use sub-queues to create specialized routing within routing queuesClosed Digital First equivalent of a skill; routes each contact to an agent assigned to handle that type of contact. Sub-queues can be assigned to more than one queue. For example, if you have different teams that handle specific products or who speak different languages, you could use sub-queues to route to agents for each product or language. Then you could assign the sub-queue to each routing queue where you need agents with that specialty. Mowgli uses sub-queues for his JungleFB channels based on source and subject matter.

You can assign a weight to each sub-queue. The weight helps Digital Experience prioritize sending cases to that sub-queue. The larger the number, the more likely it is that cases will be assigned to the sub-queue. If a sub-queue is assigned to more than one routing queue, it can have different weights in each routing queue.

Routing queues cannot have users and sub-queues assigned to them. You need to remove any assigned users in ACD before adding a sub-queue to a routing queue.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.
  2. Go to DFO > Routing Queues.

  3. Click Sub-queues next to the routing queue you want to add to.
  4. Click Add Sub-queues.

  5. Check the boxes next to the sub-queues you want to add to the routing queue.

  6. Click Save.

  7. Assign a weight to each sub-queue to specify how you want to prioritize them within the queue. Sub-queues with a higher weight value will receive more interactions than sub-queues with a lower weight value. Mowgli uses weights to prioritize the same sub-queues differently depending on the queue they're in.

  8. Click Save.

Edit Routing Queues and Sub-queues

You can edit a queue to change its name, its priority, add users, or adjust agent capabilities.

Change Queue Name

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.
  2. Go to DFO > Routing Queues.

  3. Click Edit next to the routing queue or sub-queue you want to change.
  4. Adjust or enter a new Name for the routing queue. Ensure that routing queue names are unique from any other queues or skills.
  5. Click Save.

Change Queue Priority

You can edit a queue to change its Order number, which changes its priority. Priority determines which queue a message routes to if it meets the criteria for more than one queue. The queue that's closer to the top has higher priority.

On the Routing Queues page, you can use the arrows in the Order column to move the queue up or down in priority. To change the priority of a queue by more than one place at a time, click Edit and enter a number in the Sorting Order field.

Add Users to a Routing Queue

Each routing queue displays a list of users that are assigned to the routing queue. This list is not editable from this page. Instead, follow the steps to add skills to a user OR add users to a skill. After your changes are saved, they will appear here as well.

You can view users assigned to a routing queue by clicking EditView assigned users.

Keep in mind that you cannot add sub-queues to a routing queue that has users assigned to it. Instead, you need to add users to the sub-queue.

Allow Agents to Accept/Reject Contacts

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.
  2. Go to DFO > Routing Queues.

  3. Click Edit next to the routing queue or sub-queue you want to change.
  4. Under Present agent with Accept/Reject, you can select or clear the Enabled checkbox. When enabled, this provides the agent with an option to accept or reject an incoming contact. The Contact Refusal Timeout can be set in the ACD User Profile on the Contact Settings tab.

  5. Click Save.