Manage Digital Routing

Digital Experience uses digital skills and scripts to determine which agent or skill to route contacts 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 ACD> Digital > 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.

The name of a skill should be meaningful. It's helpful to be consistent when naming skills. Decide on a standard format for skill names that works for your organization.

A skill name must have a minimum of 2 characters and a maximum of 30. Skill names may only contain letters, numbers, and these special characters:

Hyphens (-)
Underscores (_)
Periods (.)
Colons (:)

Click the app selector and select ACD.
Go to Contact Settings > ACD Skills.
Click Create New > Single Skill.
Set the Media Type to Digital. Digital Any channel, contact, or skill associated with Digital Experience. skills will always be Inbound unless you are using Personal Connection or BYOC.
Enter a Skill Name.
Select the Campaign you want the skill to be part of.
To use rich content in your outbound message, select a Message Template.
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.

Configure the remaining optional fields in the Skill Information section as needed.

Learn more about fields in this step

Field	Details
Agentless	Don't select for agent dialing. When this is selected, Workforce Intelligence Minimum Agents and Workforce Intelligence Minimum Available Agents are not available.
Sub-Skill	Allows you to add a sub-skill to a skill. This lets you apply additional filters to match a skill if you use digital routing queues for contact skill assignment. However, using Studio scripts is the recommended method to manage contacts and assign skills. Sub-skill is not compatible with Studio, so it's not recommended to be used.

Field

Details

Agentless

Don't select for agent dialing.

When this is selected, Workforce Intelligence Minimum Agents and Workforce Intelligence Minimum Available Agents are not available.

Sub-Skill

Allows you to add a sub-skill to a skill. This lets you apply additional filters to match a skill if you use digital routing queues for contact skill assignment. However, using Studio scripts is the recommended method to manage contacts and assign skills. Sub-skill is not compatible with Studio, so it's not recommended to be used.

If you want to use screen pops 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.
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 with the contact The person interacting with an agent, IVR, or bot in your contact center..
  - 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 or the Fallback Time is exceeded. 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: An agent may be in an available state, but still not be immediately available. For example, they may have an available status, but be handling ACW State that allows an agent to complete work requirements after finishing an interaction, responding to a message from another contact, or otherwise busy. In this case, you must also configure Fallback Time to determine how long to wait for the preferred agent. 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.
  - Fallback Time: The number of seconds to wait for the preferred agent to become available. For example, if you enter 900 seconds, the system will wait 15 minutes before routing the contact to another agent. If you choose to use Preferred Agent to route contacts, you must enter a value between 1 and 5,256,000. If you leave this field blank, you receive an error message.
  Any interaction that enters the queue without an applicable contact or interaction history routes to an available agent based on skill proficiency.

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.

Learn more about fields in this step

Field	Details
Service Level Threshold	The number of seconds agents have to respond to meet an SLA Commitment between a service provider and a customer with a defined service level threshold, including quality, availability, and responsibilities. For example, if your SLA for this skill is to respond to 80% of contacts within 20 seconds, enter a value of 20.
Service Level Goal	The percentage of contacts agents must respond to by the Service Level Threshold to meet the SLA. For example, if the SLA for this skill is to respond to 80% of contacts within 20 seconds, enter a value of 80

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.

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.

Learn more about fields in this step

Field	Details
Enabled	Check the box to make the timer appear in the agent console. Clear the box to hide it.
Agent First Response	Enter how long you want to set the timer for. The countdown timer starts when a contact is assigned to the agent. The countdown ends when the agent sends the first message.
Follow on Response	Enter how long you want to set the timer for. The countdown timer starts again when a customer responds to the agent. It ends when the agent sends a reply.

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.

Learn more about fields in this step

Field	Details
Enabled	Check the box to unassign contacts when the timer expires. Clear the box to have no idle time limit.
Customer Idle Time	The countdown timer starts when the agent sends the first message to the customer. The contact will automatically unassign the contact from the agent when the timer expires.
Time Extension	Check the box to let an agent give the customer more time to respond. This enables a button the agent can click to reset the customer idle timer.

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 channels Any channel, contact, or skill associated with Digital Experience..

Digital routing queues work like this:

A message enters Digital Experience from a supported channel.
Digital Experience compares the message to the filtering rules for all queues and routes it to the best match.
If the message matches more than one queue, Digital Experience routes it based on priority.
If the interaction doesn't match any rules for any queues, it's routed to the fallback queue.
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 influencers 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.

Click the app selector and select ACD.
Go to Digital > Routing.

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

Learn more about some of the fields in this step

Field	Details
Prioritize routing	Select how you want Digital Experience to prioritize interactions when assigning them to agents. You can choose either From oldest to newest or From newest to oldest. The priority assigned to routing queue filters overrides the global priority that you configure here.
Routing fallback	Select the routing queue Digital First equivalent of a skill; routes each contact to an agent assigned to handle that type of contact that you want interactions The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation. routed to when they don't meet any filter rules. If you select No queue, interactions that don't match any filters go into the backlog and may not be handled the way you want. If the list contains no routing queues, you cannot configure this option.

Field

Details

Prioritize routing

Select how you want Digital Experience to prioritize interactions when assigning them to agents. You can choose either From oldest to newest or From newest to oldest.

The priority assigned to routing queue filters overrides the global priority that you configure here.

Routing fallback

Select the routing queue Digital First equivalent of a skill; routes each contact to an agent assigned to handle that type of contact that you want interactions The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation. routed to when they don't meet any filter rules. If you select No queue, interactions that don't match any filters go into the backlog and may not be handled the way you want.

If the list contains no routing queues, you cannot configure this option.

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.

Learn more about some of the fields in this step

Before you configure preferred agent settings, it's helpful to understand that there are two types of assignees:

Inbox assignee: The agent who currently has the case in their digital inbox.
Owner assignee: The last agent the case has been assigned to. Reporting metrics display data for the case under this agent.

Field	Details
Preferred agent - Route to preferred agent	Select Per Case if you want Digital Experience to route interactions to the last agent to handle the case The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation., the owner assignee. Select Per Customer if you want Digital Experience to route interactions to the last agent to interact with the customer, the inbox assignee. Select Off if you don't want Digital Experience to route to preferred agents.
Preferred agent - Fallback time	Enter the amount of time you want Digital Experience to wait before routing a contact to another agent if the preferred agent isn't available. From the drop-down list, select: Locked even if agent is offline if you want Digital Experience to wait the specified amount of time even if the preferred agent is offline. Locked only if agent is available if you want Digital Experience to wait the specified amount of time only if the preferred agent is available. Tip: All new incoming cases are assigned to a queue and it's sub-queues, whether the corresponding agents are online or not. Digital Experience matches cases according to filters not agents. To avoid routing cases to queues with no agents online, you can create a routing filter to only route cases to certain queues during specific time periods. You can also configure business hours for your channels.

Field

Details

Preferred agent - Route to preferred agent

Select Per Case if you want Digital Experience to route interactions to the last agent to handle the case The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation., the owner assignee.

Select Per Customer if you want Digital Experience to route interactions to the last agent to interact with the customer, the inbox assignee.

Select Off if you don't want Digital Experience to route to preferred agents.

Preferred agent - Fallback time

Enter the amount of time you want Digital Experience to wait before routing a contact to another agent if the preferred agent isn't available.

From the drop-down list, select:

Locked even if agent is offline if you want Digital Experience to wait the specified amount of time even if the preferred agent is offline.
Locked only if agent is available if you want Digital Experience to wait the specified amount of time only if the preferred agent is available.

Tip: All new incoming cases are assigned to a queue and it's sub-queues, whether the corresponding agents are online or not. Digital Experience matches cases according to filters not agents. To avoid routing cases to queues with no agents online, you can create a routing filter to only route cases to certain queues during specific time periods. You can also configure business hours for your channels.

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.
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.
Click Save.

Configure Filters for Queues and Sub-Queues

Filters provide the rules that tell Digital Experience how to route interactions 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 inboxes 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 queue 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 an 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.

Contact center administrator Mowgli Kipling wants to avoid routing live chat cases to queues when agents are offline. So, he creates a queue filter called Time Resolver. Then he adds the Date and time rule under Condition type. He selects Exclude selected days and times. He reviews when the agents assigned to this live chat channel queue are scheduled and selects the dates and times when none of them are online. This ensures that no cases are assigned to this live chat queue when the agents assigned to it are offline. This specific queue filter only applies to live chat. Other channels route based on agent status.

Click the app selector and select ACD.
Go to Digital > Routing Queues.
Locate the routing queue or sub-queue you want to work on and click the associated Filters link.
Click Add routing queue filter.
Enter a Filter name.
From the Filtered case priority drop-down, select the priority that 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.
Click Save.

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.

Learn more about additional configuration for each condition type

Field	Details
Included Channels Rule	Includes the selected channels in the filter. The next page displays the list of channels you can choose from. You can search for the one you want. Click Add for each channel you want to include in the filter. Changes are saved automatically.
Included tags rule	Includes the selected tags in the filter. The next page displays the list of tags you can choose from. You can search for the one you want. Click Add for each channel you want to include in the filter. Changes are saved automatically.
Excluded tags rule	Excludes the selected tags from the filter. The next page displays the list of tags you can choose from. You can search for the one you want. Click Add for each channel you want to exclude from the filter. Changes are saved automatically.
Included sentiments rule	Includes the selected sentiments in the filter. The next page allows you to select checkboxes for which sentiment or sentiments you want to include in the filter. You can choose any combination of Negative, Neutral, or Positive.
Included customer browser languages rule	Includes the selected customer browser languages in the filter. The next page allows you to select the checkboxes for the customer browser languages you want included in the filter. Check the desired languages, then scroll to the bottom and click Save. Note that the checkboxes do not appear in alphabetical order. Only check boxes that the agent assigned to the routing queue can manage.
Included source values rule	Includes the specified source values (where the interaction came from) in the filter. The next page allows you to enter any URLs you want to include content from. Separate multiple entries with commas.
Customer Card custom fields	Includes specific custom fields values from a customer card in the filter. Depending on the custom field, the next page allows you to enter values in a text field or select values from a drop-down. In text fields, you can separate multiple entries with commas.
Case custom fields	Includes specific custom field values from a case in the filter. Depending on the custom field, the next page allows you to enter values in a text field or select values from a drop-down. In text fields, you can separate multiple entries with commas.
Twitter followers rule	Includes cases from X in the filter based on number of followers the author has. For example, you might create a queue with filter rules that gives priority handling to negative mentions of your organization by X users with a large number of followers (influencers). The next page allows you to configure the criteria for how many followers the X account should have to be pulled into the filter. Select an operator from the drop-down field and enter a number in the text box, then click Save.
Included subjects rule	Includes certain topics assigned to cases through natural language processing (NLP). The next page allows you to enter any subjects you want to include content from. Separate multiple entries with commas. This allows you to automate routing of cases based on subject matter.
Excluded subjects rule	Excludes certain topics assigned to cases through natural language processing (NLP). The next page allows you to enter any subjects you want to exclude. Separate multiple entries with commas. This allows you to automate routing of cases based on subject matter.
Custom rule	Includes a URL endpoint to validate data against another source. The next page allows you enter a URL endpoint. Use the documentation link in the administration portal to create this type of custom rule, or talk to your account manager. For example, you might configure a custom rule that validates order numbers mentioned in Facebook messages against your order database to help determine whether a negative comment is real or fraudulent.
Date and time rule	Routes cases based on date and time settings. The next page allows you to set the following criteria: Include or exclude Day of the week or date range Up to three time slots For example, you could set up three queues with the same filter rules except for date and time. This would allow you to route cases for a channel to different agents based on the shift they work.
Include based on Post IDs	Includes any cases from the specified Post ID. The Post ID is based on the external platform you are referencing. The next page allows you to enter any Post IDs you want to include content from. Separate multiple entries with commas.
Exclude based on Post IDs	Excludes any cases from the specified Post ID. The Post ID is based on the external platform you are referencing. The next page allows you to enter any Post IDs you want to exclude content from. Separate multiple entries with commas.

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 queues 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.

Click the app selector and select ACD.
Go to Digital > Routing Queues.
Click Sub-queues next to the routing queue you want to add to.
Click Add Sub-queues.
Check the boxes next to the sub-queues you want to add to the routing queue.
Click Save.
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.

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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

Click the app selector and select ACD.
Go to Digital > Routing Queues.
Click Edit next to the routing queue or sub-queue you want to change.
Adjust or enter a new Name for the routing queue. Ensure that routing queue names are unique from any other queues or skills.
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 Edit > View 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

Click the app selector and select ACD.
Go to Digital > Routing Queues.
Click Edit next to the routing queue or sub-queue you want to change.
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.
Click Save.