Manage Routing

Digital First Omnichannel uses routing queues to determine which agent to route casesClosed 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. You can create routing queues and apply filtering criteria. Filters allow you to define the types of cases that enter each queue. Each routing queue must have at least one filter.

If you also administer non-Digital First Omnichannel channels (such as voice or Personal Connection SMS, email, or chat), you've probably configured ACD skillsClosed Used to automate delivery of interactions based on agent skills, abilities, and knowledge to route interactions on those channels. Routing queues are essentially skills for your digital channels. However, there are some important things to remember:

  • You create and add filters to routing queues in the Digital First Omnichannel settings. CXone syncs the queues to the ACD Skills list.
  • You cannot assign users to a routing queue; instead, find the queue in the ACD Skills list and assign users there, or go to the user profile settings and add the skill to the user.
  • Each routing queue must have a unique name. The name you give your routing queue is the same name that will show up in the ACD Skills list, so be sure it is unique from any existing skills, too.

Digital First Omnichannel routing works like this: 

  1. A message enters Digital First Omnichannel from a supported channel.
  2. Digital First Omnichannel 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 First Omnichannel routes it based on priority.
  4. If the case doesn't match any rules for any queues, it's routed to the fallback queue.
  5. If no fallback queue is configured, the case goes to the backlog.

Mowgli Kipling is the contact center administrator for The Jungle, a subsidiary of Classics, Inc. He needs to set up a routing queue for his Facebook channel. Within that queue, he wants to route his English and Portuguese customers separately. He wants to give cases related to Jungle cats to his more experienced agents, since the cats cause a lot of problems. He also wants to ensure that cases 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 creates two queues called JungleFB-EN and JungleFB-PT, and two sub-queues called JungleCats and Influencers. He adds the appropriate filters to each queue and sub-queue, and then adds both sub-queues to each of the queues. He puts the new queues at the top of the queues list to make sure appropriate cases are routed to it first, even if they fit criteria for other queues.

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

If you're setting up routing for the first time, you should perform these tasks in the order they're presented.

Configure General Routing 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 First Omnichannel..

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to DFO > Routing.

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

  4. Configure how you want Digital First Omnichannel to assign cases to agents in the Preferred agent - Route to preferred agent, and Preferred agent - Fallback time fields.

  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 a case. 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 First Omnichannel to assign to messages when agents send replies to contacts from the Default reply type drop-down list.

  7. Click Save.

Create Routing Queues

Digital First Omnichannel must have at least one queueClosed Digital First equivalent of a skill; routes each contact to an agent assigned to handle that type of contact with agents assigned to it, or it can't route casesClosed The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation.. A queue must have at least one filter. Agents in the queue must have permissions for the channels that route messages to the queue.

When you create a new queue, it's placed as the first queue in the list by default. 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.

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

  3. Click Add queue.
  4. Enter a unique Name for the routing queue.
  5. Under Present agent with Accept/Reject, you can select the Enabled checkbox. This provides the agent with an option to accept or reject an incoming interaction. The Contact Refusal Timeout can be set in the ACD User Profile on the Contact Settings tab.
  6. Click Save. Changes are automatically synced to the ACD Skills list.
  7. On the Routing Queues page, use the arrows in the Order column to move the queue up or down in priority. Click Edit and enter a number in the Sorting Order field to change the priority of a queue by more than one place at a time.

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 sync to this page.

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.

Configure Filters for Queues and Sub-Queues

Filters provide the rules that tell Digital First Omnichannel how to route casesClosed 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 cases 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 First Omnichannel compares cases to each sub-queue's filter rules until it finds a match.

If a case matches the rules of more than one routing queue, Digital First Omnichannel 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.

  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. From the Filtered case priority drop-down, select the priority cases should have if included in this filter. The smaller the number, the higher the priority (0 is the smallest number, so it is the highest priority). This overrides the Prioritize routing general routing setting.
  6. Click Save.
  7. 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.
  8. You can add multiple filters to the queue.
  9. Use the up and down arrows to order the filters. As with queues, incoming cases are compared to the first to the top 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 create sub-queues with the 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 creates sub-queues for his JungleFB channels based on source and on subject matter.

You can assign a weight to each sub-queue. The weight helps Digital First Omnichannel 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. Remove any assigned users before adding a sub-queue to a routing queue.

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

  3. Under Sub-queues on the Routing Queues page, click Add sub-queue.
  4. Enter a Name for the sub-queue and click Save.
  5. Configure filters for the sub-queue.
  6. Locate the routing queue you want to add a sub-queue to and click its Sub-queues link.
  7. Click Add sub-queue.
  8. Select one or more sub-queues from the Sub-queues list and click Save.
  9. 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 cases 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.

  10. Click Save.