Skills Based Routing Definition

The following is the Wikipedia definition for Skills Based Routing:

“Skills based routing (SBR) is a call assignment strategy used in call centers to assign incoming calls to the most suitable agent, rather than simply choosing the next available agent. It is an enhancement to the Automatic Call Distributor systems (and IVR systems) found in most call centers. The need for skills based routing has arisen as call centers have become larger and dealt with a wider variety of call types.”

 

Best way to describe Skill Based Routing is with an example.  If you have 3 agents in a call group each having a different skill level in their certain field :

• Agent 1 best knows Windows and only speak French
  
• Agent 2 best knows Linux and speak both English and French
  
• Agent 3 best knows MacOSX speak French and moderate English
  

But each person may know a bit about the other skills. Each Agent has a weight rating:

Agent	Windows	Linux	MacOSX	French	English
Agent 1	100	50	25	100	0
Agent 2	25	100	50	100	100
Agent 3	50	25	100	100	50

Example:

4 calls come, 2 asking for Windows support, one for Mac Support and one for Linux support
Agent 1 was free gets the first windows call
Agent 2 was free gets the second windows call
Agent 3 was free get the first Mac call
Caller 4 waits until an agent gets free for the system to reevaluate the skill table

Advantages of this method over a traditional Queue (ACD ):

• Do not need to create a Queue for each language, department, etc (skills)
  
• Used to train agents to build up their skill level
  
• Used to get the best quality support to the calling client
  
• Saves time of the higher trained agents (gets them away from password reset requests)
  

 

Requirements

If you want to use Skill Based Routing, the minimal requirements are:

• ScopServ Telephony 2.5
  
• Asterisk 1.8
  

 

Create the skills

You can create multiple Skills on the ScopTEL PBX using the Telephony -> Queues and Agents (ACD) -> Skill Based Routing menu.

Create a Skill Rules set

A Skill Rules set is a list of conditions that can be created on Telephony -> Queues and Agents (ACD) -> Skill Based Routing menu. Each conditions are evaluated against each Agent in order to see if it matches. The call is distributed according to the matching rule.

Each rule has two parts:

• the first part is a dynamical condition. If its evaluation is false, the next rule is tried;
  
• the second part is tested against queue member’s skills, to define a selection
  

You can get more details about Conditions, Rules,  and Arithmetic/logical operators, that can be used on a rules, on the Definition tab.

 Important Note : Never use <= or >= operators otherwise the rule will be omitted !

Once the Skill Routing Rule is created the list view will look like the following :

 

Apply the skills to the agents

 

Now that all the skills are created you may assign them to the agents on the  Telephony -> Queues and Agents (ACD) -> Agents menu under the Options tab.   You can specify  custom skills on a per agent basis like :

 

If you have multiple agents that share same Skills, you can go on  Telephony -> Queues and Agents (ACD) -> Skill Based Routing and create Skill Groups that can be assigned to agents.

 

Assign Skills to a destination

Now that skill rules are created and skills assigned to agents, you must assign the Skill Based Rule  to a Queue (ACD). In this sample, we assign the rule to a Queue directly on an Auto Attendant (IVR):

Note:  You must  issue a Commit in Telephony GUI after configuration modification.

Be carefull to have at least one Agent skills matching the first Rule of the Rules Set, otherwise the Queue Application will hangup incoming calls, omitting the following rules.