Skill Level Service Objective
Use the Field Service Skill Level objective to prefer scheduling appointments to service resources depending on how proficient they are at a specific skill.
Required Editions
| Available in: both Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience |
| The Agentforce Field Service and Operations core features, managed package, and mobile app are available in Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer Editions. |
This is a Field Service managed package feature.
With the Match Skills work rule, you can make sure the scheduling engine matches the skill requirements of an appointment to an eligible service resource. You can also make sure that the service resource is qualified enough in that skill by using skill levels. Service resources whose skill level is lower than the level listed on an appointment’s parent record’s Skill Requirement record aren’t considered candidates.
You can go a step further by using the Skill Level service objective to prefer the least or the most qualified service resources, which help you keep the opposite skill proficiency for other activities. In the Skill Level objective, select Least Qualified or Most Qualified in the Prioritize Resource picklist dropdown.
- Least Qualified: Favors the least qualified valid candidate. If multiple service resources meet the skill and the skill level criteria for the service appointment, favor the service resource with the lowest skill level value. For example, if an appointment requires the Drilling skill at level 5, a resource with a Drilling skill level of 7 is favored over a resource with a Drilling skill level of 8.
- Most Qualified: Favors the most qualified valid candidate. If multiple service resources meet the skill and the skill level criteria for the service appointment, favor the service resource with the highest skill level value. For example, if an appointment requires the Drilling skill at level 5, a resource with a Drilling skill level of 8 is favored over a resource with a Drilling skill level of 7.
If you're using skill types as part of the Match Skill work rule, make sure that the Skill Type Developer Name field is added to the Skill Level service objective page layout. Also make sure that this field is populated with the same values as the corresponding Match Skill work rules. If the Skill Type Developer Name field is empty, the Skill Level service objective applies to all Skills that don't have a Skill Type defined. It doesn’t apply to Skills which have a Skill Type defined.
Here are some example scenarios where this preference can be useful.
- By preferring to schedule Least Qualified service resources, you can allow lower qualified resources to be scheduled for work that doesn’t need a higher level of expertise. This preference leaves service resources with a higher level of expertise in that skill available for appointments that require a higher proficiency level.
- Skilled service resources are usually paid more. So it makes sense to assign them more work to keep them busy, rather than assigning work to resources with a lower level of expertise. This preference can also motivate service resources to get training and upgrade their skills. Another reason to schedule someone with more expertise is to improve first-time fix rates or revisit for repairs by making sure the problem is solved by someone more experienced.
Considerations
- If multiple skill requirements exist for the service appointment, the Skill Level service objective evaluates all skills and calculates an average score.
- If a service appointment doesn’t have any skill requirements, the Skill Level service objective has no impact on the scheduling score.
- The Match Skills work rule isn’t required in the scheduling policy for the Skill Level service objective to work. It still impacts the scheduling score based on the skill level of the candidate service resources.
- A skill level on the service appointment’s skill isn’t required for the Skill Level service objective to work. It still impacts the scheduling score based on the skill level of the candidate service resources.
- The Skill Level service objective requires complex calculations that can affect the performance of scheduling actions. Performance must be monitored when you use this objective.
When You’re Using Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization
When you use the Skill Level objective in a policy, the service resource’s skill level is used for the penalty calculation. For example, if two service resources meet the skill and skill level requirements for a service appointment, and they have a matching skill with levels 5 and 8 respectively, 5 and 8 penalty points are assigned to their respective scheduling scores. When the objective uses Least Qualified, the service resource with the lowest penalty points is preferred. The opposite is true when the objective uses Most Qualified. The penalty points are multiplied by the weight of the Skill Level objective in the scheduling policy to determine the resulting score of the schedule for that appointment.
When you use Get Candidates, the assessed penalty is normalized on a 0 to 100 scale to display the objective score explanation.
When You’re Not Using Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization
The skill levels of the service resources included in the scheduling request are graded on a scale from lowest level to highest. Based on whether the service objective uses Least Qualified or Most Qualified, it calculates a grade for each scheduling option along that scale. The graded value of the schedule is multiplied by the weight of the Skill Level service objective in the scheduling policy to determine the resulting score of the schedule for that appointment.
