How Does Skills-Based Routing Work?

Skills-based routing in Omni-Channel matches work items to the most qualified service reps based on the required skills. When a work item is created, Omni-Channel determines the required skills based on the routing configuration, skills-based routing rules, and any skill requirements passed into the Route Work action in the Omni-Channel flow. Omni-Channel then routes the item to a service rep who has all of the requisite skills and available capacity to take the work.

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To route work items to the right service rep, Omni-Channel applies a combination of the skills from these two sources.

Static skills included in the routing configuration.

To add skills to every work item that's routed using that routing configuration, add the skills to the routing configuration.

Dynamic skills added from skills-based routing rules or an Omni-Channel flow.

To dynamically add skills to specific work items based on conditions, build the logic using skills-based routing rules, an Omni-Channel flow, or both. If the conditions are met, the skills are applied to the work item.

Omni-Channel routes each work item to a service rep who has all the required skills, is available based on the routing type (most available or least active), and, if applicable, meets the minimum specified skill level.

If no service reps have all the required skills and additional skills are configured to be dropped, Omni-Channel drops the additional skills in the specified order until a service rep with the remaining skills is available. Skills with a higher priority are dropped first, while skills with priority 0 or no priority are dropped last. The work item is then routed to the best-matched rep, even if they don't have all the additional skills. If the service rep declines the work or goes offline, the required skills reset to their original state, and the process of dropping additional skills starts over.

Skills are evaluated when a record, such as a case, is added to an Omni-Channel queue. If you edit a record that’s in an Omni-Channel queue, any changes to skills won’t be reflected until you reassign the record to the same or another queue.

If a work item requires certain skills, but no service reps have those skills, the work item isn’t routed. This situation is similar to how items in a queue are treated when no service reps are online. If you use Command Center for Service, a supervisor can look at the Skills Backlog tab to see which work items that require a skill haven’t been assigned to a service rep.