Skills

Defining Skill Requirements for Contacts

Skill requirements have values from 0 to 5. A required skill with the value 0 means that the skill is not used in the skill value calculation. It is the same as to omit the skill requirement from the contact. When you define skill requirements for a queue or an extension, skill-based routing is used in your system.

Contacts can also obtain their skill requirements in the following ways:

• Using keywords rules in e-mails. Skill levels set by a keyword rule override the one defined for a queue or extension for the same skill.

• Using IVR for defining skill requirements

  An IVR application can set the skill requirements for a call with the setskills elements that asks skill requirements.

• Using external data (for advanced use only)

  The skills can also be included in the external data. Use the extra data settings for defining the data.

Ignoring Skills

Skills are not used in the following situations:

• Direct calls

  If an inbound call is made to a direct number of an agent instead of a queue number, the skills are not used (and the skill requirements that particular call may have are permanently cleared). The skill requirements of a call are also ignored if an agent forwards a call from a queue to a direct number (but in this case the requirements are not permanently cleared).

• Consultation calls

  If a call is transferred using the consultation call function, the skill requirements are omitted. However, you can include the skills related to the original call by using the Extra Data Included in Outbound Calls setting in System Management > Channels > Voice Channel.

• Old skills

  In some cases, you may want to clear the skill requirements when a call comes in to a queue. Select the Clear Old Skills option to clear skills in Queue Management > Queues in a queue's Contact Management block.

• Skill Expiry Time

  Skill Expiry Time is in use by default and it can be configured in System Management > Channels in each channel's Contact Management section. See Channel Settings.

Skill Value Calculation

An inbound contact includes predefined skill requirements. When calculating the skill match, all skill requirements are compared with the predefined skill ratings for agents. Contacts may have different sets of skill requirements depending on how they arrived in the queue.

Note the following:

• The maximum value an agent can get per skill cannot exceed the skill’s requirement value, even if the agent’s skill rating value is actually higher. For example, Agent1 has the rating 5 for Japanese, but the calculation is done using the value 2 since that is the requirement for that particular skill.

• The call will not go to Agent3 whose skill value for English is 0, and the skill requirement is 5.

• The maximum calculated value is 1.

Selecting Contact for Agents

An agent is free to take a new contact, and there are unallocated contacts in the queues to which the agent is logged on. The contact with the highest priority value is allocated to the agent, assuming that the agent meets the skill requirement.

The calculation rules for a contact’s priority in the queue for an agent can be found in Allocation Priority Calculations.

Selecting Agent for Contacts

A new contact comes to a queue and free agents are available. The contact is allocated to a free agent with the highest agent priority value, assuming that the agent meets the skill requirement.

The calculation rules for an agent’s priority in the queue for the contacts can be found in Allocation Priority Calculations.

Skill Expiry

With the Skill Expiry Time setting you can define the channel-specific expiry time after which all skills are removed from a contact. The setting is found in System Management > Channels, in each channel's Contact Management section. Skills expire also if the gradual lowering of skill requirements is in use and happening when the expiry time is reached.

The default skill expiry times are:

• Voice channel: 10 minutes

• E-mail channel: 1 week

• Chat channel: 10 minutes