AWA Implementation Guide

Summary

Elizabeth Orchard, an outbound product manager at ServiceNow, guides viewers through a basic implementation of Advanced Work Assignment. The tutorial covers installing the plugin, setting up service channels, queues, and assignment rules to route work items efficiently. It also explains how to leverage agent availability, capacity, and skills for optimal task distribution. The video demonstrates the process from configuration to verification, ensuring a successful setup for advanced work routing.

Takeaways

• 🚀 Elizabeth Orchard, an outbound product manager at ServiceNow, introduces a simple implementation guide for the Advanced Work Assignment plugin.
• 🔍 Advanced Work Assignment uses 'service channels' to define tables that require routing, including standard and custom tables derived from the interaction or task tables.
• 🔄 Work items, a table introduced by the Advanced Work Assignment plugin, act as tokens to route records through queues based on defined criteria.
• 📝 The assignment of work items to agents is determined by considering the agent's availability, capacity, and optionally, skills.
• 🛠️ Implementation of Advanced Work Assignment requires the core plugin, with optional plugins for skills management, skill determination, and analytics.
• 📑 The process involves configuring service channels, queues, assignment rules, rejection reasons, present states, and assignment groups.
• 🔑 Service channels are configured to specify the order of appearance in the inbox, the table they refer to, and conditions for routing.
• 🗂️ Queues are set up with routing conditions, schedules, target wait times, and max wait times to manage the flow of work items.
• 👥 Assignment eligibility records link queues to specific groups and define rules for how work items are assigned to agents within those groups.
• 🔄 Overflow settings ensure that unassigned work items are redirected to a backup group after a specified eligibility time.
• 🚫 Rejection reasons and present states are configured to manage agent availability and the handling of work items they decline.
• 🔑 Roles assigned to agent groups, such as 'Agent Workspace User' and 'AWA Agent', determine access to the agent workspace and the ability to receive work via Advanced Work Assignment.

Q & A

What is the role of Elizabeth Orchard in the video?

Elizabeth Orchard is an outbound product manager at ServiceNow, focusing on Advanced Work Assignment. She is guiding the viewers through a simple implementation process for Advanced Work Assignment.

What does Advanced Work Assignment leverage?

Advanced Work Assignment leverages Service Channels, which are a way of defining the tables that receive inputs requiring routing.

What types of items can be made into Service Channels?

Items that derive from either the interaction or the task table, such as requests, incidents, cases, chat, or any custom tables that are children of those interaction tables, can be made into Service Channels.

What is a Work Item in the context of Advanced Work Assignment?

A Work Item is a table that comes with the Advanced Work Assignment plugin. It is essentially a token that is passed around for Advanced Work Assignment to route records.

How does the routing of Work Items occur in Advanced Work Assignment?

The routing of Work Items occurs using queues. Work Items are pushed into these queues based on defined criteria and then later on get pushed to individual agents.

What are the criteria used to push Work Items into queues?

The criteria are conditions defined by the user that determine when a particular Work Item should enter the queue, which can include factors like priority, location, and other custom conditions.

How does Advanced Work Assignment determine the best-suited agent for a Work Item?

Advanced Work Assignment determines the best-suited agent by leveraging the agent's availability, capacity, and skills.

What are the required and optional plugins available for Advanced Work Assignment?

The only required plugin is Advanced Work Assignment itself. Optional plugins include Skills Management, Skill Determination, various accelerators for different use cases like CSM, HR, or Incidents, and an Analytics plugin.

What is the process for configuring Service Channels and Queues in the video?

The process involves configuring Service Channels by defining the name, inbox order, and table. Then, creating Queues by naming them, setting the Service Channel, defining routing conditions, and submitting the queue.

How are Assignment Groups and Assignment Rules used in the video?

Assignment Groups are used to manage the queues, and Assignment Rules define how Work Items are assigned within the group. These rules can be based on the last assigned person, capacity, or other factors.

What is the purpose of defining 'Rejection Reasons' in Advanced Work Assignment?

Rejection Reasons allow agents to specify why they are rejecting a Work Item that has been offered to them, and they can also determine if the rejected Work Item is reassignable to an agent.

What are 'Present States' and how are they used in the video?

'Present States' are the different states that agents can set themselves to within the Agent Workspace, indicating their availability to receive Work Items. They are configured to specify which service channels are available for agents to receive within each state.

How can the effectiveness of Advanced Work Assignment be verified?

The effectiveness can be verified by checking the Work Item table to see the status of the Work Items, including wait times, acceptance, rejection, and timeout information.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Introduction to Advanced Work Assignment

Elizabeth Orchard, an outbound product manager at ServiceNow, introduces the topic of advanced work assignment and its implementation. She explains that the process will cover the installation of the plugin and the basic setup of the system, which uses service channels to define inputs that require routing. Examples of service channels include requests, incidents, cases, and chat. Advanced work assignment converts these inputs into work items and uses queues to route them based on defined criteria. The criteria for routing consider the agent's availability, capacity, and optional skills.

05:02

🛠 Setting Up Service Channels and Queues

The script outlines the process of configuring service channels and queues within the advanced work assignment module. It details how to create a new service channel for incidents, set the inbox order, and define the table for assignment. It also explains how to create queues, set routing conditions, and establish the target and maximum wait times for work items. The script emphasizes the importance of defining conditions to ensure that work items are routed appropriately based on priority.

10:03

🔄 Assigning Work Items to Agents

This section describes how work items are assigned to agents within specific queues. It explains the assignment eligibility feature, which allows for the definition of rules for assigning work items to agents based on their availability, capacity, and skills. The script also covers how to set up overflow conditions for when no agents in the primary queue are available, and how to enable skills handling for more complex routing scenarios.

15:04

🔧 Configuring Rejection Reasons and Presence States

The script discusses the configuration of rejection reasons, which are the reasons agents can select when they need to reject a work item. It explains how to set these reasons to be selectable by agents, apply across service channels, and determine if a rejected work item can be reassigned. Additionally, it covers the setup of presence states, which are the different statuses that agents can set in their workspace, affecting their ability to receive work items.

20:06

🔄 Agent Workspace Access and Advanced Work Assignment Verification

The final paragraph focuses on ensuring that agents have access to the agent workspace and can receive work items through advanced work assignment. It describes the roles assigned to the IT support group that enable agents to access their workspace and be part of the routing process. The script concludes with a demonstration of how an agent receives a work item and how to verify that the advanced work assignment is functioning as intended, using the work item table for reporting and metrics.

👋 Conclusion and Future Engagement

Elizabeth wraps up the video by thanking the viewers and inviting them to watch the next video in the series. She suggests that the audience explore the rest of the playlist for more detailed implementations that build upon the basic use case presented in this video.

Keywords

💡Outbound Product Manager

An Outbound Product Manager is a professional who oversees the development and marketing of a product, ensuring it meets customer needs and is effectively communicated to the market. In the video, Elizabeth Orchard, as an Outbound Product Manager at ServiceNow, is guiding the audience through the implementation process of Advanced Work Assignment, a product she manages.

💡Advanced Work Assignment

Advanced Work Assignment is a feature or plugin within ServiceNow that automates the routing of work items to the appropriate agents based on various criteria. It is central to the video's theme, as the script describes how to install and implement this feature to enhance work distribution and efficiency.

💡Service Channels

Service Channels in the context of ServiceNow define the inputs coming from different sources that require routing. The script explains that anything derived from the interaction or task table can be made into a service channel, such as requests, incidents, cases, and chat, which are then routed through Advanced Work Assignment.

💡Work Item

A Work Item is a term used within the Advanced Work Assignment plugin to describe a token or record that is passed around for routing purposes. The script mentions that once service channels are set up, they are converted into work items that Advanced Work Assignment uses to route records to appropriate queues.

💡Queues

Queues in the video refer to the system used by Advanced Work Assignment to manage work items. Work items are pushed into these queues based on defined criteria, and then offered to individual agents. The script provides examples of queues such as 'Priority HR Cases' and 'IT Chat German Chat'.

💡Assignment Groups

Assignment Groups are teams or groups of agents assigned to manage specific queues within the Advanced Work Assignment system. The script explains that each queue can have multiple assignment groups, and these groups can be attached to multiple queues, playing a crucial role in the distribution of work.

💡Availability, Capacity, and Skills

These three terms are used to describe the criteria that Advanced Work Assignment uses to determine the best-suited agent for a work item. 'Availability' refers to whether an agent is online and active, 'Capacity' checks if the agent can take on more work, and 'Skills', which are optional, match agents with required competencies for specific work items. The script illustrates how these factors are considered during the assignment process.

💡Plugins

In the context of the video, plugins are additional software components that can extend the functionality of the Advanced Work Assignment feature. The script mentions that while the Advanced Work Assignment plugin is required, there are optional plugins available for skills management, skill determination, and analytics, which can enhance the routing process based on specific use cases.

💡Assignment Rules

Assignment Rules are the conditions and logic defined within the Advanced Work Assignment system that dictate how work items are assigned to agents. The script details how to set up these rules within assignment eligibility records, including factors like incident priority and agent capacity.

💡Rejection Reasons

Rejection Reasons are the justifications agents can provide when they choose not to accept a work item. The script explains how to configure these reasons within the system, allowing agents to reject work items and for the system to determine whether the work item can be reassigned.

💡Present States

Present States refer to the different statuses an agent can set within the agent workspace, indicating their availability to receive work items. The script describes how these states can be configured to allow agents to receive specific types of work items, such as incidents, when they are marked as available.

Highlights

Introduction to Advanced Work Assignment plugin by Elizabeth Orchard from ServiceNow.

Explanation of Service Channels as a method to define inputs for routing.

Conversion of interaction or task table derivatives into service channels for routing.

Introduction of Work Item as a token for Advanced Work Assignment routing.

Utilization of queues for routing work items based on defined criteria.

Criteria for work item queue entry and subsequent agent assignment.

Agent assignment based on availability, capacity, and optional skills.

Mandatory plugin and optional plugins for Advanced Work Assignment.

Process of configuring service channels for routing specific items like incidents.

Setting up queues with conditions for work item routing.

Creating assignment eligibility records for queue management.

Defining agent assignment rules within assignment groups.

Handling overflow with backup assignment eligibility for unassigned work items.

Review of rejection reasons for offered work items by agents.

Configuration of present states for agent availability and work item reception.

Ensuring agents have access to the Agent Workspace and can be routed via Advanced Work Assignment.

Demonstration of work item routing in the Agent Workspace with an example incident.

Verification of Advanced Work Assignment functionality using the Work Item table.

Conclusion and invitation to explore further implementations in the playlist.

Transcripts

hello my name is elizabeth orchard and

i'm an outbound product manager here at

servicenow

focusing on advanced work assignment

today i'll be walking you through a

simple implementation that takes you

from just installing the plugin all the

way through to a basic implementation of

advanced work assignment

with that said let's get started

advanced work assignment leverages

service channels which is just another

way of defining

which tables are the inputs coming in

from which require routing

now

anything that derives from either the

interaction or the task table can be

made into a service channel

so you can see some examples here there

are requests

incidents

cases

chat any of these items can be routed in

addition to any of your custom tables

that the children of those tasks or

interaction tables

when these items have been set up as

service channels

advanced work assignment will pick them

up and convert them into a work item

now a work item is a table that comes

with the advanced work assignment plugin

and essentially it's token that's passed

around for advanced work assignment to

be able to actually route these records

the way that routes is actually using

queues

so on the screen here you can see some

example cues there's priority hr cases

standard hr cases i t chat german chat

now the way that the queue system works

is work items are pushed into these

queues based on the criteria that you

define

and then later on get pushed to the

individual agents

now this criteria will go into further

detail later on in this video

but it's essentially you defining

conditions of when a particular work

item should enter the queue

now when a work item has entered the

queue it then goes to a partic it is

offered to a particular agent

now each of these groups is assigned to

these cues

and

and the queue can actually have multiple

assignment groups assigned to it in

addition to the assignment groups being

able to

be attached to multiple queues

now

when looking to assign a work item to a

particular agent

advanced work assignment actually looks

to leverage the agent's availability

capacity and skills to make a

determination on which

agent is best suited

now availability in this context means

are they online and active or not

capacity looks at their current

bandwidth to see if they're able to take

on any more work

and skills which are actually optional

with an advanced work assignment where

we look to see

if a work item coming in has a mandatory

skill

and if so then we need to find an agent

that can handle that

so let's look into what's required for

implementing advanced work assignment

there are a number of plugins that are

available as of san diego for advanced

work assignment

um the only required plugin is that of

advanced work assignment however there

are a number of optional plugins also

available based upon your use case

so if you wish to do routing based on

skills you also need to

install the skills management and skill

determination plugins

if your particular use case covers csm

hr or incidents you can actually install

some accelerators that provide a lot of

the um functionality that you need so

all you have to do is go in and activate

them for advanced reconsignment to be

turned on

and lastly there's a plugin available

for analytics

where you can actually install that and

look to see how advanced work assignment

is working for you and your organization

now let's get into what the process

looks like

in this video we'll be configuring the

following

service channels

cues

assignment rules associated with the

queues

rejection reasons present states

and lastly assignment groups

we'll then be showcasing how this looks

within the system and how you can verify

that it's working correctly

but that said let's get into it

perfect

so the first thing that we want to do is

configure service channel

now in today's video what we're looking

to route is

using an advanced work assignment is

actually assigning incidents

so the first thing we want to do is go

to the menu

go to the advanced work assignment

module and click on service channels

we will then create a new one for

instance as it does not already exist

now together fields

what we're going to put in the name is

incident

the inbox order is actually the order in

which chat service channel items appear

within the ancient inbox

now what we're going to do is set this

value to 100 as we already have chats in

the queue and we're looking to

put these underneath chats as incidents

are generally let lower priority than

live chats

we then set the table to be incident

then the fields on the right here you

can see already populate with assigned

to and assignment group fields

now what this means is when we actually

assign this to a user

the assign to field will get populated

with that agent's name along with their

assignment group

you can actually modify these values

depending on your organization needs

we have the ability to

define an advanced condition which is

where in where we just looked to say

okay if we want a surface channel that

applies to only incidents from

germany for example we can set a

condition here that looks to see who

opened instant and then if the location

is germany we will be using this ser

this channel

however in this instance we are going to

be routing all incidents through the

surface channel

you can also define the particular audio

that would you would like when a

new alert comes in

and then also look to define the

capacity and utilization so just walking

through each of these fields

the default work item size is the amount

of agent capacity that's used when this

work item is assigned

the capacity looks to see the number of

items that are automatically assigned to

an agent

and then the utilization condition

actually looks to determine what

actually constitutes an active item that

counts towards the agent's workload or

capacity

for example if

incident is in the active

state

then what we want to do is make this

counter utilization

now that we've configured our

service channel

what we're going to do

is create that

and then we're actually going to go

ahead and create a new queue

so we can do that

either through the service channel

itself

or through the drop down menu available

if we click into here if you haven't

sold those accelerator plugin packs you

may see some cues or that already exists

however we want to create a new one

now lq is only going to be taking in

incidents that are of a high priority

so

we're going to name high priority

set our service channel to be incident

and then what we want to do

is define the work item routing

condition

so for the conditions you can either do

simple which is just using these

drop-down options

or advanced

in which you can actually define a

script

now for simple

what we want to do is look at the

priority

and set it to be one of the following

critical or high

now

on the right here we see that there's a

schedule field

if nothing is set then it's set by

default to be 24 7.

if we go down to the bottom here we see

the two fields there's target wait time

which is used for metrics and kpis

and the max wait time

if this time

is hit

then the work item will timeout and it

will actually

be cancelled but that said we are not

setting wait times today so we'll go

ahead and submit this queue

now because we do want this these

incidents to all be routed we'll

actually create another cube to handle

those which are not high priority so

instant

medium and low

prior

priority

again

incident

now down here we want to be sure to set

the condition so then that there's no

overlap from the previous

queue that we have which is why we're

sending the condition to be priority is

one of moderate low or planning

so let's submit that

now that our cues have been set up let's

go ahead and define how they actually

get assigned to particular agents

we have gone back to our high priority

incident queue

and if we scroll down we can see an

assignment eligibility related list

what we're going to want to do

is open up

a new record here

and you can see that we actually assign

the groups that manage this queue

i have already set one up earlier

named it support

the next step is to define the agent

assignment rule

let's see what's contained within these

records

so within here is actually how we define

assignment within

the group that we assigned to manage

these work-out incoming work items

so what going to want to do is check

incident

assignment

rule

and you can choose to design by the

person who was last assigned

or by the person who has the most

capacity

it is from this record here that you

also allow the agents to reject the

incoming instant progress

and reassign required

incidents on timeout

so if you set a time here if we say one

minute if an agent has not accepted an

offered

incident

by one minute they'll go ahead and try

to reassign this incident to a different

agent

you can also define after timeout

presence so this is where you would say

if an agent turns to the array present

state or unavailable present state

that's when you want to reassign

you can also enable skills handling in

here so if you're doing skill balance

routing

you click in here enable skills and then

they'll factor skills into the

assignment

so let's submit that

and then create our assignment

eligibility record

now one thing to note is

let's say no one is available within the

it support queue to manage this work

item coming in

what we want to do is define an overflow

to do so

we actually create a brand new

assignment eligibility record

we can use the same agent assignment

rule

but instead we want to assign

it to the backup which is actually the

engineering

team this will be when the i.t support

group doesn't answer it will then be

routed to the agents with an itsm

engineering group

however to ensure that they the

engineering group does not get bothered

upon first

receiving the work

we need to set the eligibility time

so if we set it to

one hour

if an incident comes in and is offered

to the original i.t support group but no

one accepts it within an hour

it will then be routed to the itsm

engineering group

to then be accepted by one of their

agents

the next step for us is to review the

rejection reasons

so what we're able to do is again go to

the advanced work assignment module and

go to reject reasons

out of the box you have access to four

separate rejection reason

reasons

let's go into one of them

so

within the the within this record we can

see that the reason has a name called

busy and this is actually what the

agents themselves are seeing when

they're

trying to reject a

work item that has been offered to them

now we can see the options are is it

selectable by agents right now

should it apply across all service

channels

if you do not select this you need to

define which service channels it applies

to

you can also define if it is

reassignable to an agent so if a user

rejects the work item that's come in

saying that they're busy

however there's no other agents

available that work item will actually

be offered back to that same agent so

this is great if you do not have a large

support team

and

you may have an instance where everyone

might reject that rock item but you

still need someone to handle it

now lastly there's also order and this

is just the order in which it displays

um to the agents

perfect so the next item we're going to

be looking at is present states

now these are the different states that

the agents can set themselves to within

the agent workspace so let's go into one

of them

within these present states

first of all you can set the if agents

are able to receive work items within

the state

the service channels that are available

for agents to receive within the state

you can show the different channels

within the agent

workspace

and then you can also apply this across

all groups

now as we are wanting to

add an incident to be a receivable when

an agent is available

we would add it in here however you know

that we do not see it within this list

that is because if we go back to the

service channel record we can see that

it is not active

so ensure that your items are active

when you create them

so if we save that record

and navigate back to the available

present state

we can see that incident is now

selectable

so again to reiterate what this means is

if an agent marks himself as available

they can

receive both chats and incident records

now that this is configured the last

thing we want to double check is

actually that the agents have access to

um they both agent workspace and able to

be routed

um via advanced work assignment

so let's go check that out

now we'll be navigating to our it

support group

and what we see down here is that two

roles have been assigned to this it

support group the first is agent

workspace user so this role allows

agents to access their agent workspace

second of all there's a awa agent which

allows agents to receive

work via advanced work assignment

next up let's go check it out to see how

it works

so first of all what we're going to look

at is agent workspace

so right now i am logged in as our agent

jake barnes

and this is and he's currently in the

agent workspace

he's going to click on inbox

and then go ahead and set his status to

available

now that he's available we're going to

go ahead and submit an instant record

and if you remember the cue that we

configured requires incidents to have a

high priority so let's say that

now we're going to go ahead

and submit this incident

[Music]

what you can see here is an incident has

been received by jake barnes

where he can

accept

and see the incident right from his

queue

so one question you may be asking is how

do i know that this

actually was working according to an

advanced work assignment

what we're able to do is go back to the

instance

and go to the work item table

we can see in here that the incident

that we created it's actually a value in

here

so let's see what that says

within this record we can see that the

wait time was 11 seconds before it's

accepted

it was not cancelled

as work item move one

and does not fulfill any of the criteria

listed by these true false fields such

as was it rejected did it time out

these fields are all very good to use

for

your reporting and metric needs

so that has been an example

implementation for advanced work

assignment just with a simple basic use

case

as i mentioned earlier in the video

please look through the rest of the

playlist to see more specific

implementations that build upon this

version

thank you so much and i'll see you in

the next video