Add an Assignment Rule
You can configure assignment rules to automatically assign an owner for incoming cases, so case workload is evenly distributed across your investigators. When a case is submitted, the system will select a case owner if there are any applicable assignment rules, without manual triage. Managers and investigators can also use assignment rules to reassign a case (see how in Assign a Case).
Assignment Rule Examples
Assignment rules are ideal when you want to consistently assign cases to a group of users in your application.
- Regional case assignment: automatically assign cases reported in North America to investigators in the same region.
- Senior investigator assignment: automatically assign senior investigators to cases with escalated priority or sensitivity.
To review all assignment rules in your application, select the “Assignment Rule” option on the Workflow tab in Settings. See Edit, Activate, Deactivate, or Delete an Assignment Rule for details on updating existing assignment rules.
Add an Assignment Rule
To add an assignment rule to your application:
1. Navigate to the Assignment Rule page under the Workflow tab in Settings. Click the Add Assignment Rule button.
2. In the New Assignment Rule form, you can configure your assignment rule's details, assignees, and criteria. In the first section, complete the following fields:
- Name: type in a descriptive name for your rule.
- Allow Manual Assignment: you can choose to allow users to manually select a case owner, which will override the assignment rule.
- Rule Order: set the priority by which the system will use the rule to assign cases. The system will use the rule order to determine which assignment rule to apply to a case that meets the criteria for multiple cases. Only one rules will be applied at a time.
Assignment Rule Record Type, Assignment Field, and Assignment Method
You can only set up assignment rules to assign owners to cases. Each user you include in the assignment group will be assigned in turn (called "round robin").
3. In the Assignees section, choose who will be assigned to cases with this assignment rule. You can select either "Specific Users" or "Group".
Specific Users
"Specific Users" allows you to select each individual to assign to cases per this assignment rule, which is ideal if you want to assign a limited number of users and you know their exact names. After clicking "Specific Users", you can search for and select users in the "Search users and emails..." box.
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Group
"Group" allows you to create criteria for the kinds of users to assign, without selecting specific individuals. In the screenshot below, we create a group to include senior managers who use English in the application. To create a group:
- Select "Group" as the "User Type". Then, check the "Must match the following custom criteria" box.
- Use the "Search fields..." box to select a user profile field. In our example, the fields are "User Role" and "Language".
- Another dropdown will be displayed beside the "Search fields..." dropdown after selecting a field. Select an operator for the criteria in this dropdown. The operator tells the system how to compare the field to the value in your criteria statement. Our example uses "Is" for both statements, which tells the system to include the user when the field is set to the value in the statement.
- One or more additional fields will be displayed beside the operator dropdown, where you can enter or select a value for the field. The system will look for this value in the field when determining whether to include the user in the assignment rule. We have chosen "Senior Manager" and "English" as the values in our example. This criteria tells the system that a user should be included in the assignment rule when their "User Role" is "Senior Manager" and their "Language" is "English".
- You can click the + Criteria button to add another field to your criteria as needed.
If you add multiple fields to your criteria, you can use the “All/Any" toggle below the criteria to set whether the user must meet all or one of the criteria.
- By selecting “All”, a user will only be included if all criteria are met.
- Choosing “Any” means that a user will be included even if only one of your criteria is met.
4. In the "Matching Criteria" section, you can set up criteria statements to tell Case IQ the kinds of cases to which to apply the assignment rule. You can use any case field for your criteria, such as “Case Type”, “Country”, and “Department”. In our example below, we created criteria so that the rule will only be applied to cases where the "Case Type" field is "Investigation".
5. When you are finished entering the details, assignees, and criteria for your assignment rule, click the Save button.
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6. In the "Activate Assignment Rule?" pop-up, you can choose to either:
- Save and activate the assignment rule immediately, which will apply it to all cases that meet your criteria moving forward.
- Save the assignment rule without activating it. This means the new assignment rule will not be applied to cases yet.
FAQ
How does Case IQ choose which user to assign with an assignment rule?
Case IQ will select users from the rule’s assignees in turn and initially sorts the assignees alphabetically by email to determine turn order.
For example, suppose a rule has three possible assignees. When the first case is submitted, the system will assign it to the first assignee in the list. Likewise, it will assign the second and third submitted cases to the second and third assignees. When the fourth case is submitted, the system will restart the cycle and assign it to the first assignee. Case IQ will avoid assigning a case to the same user in succession, even if users are added or deleted from the list of assignees.
Can I temporarily remove someone from the assignees?
You can temporarily prevent someone from being assigned to a case, even if they should be included per the assignment rule's group. This is ideal when an investigator is unavailable due to vacation, temporary leave, or a full caseload. See Exclude a User from Automatic Assignment for full instructions.