Routing Attributes
Table of contents
What are Routing Attributes?
Routing Attributes are part of the On-Demand Contact Center Platform call routing system. Routing Attributes are used to describe properties of an Agent. These properties determine membership in Agent Pools. Campaigns, in turn, look to one or more Agent Pools when distributing telephone calls to Agents.
- Attributes can be used for other purposes than call routing, but for simplicity's sake, we generally refer to them as Routing Attributes.
To edit or create a Routing Attribute, click the Routing menu, then select Routing Attributes. The Attribute edit page contains three tabs: General, Stats and Links. Table 3-1 describes the fields found in the General tab. The Stats tab provides counts of the number of Agents who have this Attribute set, grouped by value. You'll need to save a newly created Attribute before these statistics will show up. The Links tab shows you which Pools are currently using this Attribute.
Attribute Field Descriptions
Table 3-1: Edit Attributes -> General Tab Fields
| Field Name | Data Type | Notes |
| Attribute Name | String | This will appear throughout Contact Center, so choose something that is descriptive and easy to understand. |
| Category | Select | Select the tab this Attribute will appear in on the Edit User screen. (You assign an Agent's Attribute values by editing their user account page). In general, you'll want to place your Attributes in the Routing tab, but there may be times when you want to use a different tab. The choice of tab location has no effect on Routing, it's just a way to organize your Attributes in the Edit User screen. |
| Status | Boolean | Attributes can be either "Active" or "Retired." When you mark an Attribute as retired, it no longer appears in the list of active Attributes, unless you specifically request them using the "Show Retired Attributes" checkbook on the Attribute List page. |
| Attribute Duration | Select | Set the duration of the Attribute:
In general, all of the Attributes you create will be Normal Attributes. Staff use the other types for special purposes. |
| Value Type | Select | This sets the data type for this Attribute:
If you want to rank Agents on a scale of some kind, it probably makes sense to use integers, e.g. 1 through 5. (It's also a good idea to use the Comments field to describe your scale: does 1 mean the best or the worst?) If an Attribute can be described in simple "on or off" terms, a Yes/No type makes sense. String types let you use words to describe the Attribute. For example, you might want to separate your Agents according to their manager, or give them a team name - e.g. the "Blue Team," "Red Team," etc. |
| Default Value | String | Enter the value you want this Attribute to start with by default. Using default values is especially effective if you want to use this Attribute for randomly weighted call distribution, as all new Agents will get the same value for this Attribute. |
| Available for Reporting | Boolean | This field controls whether or not the Attribute will appear in the Attribute field grouping in the Report Tool. |
| Machine Generated | Boolean | Contact Center uses some Attributes for its own purposes. These will be marked as Machine Generated, meaning this Attribute will contain values generated by Contact Center. If this is the case, values here should not be changed by hand, unless you know what you are doing. |
| Comment | String | It's always a good idea to describe anything clever you've done, especially in the wee hours. You won't remember how brilliant you were in the morning. |
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