Resource Selection Criteria: Most Skilled vs Most Skilled by Order

[floatingpurr]

Hi! The difference between Most Skilled vs Most Skilled by Order is not crystal clear to me. As per the doc:

• Most Skilled—Used for expert agent call distribution. Selects the agent with the highest total competency level. The total competency level is determined by adding the agent's competency levels for each of their assigned skills that are also assigned to the CSQ.

  • Example 1: If Agent1 is assigned Skill1(5), Skill2(6), and Skill3(7) and CSQ1 specifies Skill1(min=1) and Skill3(min=1), the total competency level for Agent1 for CSQ1 is 12.

  • Example 2: If Agent1 is assigned Skill1(5) and Skill2(6) and Skill3(7) and CSQ1 specifies Skill1(min=1), only, the total competency level for Agent1 for CSQ1 is 5.

• Most Skilled by Order—Used for expert agent call distribution. Selects the agent with the highest total competency level in the ordered list.

In such an ordered list you can also assign a minimum competence level to filter out low skills, exactly as it happens for "most skilled". Since "total competency level" looks like a simple sum, I do not understand how the skill order in the CSQ can play a role in that calculation

[Roger Kallberg]

With most skilled by order you also have the possibility to move the order of skills to influence the order of them being used in the calculation as your outline for the Most Skilled option.

[floatingpurr]

Thank you. My question lies in that ordered list of skills. Since the "total competency level" is a sum, and the sum is commutative, I do not understand how the skill order can play a role in the calculation.

Imagine this scenario:

• Agent1 is assigned Skill1(5), Skill2(6), and Skill3(7)

• CSQ1(Most Skilled) specifies Skill1(min=1) and Skill3(min=1), the total competency level for Agent1 for CSQ1 is 12.
• CSQ2 (Most Skilled by Order) specifies this ordered skill list: Skill3(min=1) and Skill1(min=1), the total competency level for Agent1 for CSQ2 is still 12. 
• CSQ3 (Most Skilled by Order) specifies this ordered skill list: Skill1(min=1) and Skill3(min=1), the total competency level for Agent1 for CSQ3 is still 12. 

Where is the difference? I can't imagine any case where Most Skilled by Order can be different from a flat set of skills (ie., Most Skilled). Maybe I'm not grasping the nitty-gritty of that.

[Roger Kallberg]

The documentation has it explained as this.

Most Skilled by Order — Used for expert agent call distribution. Selects the agent with the highest total competency level in the ordered list.

The way I read that is if you have two agents that are skilled like this

• Agent1: Skill1(5), Skill2(6), and Skill3(7)
• Agent2: Skill1(5), Skill2(7), and Skill3(6)

Both of these gives a sum of 18.

And then have a CSQ that is set with this order of the skills

1. Skill1
2. Skill3
3. Skill2

With this agent1 will be the preferred one for calls in this queue as it has a higher value for Skill3.

[floatingpurr]

Thank you @Roger Kallberg. If I understand well, you are arguing that we do have a kind of skill "order" for agents too, right? Checking out the agent section in the doc, there is no mention about that. Also the skill selection for an agent in the web interface doesn't explicitly look like a list (e.g., There are no arrows. You can't alter the skill "order", unless you entirely remove or add groups of skills... and skills can be up to 50!). 

IMHO, it's a quite confusing scenario. However, I think that your explanation is the only that can work. Have you ever tried it?

[Roger Kallberg · Accepted solution]

The order of skills are defined on the CSQ, not on the resource (agent). What is defined on the resources is the value per skill, so an agent with a higher value on a skill that is set at a higher position in the list of assigned skills on the CSQ will be considered as preferred before another agent with the same total amount of skill sum. You could look at it like putting a weight on a skill to act as a tiebreaker for agent selection if the total sum of skills are equal.

No I have never used this specific queue setting, so I have no first hand experience.