Conditional group routing overview

Conditional group routing (CGR) allows you to share groups of agents between different queues based on the rules you set. A rule is a combination of KPI and agent availability. Currently, Estimated Wait Time (EWT) KPI is available.

Using CGR, you can expand the available pool of agents incrementally. Although the agents from other queues are diverted to handle an interaction surplus in your original queue, the rules you set ensure that the KPI targets of the other queues are not compromised.

Considerations

  • All queues that are part of the division to which the original queue belongs are available for rule building.
  • All groups that are members of the original queue are available for rule building. However, Genesys recommends that you do not add some of the groups to the CGR rules and retain them as the default, go-to groups for interaction handling. This way, when an interaction arrives, CGR checks the availability of agents from these groups first and only when these agents are unavailable, CGR moves forward to check agent availability from the groups of other queues. 
  • CGR is best suited when multiple queues share common groups of agents. Genesys recommends that you add agents with similar skills to a group to optimize CGR. 
  • When a queue contains mixed media and the KPI of each media type is different, CGR cannot compare the individual media-level KPI value to the threshold value. Therefore, CGR is best suited for queues that contain a single media type. 
  • CGR does not support last agent routing. For more information, see Why is an email routed from a queue to an agent no longer in that queue?
  • CGR supports general groups, skill expression groups, and work teams. You can associate multiple groups with each rule. 
  • When any request involved in rule evaluation times out, the rule evaluation process fails. In such a scenario, Genesys Cloud evaluates the next rule. 
  • To ensure compatibility with WEM forecasting and scheduling, you can manage expansion by creating skill expression groups defined with the same skills but with varying levels of proficiency.
  • CGR currently does not support workitem routing. 

Agent selection process

When a new interaction enters a queue that has CGR enabled, the following sequence of events happens:

  1. By default, all individual agents and agents in groups that are members of the queue, but are not part of any of the five rules, are available for CGR routing. 
  2. Genesys Cloud evaluates the first rule.
    • If the conditions in the rule are met:
      1. Genesys Cloud marks all agents in the groups associated with rule 1 as available for CGR routing. Agents in these groups and the agents mentioned in step 1 are now available to take the interaction. 
      2. The interaction now waits for the wait period specified. If the interaction remains unassigned at the expiry of the specified wait period, Genesys Cloud moves to the next rule.
    • If the conditions in the rule are not met, Genesys Cloud considers the queue healthy and deactivates the associated groups, subsequent rules, and other groups that were previously activated for CGR.
    • If the rule evaluation process fails, Genesys Cloud moves to the next rule.
  3. Genesys Cloud now evaluates the next rule.  
    • If the conditions in the rule are met:
      1. Genesys Cloud marks all agents in the groups associated with this rule as available for CGR routing. Agents in these groups, agents in the groups of the previous rules (if they are not deactivated), and the agents mentioned in step 1 are now available to take the interaction.
      2. The interaction again waits for the wait period specified. If the interaction remains unassigned at the expiry of the specified wait period, Genesys Cloud moves to the next rule.
    • If the conditions in the rule are not met, Genesys Cloud deactivates the associated groups and moves to the next rule.
    • If the rule evaluation process fails, Genesys Cloud moves to the next rule.
  4. The process continues until the CGR assigns the interaction to an agent or until it reaches last rule. After the interaction reaches the last rule, the interaction waits to be assigned. Genesys Cloud does not route the waiting interactions through a fallback routing method. 

          CGR evaluates each interaction individually. When it deactivates a group for a new incoming interaction because of the rule not being met, the group also becomes retrospectively unavailable for the previous interactions that are waiting for an agent. This is applicable even if the agents in the group were marked as available for CGR earlier. Similarly, when a group, which was earlier unavailable, becomes available to a new incoming interaction, it becomes available to the previous interactions as well. 

          Example

          The following image explains a queue configuration that an administrator sets. The explanation that follows describes how Genesys Cloud routes an interaction if the KPI (at the time of evaluation) meets or does not meet the configuration that was set by the administrator. 

          Sample of conditional group routing configuration

          Scenario: The group, Sales_Platinum, and individual agents, Bob and John, are members of queue 001Q, but are not part of any rule.

          1. An interaction arrives in queue 001Q; Genesys Cloud evaluates the EWT of the queue at that time. 
            • If the EWT is 40 seconds – CGR activates agents in the three groups selected (for example, Sales_Gold, Sales_East, Sales_West). Agents in groups Sales_Gold, Sales_East, Sales_West, Sales_Platinum, and agents Bob and John are available for the interaction. Interaction stays on 001Q for 4 seconds, and if it remains unassigned, and moves to rule 2.
            • If the EWT is 30 seconds – CGR deactivates groups Sales_Gold, Sales_East, and Sales_West; it also deactivates rule 2, rule 3, and other groups that were activated in the past.
          2. Genesys Cloud evaluates EWT of 001NewQueue 
            • If the EWT is 25 seconds – CGR activates agents in the selected group (for example, Sales_North). Agents in groups Sales_North, Sales_Gold, Sales_East, Sales_West, Sales_Platinum, and agents Bob and John are available for the interaction. Interaction stays on the queue for 2 seconds, and if it remains unassigned, and moves to rule 3.
            • If the EWT is 35 seconds – CGR deactivates the groupSales_North and evaluates Rule 3.
          3. Evaluation continues until CGR assigns the interaction to an agent in the subsequent rules.

            To configure conditional group routing, see Create and configure queues. For a list of FAQs, see Conditional group routing FAQs.