Manage Digital Skills

Digital Experience uses digital skills and scripts to determine which agent or skill to route contacts The person interacting with an agent, IVR, or bot in your contact center. to. You can create custom digital scripts in Studio to determine how a contact is routed in CXone Mpower. You can also use Workflow Automation (WFA) to create rules for how contacts are routed. Studio and WFA work together to route digital contacts. WFA rules run independent of Studio scripts. You can use scripts and WFA rules together to customize the handling of digital contacts. You can also use routing queues to route digital contacts, however using digital skills and scripts is the recommended method.

If you also administer non-digital channels (such as voice or Personal Connection SMS, email, or chat), you've probably configured ACD skills Used to automate delivery of interactions based on agent skills, abilities, and knowledge. to route interactions on those channels. Digital routing is similar to traditional ACD routing.

Key Differences in Digital Routing

• All POCs The entry point that an inbound contact uses to initiate an interaction, such as a phone number or email address. must have a Studio script and a default digital ACD skill.
• Different Studio actions are used that cause ACD and digital interactions to follow different routing paths.
• Digital interactions can potentially last much longer than traditional ACD interactions, so digital scripts "sleep" when they're not active.
• Digital interactions only support one terminating action. And ending a digital script doesn't terminate the interaction or the contact.

Additionally, digital scripts have an alternate routing method. This legacy method uses Digital Experience routing queues Determine which agents to route digital cases to, using criteria such as the agent having expertise in that type of case. instead of scripts and digital ACD skills Used to automate delivery of interactions based on agent skills, abilities, and knowledge..

How Digital Routing Works

1. A message enters Digital Experience from a supported channel.
2. System scripts identify which point of contact The entry point that an inbound contact uses to initiate an interaction, such as a phone number or email address. (POC) an interaction is using. Scripts assign the POC's assigned default skill and route the contact using the POC's assigned custom script. The skill and custom script are assigned when a POC is created in CXone Mpower.

3. A custom script controls the flow of a contact through the CXone Mpower platform. The script starts with the default skill assigned from the POC. It can include IVR Interactive Voice Response. Automated phone menu contacts use via voice or key inputs to obtain information, route an inbound voice call, or both. or ASR Automatic Speech Recognition. Allows contacts to respond to prompts by speaking, pressing phone keys, or both. menus or other mechanisms to determine a more specific skill to use for each contact. Custom scripts can integrate with a variety of third-party applications such as CRMs Third-party systems that manage such things as contacts, sales information, support details, and case histories., databases, virtual agents A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent., or other services.

High-Level Set Up for Digital Routing

1. Create inbound digital skills,.

2. Create digital scripts.

3. Create digital channels on the points of contact Digital page. The steps to create a digital channel vary depending on the media type or social messaging platform.

4. Assign a default script and skill to points of contact.

5. Configure additional settings for unique channel features.

Create a Digital Skill

Required permissions: Skills Create and Skills Edit

Agents using Agent need to have the Digital Engagement attribute enabled and be assigned to a digital skill to handle digital interactions. Agents using MAX can handle digital interactions if they have either the Digital Engagement attribute or a digital skill assigned to them.

If your agents use SFA Classic, do not select the Accept/Reject option in this setup. This feature is not currently supported for digital channels and attempting to enable it will result in the contact being automatically refused.

1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

2. Go to Contact Settings > ACD Skills.

3. Click Create New > Single Skill.

4. Set the Media Type to Digital. Digital Any channel, contact, or skill associated with Digital Experience. skills will always be Inbound unless you are using Personal Connection or BYOC.
5. Enter a Skill Name.
6. Select the Campaign you want the skill to be part of.
7. To use rich content in your outbound message, select a Message Template.
8. To add a sub-skill to this skill, select the checkbox. This only applies if you use digital routing queues for contact skill assignment. This is not the recommended routing method. Using Studio scripts is the recommended method to manage contacts and assign skills.

9. Configure the remaining optional fields in the Skill Information section as needed.

   Learn more about fields in this step

   Field	Details
   Agentless	Don't select for agent dialing. When this is selected, Workforce Intelligence Minimum Agents and Workforce Intelligence Minimum Available Agents are not available.
   Sub-Skill	Allows you to add a sub-skill to a skill. This lets you apply additional filters to match a skill if you use digital routing queues for contact skill assignment. However, using Studio scripts is the recommended method to manage contacts and assign skills. Sub-skill is not compatible with Studio, so it's not recommended to be used.

10. If you want to use screen pops A pop-up window with information about the contact that appears on an agent's screen after an event such as connecting to a contact. for this skill, use the  action in Studio. This capability is only supported for the Agent suite.

11. If your organization uses dynamic delivery, use the Routing Configuration section to customize the routing experience for this skill. To do so, select an Evaluation Criteria and configure any related settings.

    • Skill Proficiency: This is the default setting. Routing decisions prioritize the agent with the highest configured proficiency level for the skill.

    • Preferred Agent: Routing decisions prioritize the agent who last handled the same case or contact. If you select this option, you must configure these settings: 

      • Focus Metric: Specifies which agent is the preferred agent. Choose between: 

        • Per Case: The agent who most recently handled an interaction linked to the customer case.
        • Per Customer: The agent who most recently worked on the interaction with the contact The person interacting with an agent, IVR, or bot in your contact center..

      • Focus Lock: Specifies what happens when the preferred agent is unavailable. Choose between:

        • When Offline: The interaction waits in queue until the preferred agent becomes available or the Fallback Time is exceeded. When the Fallback Time is exceeded, the interaction routes to another agent based on skill proficiency. The receiving agent becomes the new preferred agent for the case or contact.

        • When Available: An agent may be in an available state, but still not be immediately available. For example, they may have an available status, but be handling ACW State that allows an agent to complete work requirements after finishing an interaction., responding to a message from another contact, or otherwise busy. In this case, you must also configure Fallback Time to determine how long to wait for the preferred agent. When the Fallback Time is exceeded, the interaction routes to another agent based on skill proficiency. The receiving agent becomes the new preferred agent for the case or contact.

      • Fallback Time: The number of seconds to wait for the preferred agent to become available. For example, if you enter 900 seconds, the system will wait 15 minutes before routing the contact to another agent. If you choose to use Preferred Agent to route contacts, you must enter a value between 1 and 5,256,000. If you leave this field blank, you receive an error message.

      Any interaction that enters the queue without an applicable contact or interaction history routes to an available agent based on skill proficiency.

    • Least Occupied: Contacts route to the agents with the lowest number of active contacts and who have not already met their total contact limit. This option helps to evenly distribute contacts among your agents.

    • Most Occupied: Contacts route to the agents with the highest number of active contacts and who have not already met their total contact limit. This option helps to maximize agent effectiveness.

12. If you want to change the default service level settings for this skill, modify the fields in the Service Level section. This only appears if you are configuring an Inbound skill.

    Learn more about fields in this step

    Field	Details
    Service Level Threshold	The number of seconds agents have to respond to meet an SLA Commitment between service provider and customer with defined service level thresholds including quality, availability, and responsibilities.. For example, if your SLA for this skill is to respond to 80% of contacts within 20 seconds, enter a value of 20.
    Service Level Goal	The percentage of contacts agents must respond to by the Service Level Threshold to meet the SLA. For example, if the SLA for this skill is to respond to 80% of contacts within 20 seconds, enter a value of 80

13. To require agents to manually accept or reject interactions for this skill, select the Accept / Reject checkbox. If an agent rejects an interaction, it returns to the queue.

14. To enable a countdown timer for agent responses, go to Agent Response section. This capability is only supported in Agent. You can also do this later.

    Learn more about fields in this step

    Field	Details
    Enabled	Check the box to make the timer appear in the agent console. Clear the box to hide it.
    Agent First Response	Enter how long you want to set the timer for. The countdown timer starts when a contact is assigned to the agent. The countdown ends when the agent sends the first message.
    Follow on Response	Enter how long you want to set the timer for. The countdown timer starts again when a customer responds to the agent. It ends when the agent sends a reply.

15. To unassign contacts after a timer expires, go to the Customer Response section. This capability is only supported in Agent. You can also do this later.

    Learn more about fields in this step

    Field	Details
    Enabled	Check the box to unassign contacts when the timer expires. Clear the box to have no idle time limit.
    Customer Idle Time	The countdown timer starts when the agent sends the first message to the customer. The contact will automatically unassign the contact from the agent when the timer expires.
    Time Extension	Check the box to let an agent give the customer more time to respond. This enables a button the agent can click to reset the customer idle timer.

16. Click Create. Complete additional configurations to customize or manage your skills.

Configure Default Skill and Studio Script

All digital points of contact must be assigned a default skill and default Studio script for interactions to be processed and routed correctly.

You must have at least one Studio script and one skill created in order to assign them to a point of contact. Outbound contacts should route via Digital Experience using routing queue filters, whether the point of contact has a Studio script assigned to it or not.

You can check whether a skill serves as a default or not. Got to ACD Skills and select the skill you want to view. In the Details tab, under Skill Information, the field Is Default Skill, displays either Yes or No.

1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

2. Go to Digital > Points of Contact Digital.

3. Select the channel you would like to configure and click Edit.

4. Select a Studio script from the drop-down.

5. Select a default skill from the drop-down.

6. Click Save.