Assignment Rules

1Overview #

Two questions decide whether advertising money turns into business: who is working this enquiry, and how quickly did anyone reply. This screen answers both, automatically, for every new lead that arrives without an owner - and for any lead somebody keys in with the Owner box left blank.

Rules are tried in priority order; the first whose condition is true takes the lead and gives it to one of its people - in turn, to whoever has the fewest open leads, or always to the first one listed. Rules can name users, user groups or both.

Targets say how soon the first answer is due, per lead source, counted in working time. The owner is told at once; when the time passes with no answer, the team lead and the sales managers are told.

2Who it is for #

Share incoming leads fairly among a team, without anybody allotting them by hand.
Send a city's, a campaign's or a product's enquiries to the people who handle them.
Hold leads nobody's rule takes in an unassigned queue a group can claim from.
Give paid sources a tight first-response time and ordinary ones a looser one.
Try the rules on a real lead before trusting them.

3What it is not for #

Moving a lead that already has an owner. That is Reassign on the lead.
Deciding who may see what. That is ownership, sharing and the sales teams.
Setting up where leads come from. That is CRM > Lead Intake.

4Step by step #

Press Modify settings and set the working day, the default target, who gets a lead no rule takes, and (optionally) the unassigned queue group. Save (F5). - Do this first - it is what happens when no rule matches.
Press Add rule. Name it, give it a priority, and build its condition - or leave the condition empty for every lead. - Lowest priority number is tried first. Put narrow rules (one city, one campaign) before the catch-all.
Choose how it picks: in turn, fewest open leads, or the first person listed.
Add the people - users, user groups, or a mix - in the order you want them tried. - A group stands for its members at the moment a lead arrives, so people joining and leaving need no edit here.
Save (F5). Add more rules, narrower ones first.
Give paid sources their own first-response target. - For example: Facebook Ads 15 minutes of working time; website 4 hours.
Type a lead number under Try the rules on a lead and press Try. - It shows which rule would take it, whom it would go to, and which rules were skipped and why. Nothing is changed.

5The fields #

A rule
Name - What the rule does, e.g. "Kochi enquiries to the Kochi team". Up to 100 characters, unique
Active ? - Off: the rule is skipped. Leads it gave out keep their owners. Switch
Priority - Which rule is tried first. Lowest number first. Narrow rules before broad ones. 0 to 9999
How - In turn (round-robin over the people), whoever has the fewest open leads (counted now), or always the first person listed. Three methods
Description - Why the rule exists. Up to 512 characters
Condition - When the rule applies - over the lead's own fields and where it came from. Blank = every lead with no owner. e.g. Lead.City = 'Kochi', Lead.Platform = 'instagram', CONTAINS(Lead.Campaign, 'Solar'), Lead.Hour >= 18. A Meta test lead has Lead.IsTest = true. The approval workflows' builder
People - Users and user groups, in the order the rule tries them. Only people who can open this company are picked; disabled users are skipped. A rule with nobody left is skipped. At least one
A first-response target - One per lead source; everything else takes the default.
Lead source - The source the target is for. One target per source
Minutes - How soon the first answer is due. 0 = no target for this source. The chip on the lead, the bell item, and the missed-response alert. 0 to 100000
Working time only ? - On: the clock stops outside the working day - a lead at 22:00 is due the next morning. Off: clock time. Switch
Active ? - Off: the source falls back to the default target. Switch
Settings (256-262) - Press Modify settings to change them; they are also on CRM Settings under "Lead intake".
Day starts at / Day ends at - The working day, as 24-hour times. Working-time targets and the first follow-up of a lead that arrives at night. Like 09:30 and 18:30
Working days - Which days the clock runs. At least one
Default target (minutes) - For a source with no target of its own. 0 = none. 0 to 100000
A lead no rule takes goes to - The fallback owner. Blank = whoever set the source up; a lead keyed by hand stays with the person keying it. Any user
Unassigned queue - user group - Its members also see such leads and can Claim them on the lead page. Blank = no queue. From Admin > User Group
Warn before the Facebook connection lapses (days) - How early the set-up people are warned. 1 to 60 days
Try the rules on a lead - A dry run - nothing is changed, and no turn is used up.
Lead number - Any lead, e.g. LD-000012. Shows the rule, the owner, the reason, the target, and every rule that was tried and skipped. A lead number

6Rules and integrity #

Rules are tried by priority - The first active rule whose condition is true takes the lead. A rule whose condition cannot be read is skipped and says so - it never stops the lead.
Groups are resolved at the moment - A user group stands for its members when the lead arrives, filtered to people who can open this company.
In turn means in turn - The round-robin pointer is kept per rule and taken under lock, so two leads arriving together never get the same person.
No rule = the default owner - Setting 260's user, else whoever set the source up. With a queue group, its members see the lead too and can Claim it.
Claiming is first come, first served - The first person to press Claim gets it, and the open follow-ups move to them.
Answered means answered - A follow-up marked done, a message sent to them from the CRM, or the status moved by a person - whichever happens first.
Targets count working time by default - A lead arriving at 22:00 with a 30-minute target is due at 10:00 the next working morning - unless the target says clock time.
Test leads have no target - Meta's test leads are left out.
A lead keyed with an owner keeps that owner - The rules only ever apply to a lead without one.

7Shortcut keys #

F5 - Save while editing.
Esc - Cancel the edit; otherwise close the tab.

8If something does not work #

"Assignment rules come with the CRM Lead Intake add-on, which is not licensed for this company. Contact your software vendor."

Why: The add-on is missing from the licence.
What to do: Ask your vendor to add CRMINTAKE, then sign out and in.

"Lead intake and assignment are set up by an administrator or a sales manager."

Why: These rules decide who gets what, so they are not open to everybody.
What to do: Ask an administrator or a sales manager.

"Name: what the rule does, e.g. \"Kochi enquiries to the Kochi team\"." / "There is already a rule named '...'."

Why: The name is blank or already used.
What to do: Name the rule for what it does - you will read it in the lead's history.

"Priority: 0 to 9999 - the lowest is tried first."

Why: The priority is out of range.
What to do: Number the rules so the most particular is tried first.

"How: in turn, the fewest open leads, or the first person listed."

Why: No method was chosen.
What to do: Pick one - in turn shares evenly, fewest open leads favours whoever is free.

"Who: at least one person or user group."

Why: A rule with nobody on it can give the lead to nobody.
What to do: Add people, or a user group.

"Condition: ..." with a parser message

Why: The rule's condition cannot be read.
What to do: Build it rather than typing it, and test it against a real lead number.

"Source: pick the lead source the target is for." / "Source: it has a target already - modify that one."

Why: A response target belongs to one source, and each source has at most one.
What to do: Change the existing target instead.

"Minutes: 0 (no target) to 100000." / "Default target: 0 (none) to 100000 minutes."

Why: The response time is out of range.
What to do: Give minutes within the range; 0 means no target at all.

"Day starts at: a time like 09:30." / "Day ends at: a time like 18:30." / "Day ends at: after the day starts."

Why: The working day is not readable, or runs backwards.
What to do: Write the times as HH:mm, with the end after the start.

"Working days: at least one."

Why: Response times are counted in working hours, so there must be working days.
What to do: Tick the days you work.

"Warn before the Facebook connection lapses: 1 to 60 days."

Why: The warning window is out of range.
What to do: Give 1 to 60 days - a week is usual.

"Give a lead number." / "No lead ..."

Why: The rule tester was given nothing, or a number that is not a lead.
What to do: Type a real lead number to see which rule would take it.

"...: its condition is false." in the test

Why: The rule did not apply to that lead - which may be exactly right.
What to do: Read down the list: the first rule whose condition holds is the one that takes the lead.

"...: its condition cannot be read (...) - skipped."

Why: The rule's condition is broken, so it is passed over entirely.
What to do: Open the rule and rebuild its condition.

"...: it matches, but none of its people can open this company - skipped."

Why: Everybody on the rule is disabled, is a template, or has no access to this company.
What to do: Put live users on the rule.

Leads arrive but nobody is told

Why: The first-response clock and its escalation run in the background inside the API.
What to do: Check the API is running, and that the owner and their team lead are set up to be told.

Every lead goes to one person

Why: In turn shares from where it left off, but a rule with one person on it always gives it to them.
What to do: Add more people, or use the fewest-open-leads method.

9For an administrator #

Set this up before switching intake on - Leads that arrive with no owner and no queue are nobody's job.
Prefer groups to names - A user group survives people joining and leaving; a rule naming individuals needs editing every time somebody moves.
Be honest about targets - A 5-minute target nobody can meet trains people to ignore the alerts. Start with what the team can actually do.
Who may set it up - An administrator, or somebody whose designation category is Sales Manager.

10Settings it uses #

256 / 257 working day starts and ends, 258 working days, 259 default first-response minutes, 260 unassigned leads go to, 261 unassigned queue group, 262 warn before the Facebook connection lapses.

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