Skill-Based Routing
Skill-based routing sends each ticket to someone qualified to handle it — the right language, the right product area, the right support tier. This guide covers the three pieces it takes: building a skill catalog, giving each user their skills and proficiency, and writing the rules that decide which tickets require which skill.
How It Fits Together
Three pieces have to exist before a single ticket routes differently:
- Skills — the catalog of things a person can be qualified in, such as Spanish, Billing, or Tier 2.
- People — who holds which skill, and how strongly (proficiency 1–5).
- Routing rules — which tickets require which skill, and whether the requirement is mandatory or a preference.
A team then has to use the Skill match agent selection strategy for those rules to take effect.
Skills are defined in Admin > Settings > Skills, but they are assigned in Admin > Settings > Users. A full catalog and a set of rules do nothing at all while nobody holds any skill.
Building the Skill Catalog
Go to Admin > Settings > Skills and open the Skill catalog tab.
Choosing from the seeded catalog
Setup wizard walks you through a category first — Language, Product, Tier, Certification — and then lets you tick only the skills you actually need from within it. Nothing is created until you confirm the selection, and a skill already in your catalog is shown as already added rather than offered twice.
If you are starting from an empty catalog, the Starter sets at the bottom of the wizard add a whole ready-made group at once — every supported language, for example. A starter set is a shortcut for onboarding, not a requirement.
Creating a skill by hand
Add skill creates one directly. A skill carries:
- Name — what admins see, for example “Spanish”. Free to rename later.
- Key — the stable identifier routing rules reference, for example
spanish. Set once and immutable, because rules point at it. - Category — how the skill is grouped when choosing and assigning.
Deactivating versus deleting
Deactivate keeps the skill and everyone’s history but stops it being offered for new assignments — the right move for a skill you are winding down.
Delete is refused while any routing rule still requires the skill. That is deliberate: cascading the delete would quietly relax the rule and widen who receives that work. Retire the rule first.
Giving People Their Skills
Go to Admin > Settings > Users, edit a user, and use the Skills section.
Tick each skill the person holds and set a proficiency from 1 to 5. Proficiency is what lets a rule demand a minimum standard, and it decides who wins when several people qualify. Skills are grouped by category, and only active skills are offered.
Saving replaces the person’s whole skill set, so the screen always shows exactly what they hold — there is no hidden accumulation of past assignments.
Setting a skill requires the skills:edit permission even when the person is editing themselves. Proficiency decides which work reaches someone, so self-assignment would let an agent opt out of the tickets they are qualified for.
Writing Routing Rules
Open the Routing rules tab on the Skills page. A rule says “tickets that look like this require that skill”.
- Required skill and minimum proficiency.
- Mandatory or optional.
- Priority — rules are evaluated best-priority first.
- Matchers — ticket type, ticket priority, channel, and tag. Leave a matcher empty to match anything.
When two rules name the same skill, the strictest wins: the higher minimum proficiency is kept, and mandatory beats optional.
Mandatory versus optional
| Setting | Who can receive the ticket | When nobody qualifies |
|---|---|---|
| Mandatory | Only people holding the skill at the required proficiency. | The ticket waits in the queue and is offered again as people become available. It is never broadcast to unqualified people. |
| Optional | Everyone available; holders are preferred. | Routing proceeds normally — the preference simply has no effect. |
A mandatory match always outweighs any number of optional ones, so a pile of nice-to-haves can never beat a hard requirement. Among qualified people the best match wins, and ties break the way the rest of the platform breaks them: fewest active tickets, then longest idle.
Turning It On for a Team
Go to Admin > Settings > Teams, edit the team, and set Routing strategy to Skill match.
A team switched to Skill match with no matching rules keeps routing exactly as it did before — it offers to everyone available. Turning the strategy on is therefore safe to do first, with rules added afterwards.
Troubleshooting
Tickets still go to anyone
Check the team’s routing strategy is Skill match, and that a rule actually matches the ticket. A rule carrying a ticket-type or tag matcher only applies to tickets that carry it.
Tickets sit in the queue and nobody is offered them
That is what a mandatory rule does when nobody qualifies. Lower the minimum proficiency, give more people the skill, or make the rule optional.
A brand-new user
Nothing extra is required. Saving their skills creates whatever routing record they were missing.
Related Documentation
- Team Management — routing strategies, capacity, and queues.
- Ticket Management — ticket types, priorities, and tags that rules match on.
- Permissions & Access — who may edit the catalog and assign skills.