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Advanced Routing: Skill Requirement Relaxation and Overflow Timer explained
Answer ID 12974   |   Last Review Date 12/19/2025

How can the Advanced Routing setup related to Skill Requirement Relaxation and Overflow Timer affect the assignment timeframe?

Environment:

Advanced Routing

Oracle B2C Service

Resolution:

The Skill Requirement Relaxation and Overflow Timer settings configured on an Advanced Routing queue, and the way the accounts and profiles are set up in respect to this functionality, can have a significant impact on the chat or incident assignment time and could explain delays noticed at assignment.

Skill Requirement Relaxation

You can set the Skill Requirement Relaxation for a particular queue by opening Customizable Menus > Chat/Incident Queues > click on the respective queue. For the Language skills, you can only set the time (in seconds) after which the score can relax by 1, as the language skill's score can either be 0 or 1. For the Product skills, the Starting Minimum Score can be set to any number up to 5, while the Lowest Minimum Score can be set to any number up to 5, but must be lower that the Starting Minimum Score. 

 

Note that a value of 0 seconds disables skill relaxation. 

 
To better explain this feature, let's assume the Skill Requirement Relaxation is set as per this screenshot for one of your Advanced Routing queues
 
Language Skill 
 
If the language skill is assigned to an account or a profile, and the Score box is checked, then their score is 1. If the skill is added, but the Score box remains unchecked, then the skill is 0. 
In the scenario above, the system will first try to assign records to agents who have the box checked. If it cannot find any for 25 seconds, it will start looking for agents who have the skills assigned, but the box unchecked. The system will never assign a chat or an incident to agents who do not have the language skill assigned. 
 
Product Skill
 
For chat queues
In this case, when a chat is routed to this queue, having set a language and product skill..
  • Provided that there are agents logged in with the skill assigned
    • If there are agents with the product skill score of 4 or 5 with idle sessions, the system will first try to assign the chat to one of these agents, without prioritizing score 5 over 4, or vice versa. This is because the Starting Minimum Score is 4.
    • If no agents with product skill score of 4 or 5 have idle sessions in the first 20 seconds (the value of Relax Score Requirement After), the system will then try to also assign the chat to any agent with this product skill score of 3. The score decreased with 1 point based on the Score Decrement Amount value.
    • If after 20 more seconds (the value of Relax Score Requirement After), there are still no agents qualified to be assigned this chat (with skill scores of 3,4 or 5), then the system will try to assign the chat to agents who have the product skill score set to 2. The score decreased with 1 more point based on the Score Decrement Amount value.
    • After other 20 seconds, the skill will no longer decrease, as the Lowest Minimum Score is set to 2. For the remaining of the time, the system will try to assign only agents with the product skill score of 2,3,4 or 5
  • If there are no agents logged in with the skill assigned, the product skill will be dropped. See this Answer Link for additional details this Chat was routed to an agent with a different product skill than what was submitted with the chat request
With this example, if there are only agents with product skill score of 2 having idle sessions while the chat is waiting in queue, it is expected that the chat assignment will be delayed with at least 40 seconds. 
 
For incident queues
 
In this case, when an incident is routed to this queue, having set a language and product skill..
  • Provided that there are agents logged in with the skill assigned:
    • If there are agents logged in, with the product skill score of 4 or 5, who have not reached their Inbox limit, the system will first try to assign the incident to one of these agents, without prioritizing score 5 over 4, or vice versa. This is because the Starting Minimum Score is 4.
    • If no agents with product skill score of 4 or 5 have available slots in the first 20 seconds (the value of Relax Score Requirement After), the system will then try to also assign the incident to any agent with this product skill score of 3. The score decreased with 1 point based on the Score Decrement Amount value.
    • If after 20 more seconds (the value of Relax Score Requirement After), there are still no agents qualified to be assigned this incident (with skill scores of 3,4 or 5), then the system will try to assign the incident to agents who have the product skill score set to 2. The score decreased with 1 more point based on the Score Decrement Amount value.
    • After other 20 seconds, the skill will no longer decrease, as the Lowest Minimum Score is set to 2. For the remaining of the time, the system will try to assign only agents with the product skill score of 2,3,4 or 5
  • Note that incidents for which agents do not meet the minimum skill requirements will remain unassigned until either an agent with relevant skill score logs in, or 96 hours have passed (whichever comes first). Because incidents can be manually assigned and do not have an urgent nature such as chats, the product skill will not be dropped, as is the case with chats. See this Answer Link for additional information: Time limit for Advanced Routing assignment attempts.
 

Overflow Timer

When editing an Advanced Routing Queue, one can set a value in seconds after which the record will be routed equally to agents assigned the queue as a primary or an overflow. Overflow will be disabled if this field is set to 0, and the queue will be treated as a primary queue.
If, for example, you set the overflow timer to 30 seconds, and the following scenario exists on your site
  • Profile A has an Advanced Routing queue set as primary. 
    • Agent A is assigned this profile and is in unavailable status (for Chat) or logged out from the console (for Incidents).
  • Profile B has the same Advanced Routing queue set as overflow. 
    • Agent B is assigned this profile and is logged in / in available status.
.. when a record is created in that queue, Agent B is assigned the record only 30 seconds after it is queued by the Advanced Routing service, because this is only their overflow queue. 
 
You should keep in mind that this setup can cause delays in record assignment. 

 

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