Sharpen Q (Interaction Assignment)

Overview

Sharpen Q is designed to pair the right interaction with the right agent at the right time. Whether you are configuring a queue call flow or troubleshooting a routing issue, understanding how Sharpen evaluates and assigns interactions is essential.

The system exists in a perpetual state of evaluation, continuously running a hierarchy of selection jobs to identify waiting interactions and available agents, then matching them based on priority and availability.

Key Terms

Available Agent
- A Sharpen Q user who meets all of the following criteria at the time of evaluation:
  - Holds an active (CustomerCare) license
  - Is logged into a queue associated with the interaction path
  - Is not paused
  - Is not currently on an interaction
  - Is not in wrap-up
  - Does not have an interaction on hold
  - Has the required skills assigned, if skill-based routing is configured on the queue

Queue (Q)
- The entry point, holding place, and distribution mechanism for interactions that are to be automatically assigned to available agents.

Q Call Point
- A priority value assigned to an interaction during the inbound call flow, via an Inbound Route, Workflow, or Logic flow. A higher point value causes an interaction to be prioritized over other waiting interactions with fewer points.

Q Skill
- A configuration tag that can be attached to interactions and assigned to agents to enable preferred or required routing behavior.

Required Skill
- A skill that restricts routing so that an interaction tagged with the skill will only be assigned to an agent who also has that skill assigned. Note that Sharpen does not apply unique skill proficiency levels per user, skill assignment is binary.

How Interactions Are Assigned

There are two primary scenarios the system continuously evaluates:

An agent becomes available and needs to be matched to a waiting interaction.
A new interaction enters the queue and needs to be matched to an available agent.

Sharpen handles both scenarios through the same prioritized selection process, described below.

Step 1 — Interaction Selection

The system evaluates all interactions currently waiting in the queue and selects the highest-priority one using the following criteria, in order:

Is the interaction awaiting agent assignment?
How many Q Call Points are assigned to it?
In what order did it enter the queue?

Interactions awaiting assignment are first filtered, then sorted—first by Q Call Points in descending order (highest points first), then by queue entry order in ascending order (oldest first). This means a higher point value will always outweigh interaction age. If two interactions have equal points, the one that has been waiting longest is selected. If no points are assigned to any interaction, the oldest interaction is always selected.

Step 2 — Agent Selection

Once the highest-priority interaction has been identified, the system identifies the most available agent to receive it.

Without skills: The system selects the available agent who has gone the longest since their last interaction, prioritizing the agent who has been idle the longest.

With skills: The same logic applies, but the agent pool is filtered and sorted based on skill assignments. If skills are set to Required, only agents with the matching skill are considered. If skills are set to Preferred, agents with the matching skill are prioritized, but agents without it may still be selected if no skilled agents are available.

All Available Agent criteria must be satisfied for an agent to be included in the selection pool.