Intelligent Staffing Overview

When Intelligent Staffing is not enabled, the attributes of role, region, practice, group, skills, and any custom fields are considered as essential for matching. A resource must precisely match the filter criteria in the PSA Resource Filter to be returned in the PSA Resourcing component.

You can match all skills or any skills. If you are matching any of the skills, the resource must have at least one of the requested skills at the required minimum rating to be returned.

Results in the PSA Resourcing component are sorted by availability in descending order. Any resources without availability information are at the bottom of the list. Results are not ordered when there is no availability data.

You can enable Intelligent Staffing by selecting Include Recommended Resources in the PSA Resource Filter on the Resource Request Lightning page. This setting is for each individual resource request. The default value of Include Recommended Resources is specified by Include Recommended Resources Default.

To set Include Recommended Resources in the PSA Resource Filter as selected by default, select Include Recommended Resources Default for the PSA Resource Filter component in App Builder. For more information, see Customizing PSA Lightning Components.

When Include Recommended Resources is selected, and you search, Intelligent Staffing calculates a rank for every resource. Resources are automatically sorted by rank ascending in the Rank column on the PSA Resourcing component. The Rank column represents the numerical ranking that PSA awards each resource.

Note:

Suggested, held, or assigned resources continue to display at the top of the list of resources, and where present, are ranked above any other resources.

The way other resources are ranked depends on whether you have configured the attributes of role, region, practice, and group to be essential or not from a match perspective, and the relative weightings for these attributes. For more information about configuring these attributes as non-essential, and their weightings, see Resource Search Service Settings.

When Include Recommended Resources is selected, and all your weighting custom settings are set to “Essential”, role, region, practice, and group are all considered as essential for matching a resource.

The Rank column displays the results in the PSA Resourcing component, and a numerical ranking is calculated for each resource. The resources are automatically sorted by rank ascending.

Note: Suggested, held, or assigned resources continue to appear at the top of the list of resources, and where present, are ranked above any other resources.

For resources who match, firstly their skill ratings and then availability determine their resource rank.

Example: The filter includes a skill of French at a minimum rating of 2.

The following resources all match on role, region, practice, and group, or a combination of any, and all meet the minimum rating of 2 for a skill of French:

Name	Skill	Rating	Availability
John Smith	French	3	100%
Jane Smith	French	3	80%
John Doe	French	4	70%
Jane Doe	French	4	60%

The resources are ranked as follows from the highest rank to the lowest rank, where 1 is considered as the highest rank:

Rank	Name	Rating	Availability
1	John Doe	4	70%
2	Jane Doe	4	60%
3	John Smith	3	100%
4	Jane Smith	3	80%

Intelligent Staffing calculates a unified skills rating to compare the resources against each other. This distinguishes between resources where the Resource Filter includes a number of skills and required minimum ratings.

The same calculation is performed regardless of the following:

• The Skills filter is Match All or Match Any
• Rating filters are applied

Example:

• Hermione is retrieved with skill ratings of 5, 3, 5, 0, and 2.
• Although there are five ratings, 0 is excluded, so there are now four values.
• Hermione’s unified skill rating is: 4 / (1/5 + 1/3 + 1/5 + 1/2) = 3.243 => 3.
• Hermione’s unified skill rating value is used to determine their rank.

The attributes of role, region, practice, and group do not need to be essential for matching resources. These attributes can be configured to be non-essential, so resources are considered and returned when they do not match the filter criteria in the Resource Filter. See Resource Search Service Settings.

The following Resource Search Service custom settings are available:

• Group Weighting
• Region Weighting
• Role Weighting
• Practice Weighting

These settings are referenced by Intelligent Staffing to determine whether each of these attributes is essential from a matching perspective, and also the weighting that is applied for a match on each of these attributes. These settings influence resource ranking.

Note:

There are no weighting settings relating to contact record fields except role, region, practice, and group. There are no weighting settings for skill ratings and availability.

When filtering resources on regions, practices, and groups in the PSA Resource Filter, you can include resources in sub-regions, practices, or groups of a specified parent region, practice, or group. However, Intelligent Staffing does not give a preference to a match on sub-regions, practices, and groups.

Example:

• A resource request for EMEA.
• EMEA is a parent region with a sub-region of UK.
• Another parent region is USA.
• The custom setting for the region is set to Ideal.
  It is not essential that the resource must be in the EMEA region for them to be included.
• A resource who is in the UK region, which is a sub-region of EMEA, is not given preference over a resource in the USA region, which is not a sub-region of EMEA.
• Only resources whose region is EMEA are considered as a match when calculating the rank.

When Include Recommended Resources is selected, and some or all your weighting custom settings are set to a value other than “Essential”, the equivalent attribute is considered as non-essential from a matching perspective.

The Rank column displays the results in the PSA Resourcing component, and a numerical ranking is calculated for each resource. The resources are automatically sorted by rank ascending.

Note:

Suggested, held, or assigned resources continue to appear at the top of the list of resources, and where present, are ranked above any other resources.

A resource’s rank is determined after considering the following for each resource in the order shown:

1. Their role, region, practice, and group.
2. Their skills and ratings.
3. Their percentage availability.

The rank calculation also depends on the values of the weighting custom settings for the role, region, practice, and group. See Resource Search Service Settings.

The following examples show how weightings contribute towards resource ranking.

All examples have Include Recommended Resources "Selected".

Example One

Custom Setting Field	Custom Setting Value	Resource Filter Field	Resource Filter Value	Example One Results
Role Weighting	Essential	Role	Consultant	All resources returned match the role. Resources who match the region are ranked higher than resources who do not match the region, but are below any held, assigned, or suggested resources.
Region Weighting	Ideal	Region	United States
Practice Weighting	Essential	Practice	-
Group Weighting	Essential	Group	-

Example Two

Custom Setting Field	Custom Setting Value	Resource Filter Field	Resource Filter Value	Example Two Results
Role Weighting	Essential	Role	Consultant	All resources returned match on role. Resources ranked highest match the region and practice below any held, assigned, or suggested resources. Below that are resources who match the region but not the practice. Below that are resources who match the practice and not the region. Below that are resources who do not match the region or practice.
Region Weighting	Ideal	Region	United States
Practice Weighting	Desirable	Practice	Consumer
Group Weighting	Essential	Group	-

Example Three

Custom Setting Field	Custom Setting Value	Resource Filter Field	Resource Filter Value	Example Three Results
Role Weighting	Essential	Role	Consultant	All resources returned match on role. Resources ranked highest match the region, practice, and group below any held, assigned, or suggested resources. Below that are resources who match on region and practice but not on group. Below that are resources who match on region and group but not on practice. Below that are resources who match the region but not on practice or group. Below that are resources who match on practice and group but not region. Below that are resources who match the practice, but not the region or group. Below that are resources who match on group only. Below that are resources who do not match the region, practice, or group.
Region Weighting	Ideal	Region	United States
Practice Weighting	Desirable	Practice	Consumer
Group Weighting	Suggested	Group	Consulting

Example Four

Custom Setting Field	Custom Setting Value	Resource Filter Field	Resource Filter Value	Example Four Results
Role Weighting	Essential	Role	Consultant	Two resources are matched. Resource one matches the role of consultant (Essential), region of United States (Ideal) and practice of consumer (Desirable), but does not match on group of Consulting. Resource two matches on role of consultant (Essential), region of United States (Ideal) and group of consulting (Desirable) but does not match on practice of Consumer. Where both resources match one Ideal attribute and one Desirable, there is nothing to distinguish between them from a ranking perspective in terms of role, region, practice, and group attributes. After Role, and RPG, resources are ranked by the unified skill rating of each resource, and then their availability to determine their rank. Note: Where both resources have exactly the same attributes, including skill ratings and availability, no specific sort order is applied. Both resources might be returned in a different order when the same search is performed again.
Region Weighting	Ideal	Region	United States
Practice Weighting	Desirable	Practice	Consumer
Group Weighting	Desirable	Group	Consulting

Example Five

Custom Setting Field	Custom Setting Value	Resource Filter Field	Resource Filter Value	Example Five Results
Role Weighting	Ideal	Role	Consultant	Two resources are matched. Resource one matches only the role. Resource two matches the region, practice, and group. Matching one Ideal attribute ranks higher than matching three Desirable attributes. Resource one is ranked higher than resource two.
Region Weighting	Desirable	Region	United States
Practice Weighting	Desirable	Practice	Consumer
Group Weighting	Desirable	Group	Consulting

Type	Name	PSA Location	Default Value	PSA Help
Checkbox	Include Recommended Resources Default	PSA Resource Filter component in Lightning App Builder on the Resource Request Lightning page	Deselected	Include Recommended Resources Default
Checkbox	Include Recommended Resources	PSA Resource Filter component on the Resource Request Lightning page	Deselected	Include Recommended Resources
Column	Rank	PSA Resourcing Component	Not Applicable	Rank
Custom Setting	Group Weighting	Resource Search Service Custom Settings	Essential	Resource Search Service Settings
Custom Setting	Practice Weighting	Resource Search Service Custom Settings	Essential	Resource Search Service Settings
Custom Setting	Region Weighting	Resource Search Service Custom Settings	Essential	Resource Search Service Settings
Custom Setting	Role Weighting	Resource Search Service Custom Settings	Essential	Resource Search Service Settings