How to Use Round Robin

Whether you're just learning about Round Robin for the first time, or you've just enabled it for a group in your instance of Issuetrak, you'll want to know what you can use this feature for. This article will discuss a few use scenarios for Round Robin and how it can make your work easier.


 

Quickly Re-Assign Any Quantity of Issues

Issuetrak has long provided the ability to make specific changes to a large quantity of issues meeting specific criteria. We call this feature Mass Update Issues. With the introduction of Round Robin, we can envision scenarios wherein these two features can be combined to reduce your stress and workload.


Fix Any Quantity of Incorrect Issue Assignments

You return from vacation to find out that a new team member has been assigning all of the issues they entered to the wrong team for a week. This looks like it could be a lot of work - there are over 100 issues that need to be properly re-assigned!

Steps:

  1. Either create or have a Round Robin group in mind that you want to re-assign the issues to.
  2. Create a report in Report Writer to look at all of the issues the new team member entered for the past week.
    1. Select the Issues data set.
    2. Select the fields:
      1. Issue Number
      2. Entered On
      3. Entered By
      4. Assigned To
    3. Set the filters:
      1. Status = Open
      2. Entered By = [New Team Member]
      3. Entered On = Date Range
    4. Save and run the report.
    5. Validate that the results only contain the issues that you want to re-assign.
  3. Click the gear icon in the upper right > Click on Mass Update Issues beneath Tools.
  4. Set Select Report to the report that you created in step 2.
  5. Set Choose Field to Assigned To.
  6. Set New Value to your team's Round Robin group.
  7. Click Update.

This will distribute the issue assignments amongst your team in far less time than if you did so manually.


Re-Distributing a Team Member's Issues

When one of your teammates needs to go on maternity leave, vacation, or any other length of time without working, you can easily re-distribute their issues amongst your colleagues.

Steps:

  1. Either create or have a Round Robin group in mind that you want to re-assign the issues to.
  2. Create a report in Report Writer to capture all open issues currently assigned to the team member that is going on leave.
    1. Select the Issues data set.
    2. Select the fields:
      1. Issue Number
      2. Entered On
      3. Entered By
      4. Assigned To
    3. Set the filters:
      1. Status = Open
      2. Assigned To = [Team Member Taking Leave]
    4. Save and run the report.
    5. Validate that the results only contain the issues that you want to re-assign.
  3. Click the gear icon in the upper right > Click on Mass Update Issues beneath Tools.
  4. Set Select Report to the report that you created in step 2.
  5. Set Choose Field to Assigned To.
  6. Set New Value to your team's Round Robin group.
  7. Click Update.

The employee's issues are now distributed amongst the team.


 

Create Different Auto Assignment Rules for Every Shift

If you have day and night teams that traditionally pull from the Unassigned queue, you can combine Round Robin with Auto Assignment rules that will continuously distribute incoming issues amongst the team members that share a common schedule. In this scenario, we will assume you have a day shift and a night shift that works Monday through Friday. Each shift belongs to a Round Robin group called Day Shift or Night Shift, respectively:

  • Day Shift: 6:00AM - 2:00PM
  • Night Shift: 2:00PM - 10:00PM


Day Shift Steps
  1. Click the gear icon in the upper right > Click on Auto Assignments beneath Automation.
  2. Along the right context menu, click Add.
  3. Fill in the initial matching criteria for issues that you want to be auto-assigned.
  4. Set the Submitted Between schedule for the Day Shift Round Robin group:
    • 6:00AM - 2:00PM
  5. Set the Submitted On days to Monday through Friday.
  6. Set the Auto-Assign To field to: Day Shift.
  7. Click Save.


Night Shift Steps
  1. Click the gear icon in the upper right > Click on Auto Assignments beneath Automation.
  2. Along the right context menu, click Add.
  3. Fill in the initial matching criteria for issues that you want to be auto-assigned.
  4. Set the Submitted Between schedule for the Night Shift Round Robin group:
    • 2:00PM - 10:00PM
  5. Set the Submitted On days to Monday through Friday.
  6. Set the Auto-Assign To field to Night Shift.
  7. Click Save.

In following the steps above, you've just configured Issuetrak to distribute issues based on the shift of the teams you manage. There is no need to activate or inactivate these rules when business hours end. The Round Robin Auto Assignments will automatically work according to the schedule you set!


 

Automatically Cycle Through On-Call Staff

If you have team members that remain on-call for after-hours support, then you know how important it is for them to respond to emergencies in a timely manner. These steps will show you how to use Automation in conjunction with Round Robin to help ensure that on-call staff responds to emergencies. In this scenario we will assume that your site has:

  • A Round Robin group called On-Call.
  • After-hours support between 10PM and 6AM, which the On-Call group covers.
  • An issue type called Emergency.
  • A default issue substatus called New, which is prohibited in your team's workflow for issues that are being addressed.
  • Email notifications enabled for the issue assignee.


Part 1: Auto Assignment Rule Steps
  1. Click the gear icon in the upper right > Click on Auto Assignments beneath Automation.
  2. Along the right context menu, click Add.
  3. Set the matching criteria to Issue Type = Emergency.
  4. Set the Submitted Between schedule for the after-hours support:
    • 10:00PM - 6:00AM
  5. Set the Submitted On days to Monday through Friday.
  6. Set the Auto-Assign To field to: On-Call.
  7. Click Save.

Part 2: Workflows Steps
  1. Click the gear icon in the upper right > Click on Workflows beneath Automation.
  2. Along the right context menu menu, click Add.
  3. Set the Interval fields for 10 minutes after Last Activity.
  4. Set the matching conditions to:
    1. Substatus = New
    2. Issue Type = Emergency
  5. Set the Set Assigned To field to On-Call.
  6. Set Add Note to: "On-call technician hasn't responded. Assigning to the next technician in rotation."
    1. Mark the note as Private.
  7. Name the rule After-Hours On-Call.
  8. Click Save.

After you've followed the steps above, your site will automatically re-assign a new emergency issue every 10 minutes, adding a note informing the reader why it has done so. The auto-assignment rule stops processing when normal business operations begin at 6 AM, while the workflow will continue running round-the-clock until the issue substatus or issue type is changed.