--- schema_version: "1" id: 42d3f7d18289bcb7a5d3adb772ca5b1be8b502af9fbeab19b1607998d601f0a6 title: Route to a Skill collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/service/264-0-0/omnichannel_skills_based_routing_how_it_works.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.omnichannel_skills_based_routing_how_it_works.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: fc40b3e633b8e706a3d02b81d4559513dc386ff7eb2a9e69f58f6a928de22760 description: Improve the quality of customer service by automatically routing each work item to the best service rep for the job. With skills-based routing, route every work item to the service rep who has the right skills to solve the problem. products: - Service Cloud release: "264" --- # Route to a Skill Improve the quality of customer service by automatically routing each work item to the best service rep for the job. With skills-based routing, route every work item to the service rep who has the right skills to solve the problem.
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To implement skills-based routing, you define logic that determines the skills needed to route work items and identify each service rep’s skills. To define logic that determines the skills needed to route work items, use one of these methods. - Route work using an Omni-Channel flow. Omni-Channel flow offers the greatest flexibility and features not available with skills-based routing rules. With a flow, you can define skill requirements dynamically for each work item and run skills-based routing rules. See [Route Work Items to Skills](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.omnichannel_route_using_skills.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Automatically route work items to qualified support reps based on their specific skills. You can achieve this using skills-based routing rules, an Omni-Channel flow, or a combination of both. For instance, to conditionally assign specific skill requirements to work items using an Omni-Channel flow, add a Decision action to establish the conditions that determine which set of skills are applied to each work item and add a Skill Requirements action to define a set of skills."). - Route work using skills-based routing rules. See [Routing with Skills-Based Routing Rules](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.omnichannel_attribute_based_routing.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Create skills-based routing rules to define when to require specific skills when routing work to service reps. For example, define a rule that routes calls about product returns to a service rep who knows how to process returns."). To assign skills to service reps, define each service rep skill, and then assign them to service reps. To assign a skill to a service rep, assign the skill to a service resource and then assign the service resource to the service rep. If a service rep isn't assigned a service resource, the service rep doesn't appear in Command Center for Service when they're offline. ![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-service-support-264-0-0-production-enus/dd14551c-a772-4db6-9a1d-d84df8df2980/images/icon_note.png) Note With external routing, Skills-Based routing or direct-to-rep routing is not supported. 1. **[How Does Skills-Based Routing Work?](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.omnichannel_how_skills_based_routing_works.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)** Skills-based routing in Omni-Channel matches work items to the most qualified service reps based on the required skills. When a work item is created, Omni-Channel determines the required skills based on the routing configuration, skills-based routing rules, and any skill requirements passed into the Route Work action in the Omni-Channel flow. Omni-Channel then routes the item to a service rep who has all of the requisite skills and available capacity to take the work. 2. **[How Does Skills-Based Routing Differ from Queue-Based Routing?](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.omnichannel_skills_based_routing_comparison_to_queues.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)** Skills-based routing allows work items to be routed using more sophisticated and dynamic criteria than queue-based routing. 3. **[Prepare to Route to Skills](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.prepare_to_route_to_skills.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)** Before you set up routing to skills, review the skills-based routing limitations, set up Omni-Channel, and complete these prerequisite tasks. 4. **[Skills-Based Routing Limitations](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.omnichannel_skills_based_routing_limitations.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)** Before you implement skills-based routing, review its limitations. #### See Also - [Route Voice Calls to a Skill with Omni-Channel Unified Routing](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.voice_omni_unified_routing_route_to_skill.htm&language=en_US) - [Transfer a Work Item to a Different Skill Set](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.omnichannel_skills_based_routing_transfer_to_skill_set.htm&language=en_US) - [Understand the Details of the Routing Lifecycle](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.omnichannel_psr_lifecycle.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "When you dig more deeply into Omni-Channel and the routing process, there are two particular objects that are worth understanding better: PendingServiceRouting (PSR) and AgentWork.")