Automate Case Management

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Route case ownership with queues.
Assign cases automatically.
Escalate cases when necessary.
Respond to customers automatically.

Accessibility

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Case Management Tools in Salesforce

Case management means organizing customer cases into one place and making sure they go to the right person, for the right answer, by the right time. Service Cloud does all that behind the scenes with automation tools. Service is easier, faster, and better with a little automation.

Maria checks out a few of the main case automation tools. She notices automatically is the key word.

Queues	Automatically prioritize your support team’s workload by creating lists from which specific agents can jump in to solve certain types of cases.
Assignment Rules	Automatically assign incoming cases to specific agents so that the right people work on the right cases.
Escalation Rules	Automatically escalate cases to the right people when the cases aren’t solved by a certain time.
Auto-Response Rules	Automatically send personalized email responses to customers based on each case’s details.

Graphic of a robot automating case processes.

Plan for Case Automation

Based on what the tools can do, Maria jots down some questions to ask Ursa Major Solar’s service team. The answers determine which tools Maria uses to automate case management.

Question	Answer	Tool
Do support agents work as a team on specific issues?	Yes, some agents work off a list of emails as they arrive from customers.	Queues
How is the support team structured?	We have Gold and Platinum support teams. Platinum support shares a workload.	Queues or Assignment Rules
Do support agents work on specific products or have special skills?	Some agents work on solar panel installation while others work on solar panel performance.	Assignment Rules
Do cases need to escalate to someone if they’re not solved by a specific time?	Yes, we can’t have customers waiting more than 5 hours to get their issues solved.	Escalation Rules
Should customers receive automatic responses?	Yes, we want customers to know that we received their issue and that we care about them.	Auto-response Rules

Based on Maria’s case automation planning, she knows that the Platinum Support team shares a workload of incoming cases. These cases are from customers who pay extra for the best service. To help these agents find and work off this list of cases from high-priority customers, Maria creates a queue. Here’s how she does it.

Click the setup gear icon and select Service Setup.
From Service Setup, enter Queues in the Quick Find box, then select Queues.
Click New.
Type a Label and Name for the queue, such as Platinum Support.
If you want the support agents included in the queue to receive an email when a new case arrives, leave Queue Email blank. Otherwise, type an email address to notify a person or persons with the email address when each new case arrives.
Add Case to Selected Objects.
Add members, including yourself, to the queue and save your changes. Now that the queue is created, let’s check it out as if we were support agents. We can get there with a few clicks.
Select the Service Console app from the App Launcher. Then click the Cases tab.
From the View list, choose Platinum Support.
Here’s the queue, which is empty at this time.

Add Automatic Case Assignment with Rules

While planning for case automation, Maria learns that she can assign incoming cases to one person, groups of people, or even queues. Since some support agents at Ursa Major Solar work on solar panel installation, she creates an assignment rule so that any case with a reason that includes “installation” is automatically assigned to them. This is what she does.

From Service Setup, enter Case Assignment Rules in the Quick Find box, then select Case Assignment Rules.
Click New.
Type Solar Panel Installation and save your changes.
Select the rule you just created, and next to Rule Entries, click New. Here’s where we add the little details that determine case assignment.
In Sort Order, type 1 so that the entry we add is processed first. Typically, you’d create one assignment rule with many different entries, which are processed in chronological order. When a case matches an entry, it’s assigned without proceeding to other entries.
For entry criteria, select Case: Case Reason equals Installation. One of the many useful things about case assignment rules is that you can determine how cases are assigned based on fields from records other than cases. For example, you can choose case assignment based on fields from accounts, contacts, assets, or users.
Add yourself as the User assigned to the rule entry. We assume you’re a support agent who’s an expert at solar panel installation.
In Email Template, click the lookup and choose a template so that you receive an email whenever a case with an installation reason is assigned to you.
Save your changes.
Click Edit to mark the rule as Active, then save your changes. When you activate an assignment rule, it disables any other assignment rules in your organization, so make sure that your active rule includes all of the assignment entries that your support team needs.

Now any cases about installation issues are automatically assigned.

Add Automatic Case Escalation with Rules

When planning case management with the service team, Maria learns that certain cases must escalate to the right person within 5 hours. A lingering customer case can ruin a big deal or tarnish Ursa Major Solar’s brand. Just like assignment rules, Maria can use escalation rules to specify criteria that automatically trigger an action on a case. For case escalation, she uses her org’s default business hours, which simply means the service team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She can change Business Hours later from Company Settings in Service Setup. Here’s how Maria sets the rule.

From Service Setup, enter Escalation Rules in the Quick Find box, then select Escalation Rules.
Click New.
Type Gold Support, then Click Active and save your changes. Activating a rule deactivates any existing active rules.
Select the rule you just created, and click New to add a rule entry. Here’s where we add the details that determine when the case gets escalated.
In Sort Order, type 1 so that the entry we add is processed first. In the real world, you’d create one escalation rule with many different entries, which are processed in chronological order. When a customer issue comes in and is converted to a case, it’s assigned based on the first entry it matches.
For entry criteria, select Case: Status equals New. Similar to other rules, you can determine automatic case escalation based on fields from records other than cases.
Set business hours to your organization’s default 24/7 support.
Set that escalation times are based on when cases are created.
Save your changes, then New to add an escalation action.
In Age Over, enter 5. Here, 5 is the number of hours at which cases escalate when they have a status of New. Remember, we want cases Closed after 5 hours. You can set up escalation actions in 30-minute increments by selecting 30 from the minutes dropdown.
Auto-assign cases to you, and from Notification Template, click the lookup icon to pick any template. At a real company, you’d assign cases to a support manager or team.
Select yourself as the user to notify, and from Notification Template, click the lookup icon to add a template to see how this works.
Save your changes.

Now any cases that haven’t been closed in 5 hours are assigned to the right person.

Note: To keep the Assign using active assignment rule box checked by default on cases, update the Layout Properties on case page layouts.

Add Automatic Responses to Customers with Rules

From Maria’s case automation planning, she knows the service team wants customers to receive a confirmation when their case is received. With auto-response rules, she can make sure each Ursa Major Solar’s customer knows that their voice is heard. She sets up response rules so that customers are automatically sent a personalized email when they ask for help. Here’s how she does it.

From Service Setup, enter Case Auto-Response Rules in the Quick Find box, then select Case Auto-Response Rules.
Click New.
Type Welcome to Support, then Click Active and save your changes. Activating a rule deactivates any existing active rules.
Select the rule you just created, and click New to add a rule entry. Here’s where we add a few details that determine which email template we send to a customer.
In Sort Order, type 1 so that the entry we add is processed first. In the real world, you’d create one response rule with many different entries, which are processed in chronological order. When a customer issue comes in and is converted to a case, it’s assigned based on the first entry it matches.
For entry criteria, select Case: Case Origin equals email. Similar to escalation rules, you can determine the automatic response to send to a customer based on fields from records other than cases.
Add a name and email address to include in the From line of the email template to send to customers.
From the lookup field, pick any template to see how this works.
Save your changes and you’re done!

More Case Management Tools in Salesforce

With basic case automation complete, the service team at Ursa Major Solar is looking forward to easier, faster service. But Sita and Roberto want to make the most of their Service Cloud investment. They wonder what other case management tools the team can use in the future.

Maria looks into more case management options. She jots down these discoveries to share.

Page Layout Editor	Customize a case page’s contents, like the fields and buttons that appear on the page, along with what is visible to whom. Additionally, customize the structure of the page, and the position of its components, with the Lightning App Builder.
Email Templates	Create email templates to save time and standardize communications sent to customers from cases. Automate information on emails with merge fields. Templates are automatically available to anyone in the org.
Entitlement Management	Provide the correct level of support for customers. Define, enforce, and track service agreements and service contracts as part of an overall support management process.
Omni-Channel	Manage support agents’ priorities and their capacity to take on work items so that they’re given only the number of assignments that they can handle. Route all assignments to the correct agents so that they no longer have to choose work assignments manually from a queue.
Macros	Help support agents automatically complete repetitive tasks on cases, such as selecting the right email templates, so that they can spend time doing more important things.
Quick Text	Create predefined messages for support agents, like greetings, answers to common questions, and short notes to insert in cases, emails, web chats, and more. Save time and standardize on messaging to customers.
Utilities	Give support agents quick access to productivity tools, like notes, history, softphones, and more in the footer of the console.

Sita and Roberto want to explore some of these tools when they return to the case management stage of their service journey. But for now, they’d like to jump ahead to the basics of digital engagement.