Automate Case Management

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.

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.

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 Yes, some agents work off a list of emails as they Queues
specific issues? arrive from customers.

How is the support team structured? We have Gold and Platinum support teams. Queues
Platinum support shares a workload.
or

Assignment
Rules

Do support agents work on specific Some agents work on solar panel installation Assignment
products or have special skills? while others work on solar panel performance. Rules

Do cases need to escalate to someone if Yes, we can’t have customers waiting more than Escalation
they’re not solved by a specific time? 5 hours to get their issues solved. Rules

Should customers receive automatic Yes, we want customers to know that we Auto-
responses? received their issue and that we care about response
them. Rules

Share Case Lists or Workloads with Queues

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.

1. Click the setup gear icon and select Service Setup.

2. From Service Setup, enter Queues in the Quick Find box, then select Queues.

3. Click New.

4. Type a Label and Name for the queue, such as Platinum Support.

5. 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.
6. Add Case to Selected Objects.

7. 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.

8. Select the Service Console app from the App Launcher. Then click the Cases tab.
 9. From the View list, choose Platinum Support.

10. 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.

1. From Service Setup, enter Case Assignment Rules in the Quick Find box, then select Case
Assignment Rules.

2. Click New.

3. Type Solar Panel Installation and save your changes.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.
 8. 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.

9. Save your changes.

10. 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.

1. From Service Setup, enter Escalation Rules in the Quick Find box, then select Escalation Rules.

2. Click New.

3. Type Gold Support, then Click Active and save your changes. Activating a rule deactivates any
existing active rules.
4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Set business hours to your organization’s default 24/7 support.

8. Set that escalation times are based on when cases are created.

9. Save your changes, then New to add an escalation action.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

1. From Service Setup, enter Case Auto-Response Rules in the Quick Find box, then select Case
Auto-Response Rules.

2. Click New.
3. Type Welcome to Support, then Click Active and save your changes. Activating a rule deactivates
any existing active rules.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Add a name and email address to include in the From line of the email template to send to
customers.
8. From the lookup field, pick any template to see how this works.