Round Robin Case Assignment
Time required: 5 minutes
Prerequisites:
Access to Captured Knowledge as a member of a team
To create, edit or delete a rotation: the Administrator role
To add, pause or remove people in a rotation and change their activity levels: the Administrator role, or Members can manage the people in rotations switched on for your team
Expected results: After reading this guide, you will know how CK chooses who gets a new case, how activity levels and pausing work, and who in your team can change the rotations.
It's Monday morning. Twenty new cases are waiting for you, and your colleague has three. Nobody can say why.
Rotations make the distribution predictable. CK hands new cases to the people in your team's rotations in turn, so the work is shared out by clear rules.
What a Rotation Is
A rotation is a group of colleagues who take turns receiving new cases. Each rotation has:
Members, each with an activity level from 0 to 100 %
The issue categories it takes (for example Heating or Water damage) and/or the Outlook categories it takes (for example
ck-lienz)A switch, Assigns cases, that turns the rotation on or off
One rotation can be your team's primary rotation. It takes every case that no other rotation takes.
Finding and Changing Your Team's Rotations
Click My team in the sidebar and choose the Rotations tab. If you belong to several teams, the sidebar entry reads Teams and opens a list of them: in your team's row, click the Rotations icon.
Everyone in your team sees every rotation, its members, their activity levels and who is paused.
Only administrators create, edit and delete rotations: the name, the issue and Outlook categories, the primary rotation and the Assigns cases switch.
Each team decides who may change the people in its rotations:
Administrators always can.
Members can too when an administrator has switched on Members can manage the people in rotations at the top of the Rotations tab. They can then add and remove people, pause and resume them, and change their activity level, a colleague's included. Under the switch, CK says: "When on, every member can add and remove people, pause and resume them, and change their activity level. Only admins create, edit and delete rotations. When off, members only see them." Only administrators switch the setting itself.
If you see your team's rotations but no Pause or Add member buttons, the setting is off for your team. This is a team choice, not a fault. Ask one of your administrators (shown with the Administrator chip on the Members tab) to make the change for you.
How CK Chooses the Person for a New Case
When an email creates a new case, CK takes the first of these that applies:
The email belongs to an existing case. If the email also starts a new case, the new case goes to the person who has the existing one.
Someone chose a person. On the New Communication form, the person selected under Assignee gets the case.
A person's Outlook category. A
ckuser-category on the email names the colleague who gets the case.An Outlook category with a rotation. A
ck-category on the email sends the case to the rotation that takes that Outlook category. A rotation that takes that Outlook category and the case's issue category wins over one that takes only the Outlook category.The issue category. The rotation that takes the case's issue category assigns it.
The primary rotation. If nothing above applies, the primary rotation assigns the case.
Only the first ckuser- and the first ck- category on an email count. When one email creates several cases, they all go to the same person.
When a rotation can't give the case to anyone:
If the rotation for an Outlook category has no active member, or is switched off, CK carries on with step 5.
If the rotation for the case's issue category has no active member, the case stays unassigned. CK does not hand it to the primary rotation instead.
A rotation that is switched off is skipped, so its cases go to the primary rotation. A switched-off primary rotation is not replaced by anything: cases that would have gone to it stay unassigned.
Cases Gustav opens on its own are not assigned from your issue-category or primary rotations. The person chosen on a New Communication form, an Outlook category on the email, or a rule CK has set up for your team (for example a case assignment rule) decides. Otherwise the case stays unassigned until a colleague takes it.
Activity Levels and Pausing
Activity levels
Each member's activity level sets their share of the rotation's cases. Members at 100 % all receive the same share. Someone at 50 % receives half as many as someone at 100 %.
Example: Anna at 40 %, Ben at 20 % and Carol at 60 %. Out of every six cases, Anna receives two, Ben one and Carol three.
The shares even out over time, not case by case. Round levels such as 25, 50, 75 or 100 % keep the turns short and even.
Use different levels when:
Part-time colleagues should receive fewer cases
A specialist should mostly handle their own area
Workload capacity varies across the team
Pausing a colleague
If you can change the people in your rotations, pause a colleague who is on holiday: click Pause in their row. They receive no cases from that rotation, and their activity level is kept. When they are back, click Resume, and they continue at their previous level. A paused member shows, for example, Paused (50 %).
An activity level of 0 % is different: the colleague stays active in the rotation but receives no cases (Active · 0 %). To change a level, use Edit level in the member's menu.
When nobody is left: if everyone in an active rotation is paused or at 0 %, the rotation assigns nobody, and new cases for it stay unassigned. The rotation then shows New cases for this rotation are not assigned to anyone. CK asks you to confirm before you pause or remove the last active member, or set them to 0 %.
Adding, removing, pausing or resuming a member, changing a level, and a member leaving the team all restart the rotation's turns from the beginning. Renaming the rotation or changing its issue or Outlook categories does not.
Setting Up a Rotation
On the Rotations tab, click New rotation, or Edit on an existing rotation.
Name: unique within your team.
Assigns cases: switch it off to stop the rotation without deleting it. A switched-off rotation shows Off.
Primary rotation: makes this the rotation for every case no other rotation takes. Your team has one primary rotation; CK tells you which rotation stops being primary. The current primary rotation must keep something to do: if it has no issue category, no Outlook category and no case assignment rule, CK refuses the move and names it, for example "Making this rotation primary would leave the current primary rotation Kundenservice with nothing routed to it: it has no Issue Category, no Outlook Category and no case assignment rule. Give Kundenservice a category, or delete it, first." Give that rotation an issue category or an Outlook category, or delete it, then try again.
Issue categories: the issue categories the rotation takes. Select all and Clear help with long selections.
Outlook categories: Outlook categories that start with
ck-. Someck-categories are reserved for CK and can't be used.
A rotation that isn't the primary rotation needs at least one issue category or Outlook category. Two rotations can take the same issue category only if they take different Outlook categories.
Then use Add member to add colleagues and choose their activity level.
Case assignment rules. Some teams have case assignment rules that CK has set up for them. A rotation that a rule uses shows Used by 2 case assignment rules, and cases it assigns show Case assigned by an assignment rule in their activity log. You can't delete such a rotation or make it your primary rotation. If you need either, contact CK support.
Common Scenarios
Scenario 1: A heating case
Setup: A Heating rotation with Anna, Ben and Carol, all at 100 %. Suppose Anna would be next.
What happens: An email about a broken heater becomes a case with the issue category Heating. The Heating rotation assigns it to Anna.
Result: Anna receives the case. The next heating case goes to Ben.
Scenario 2: An Outlook category and an issue category
Setup: A rotation "Lienz" takes the Outlook category ck-lienz. The Heating rotation takes the issue category Heating.
What happens: A colleague tags an email about a broken heater with ck-lienz in Outlook.
Result: The Lienz rotation assigns the case. The Outlook category wins over the issue category.
Scenario 3: A colleague on holiday
Setup: Ben is in the Heating rotation at 100 % and goes on holiday for two weeks.
What happens: Someone who can change the people in rotations clicks Pause in Ben's row. Heating cases go to Anna and Carol. After the holiday, they click Resume.
Result: Ben receives heating cases again, at 100 %.
Scenario 4: Everyone is paused
Setup: Everyone in the Heating rotation is paused.
What happens: An email about a broken heater becomes a Heating case.
Result: The case stays unassigned. It does not go to the primary rotation. A colleague assigns it by hand, or someone who can change the people in rotations resumes a member of the Heating rotation.
Scenario 5: The primary rotation is switched off
Setup: The primary rotation's Assigns cases switch is off.
What happens: An email arrives that no other rotation takes.
Result: The case stays unassigned until a colleague assigns it.
Common Questions
Q: Does the rotation take current workload into account? A: No. It shares out new cases by activity level over time, but it doesn't check how many open cases each person has. For workload-aware assignment, assign cases by hand.
Q: Can I see whose turn is next? A: No. You see each rotation's members, their activity levels and who is paused, but not the order of the turns.
Q: Can I change who has a case after it was created? A: Yes. Anyone in the team can reassign a case. Reassigning doesn't affect the rotation.
Q: Why did a case go to someone unexpected? A: Check whether:
The email belonged to an existing case, whose owner also gets the new one
The email carried a
ckuser-orck-Outlook categoryA rotation for the case's issue category exists
Someone was paused or at 0 %, so the next person received the case
The rotation was changed recently, which restarts its turns
Gustav opened the case on its own, or a case assignment rule assigned it
Related Articles
Creating New Communications - How to choose who gets a case yourself
Team Roles: Admin and Member - Who can change your team and its rotations
Email Ingestion Service - How emails become cases
Case Status Guide - How case status interacts with assignment
Troubleshooting Guide - Common issues