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Salesforce devops made simple: essential git insights, everything you need to know before dreamforce 2024, mile high dreamin’, adhd & neurodiversity: what you need to know as a salesforce professional, how to build a successful salesforce devops process, salesforce lead assignment rules best practices and tricks.
By Stacy O’Leary
I confess: I love Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules almost as much as I love the Approval Process . A good set of Lead Assignment Rules will buy you endless friends in both sales and marketing, and will make your incoming data sparkle and look perfect (even if it is not!) In this guide, I’ll be talking about the initial Lead sort, upon creation.
Salesforce Lead Assignment Rule Example
- Criteria #1: If State = California, assign to Stacy
- Criteria #2: If Country = United Kingdom, assign to Ben
- Criteria #3: If Country = France, assign to Lucy
- Criteria #4: If Annual Revenue is greater than $500,000,000 USD, assign to “High Roller Queue”
Planning Lead Assignment Rules
Discovery: questions to ask.
- Where are the new Leads coming from? Marketo? HubSpot? Other integrated systems? Web forms? Are there any examples you look at? Make friends with the people who run these systems, you need to have a good relationship because you’re going to need their help.
- What fields are populated on these newly created Leads? What fields are required? If it’s minimal, can you get more information? Generally, the more information you have, the easier it is to sort.
- What if a Lead comes in from one of your Partners? What if a Lead comes in from one of your competitors? From one of your employees? Are there any kinds of Leads that should never be distributed out to your team, like students or media inquiries? (Remember – ANYONE with access to the internet can fill out your form! They do not have to be a legitimate prospect!)
- Who is covering what territories? Do you have any territories that don’t have a sales rep yet? Do all new Leads have enough data to determine territories?
- What about the Leads that don’t meet any criteria at all? Where will they go? Who will work them?
Refining the requirements
- Our new Leads, almost always, come from Marketo . They could come from a Marketo form, or a list imported from a trade show, but Marketo is the system that pushes them to Salesforce. If a person creates their own Lead, we do not want to take it away from them.
- We always have: first name, last name, lead source, email, company, state and country. We sometimes have # of Employees, but that’s pretty much all we know about them at the moment of creation.
- Any Lead that comes in from a Partner should be directed to our channel team. We don’t want to market to competitors, employees, or students.
- We have a territory plan defined by Sales, and we’d also like to separate prospects for the UK and France, though we do not have a sales rep for those areas yet.
- If something comes in that we cannot otherwise sort, let’s put it in a holding place and let marketing send out generic nurture emails. If a person in this holding place takes interest, we can always give it to the sales team later.
Western US | Eastern US + Canada | UK + France | |
---|---|---|---|
# of Employees | Maeve Easton | To Be Determined | |
# of Employees >=5,000 | Jessica Harris | Dylan Wolfe | To Be Determined |
- Partners (any Lead that comes in from a Partner company)
- Disqualified (any Lead that comes in from a competitor, is an employee, or is a student)
- UK + France (any Lead where Country = United Kingdom, or France)
- Unsorted (any Lead that does not meet any criteria)
Creating Lead Assignment Criteria
Leads that shouldn’t be distributed, next criteria.
![apply lead assignment rule apply lead assignment rule](https://www.salesforceben.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/unnamed-109.png)
The Final Empty Criteria
![apply lead assignment rule apply lead assignment rule](https://www.salesforceben.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/unnamed-110.png)
Activate the Lead Assignment Rules
- Leads can only be sorted by a field value at the moment it was sorted.
- The Lead Router does not auto-convert Leads to Contacts
- You cannot deactivate a User license if that person is part of the Lead Assignment Rules (even if the Lead Assignment Rules have been deactivated.)
- Create a report for yourself, for that last criteria – Leads that are unsorted. This way you can review them periodically and see if there’s enough volume to justify sorting them in a certain way.
Stacy O'Leary
![apply lead assignment rule apply lead assignment rule](https://www.salesforceben.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Vector-2.png)
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Guide to lead assignment rules in Salesforce
Use SFDC lead assignment rules to get more done, create a better experience, and close deals faster.
![apply lead assignment rule Rachel Burns](https://images.ctfassets.net/k0lk9kiuza3o/2p15qjdQElxVLDcYpfbXea/2477397b572f65024b1a15a26f192d6c/headshot-rachel-burns.png?h=96&w=96&q=85&fm=webp)
Rachel Burns Jul 24, 2023
15 min read
![apply lead assignment rule Guide to lead assignment rules in Salesforce](https://images.ctfassets.net/k0lk9kiuza3o/4UOMl9ZLjpOmlRcRbZi713/4d0db94800244dd2f0cebc04b2c7cdb3/Calendly_SalesforceLeadAssignment_Blog_OG_1920x1080.png?q=85&fm=webp)
Table of contents
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What are Salesforce lead assignment rules?
What if your sales team could spend their valuable time connecting with prospects and closing deals — instead of losing time doing admin work like assigning and organizing leads?
When you automate lead assignment and routing, your sales team can:
Boost sales team productivity and efficiency
Prevent high-quality leads from slipping through the cracks
Create a better experience for potential customers
Speed up your entire sales pipeline to close more deals, faster
In this blog post, we'll discuss the ins and outs of Salesforce lead assignment. We'll cover the benefits, how to plan your lead assignment strategy, and a step-by-step walkthrough of adding lead assignment rules in Salesforce. We'll also explore the power of scheduling automation to simplify and speed up lead assignment, routing, and qualification.
Key takeaways:
Lead assignment rules help sales teams boost productivity, respond to leads faster, and make better data-driven decisions.
Matching leads with the right sales reps and teams creates a better customer experience by responding to leads faster and giving them personalized attention.
Before you set up your lead assignment rules, work with your sales, marketing, and RevOps teams to understand your lead generation processes and sales team structure.
Within Salesforce lead management settings, rule entries are the individual criteria and actions. A “lead assignment rule” refers to a set of rule entries.
Automating lead routing , qualification, and booking with Calendly helps your team be more efficient and organized while creating a better experience for prospective customers.
6 benefits of creating lead assignment rules in Salesforce
Why should your team take the time to set up lead assignment rules in Salesforce? Here are six great reasons:
Ensure leads are assigned to the right reps and teams: Lead assignment rules mean each incoming lead is directed to the salesperson or team who has the relevant expertise and skills to engage and convert that lead. Automated lead assignment also prevents leads from falling through the cracks by making sure each lead is assigned to a rep or team, rather than relying on manual assignment.
Respond to leads faster: With lead assignment rules, leads are automatically assigned to the right salesperson, reducing response time and increasing the chances of converting leads into customers .
Boost sales team productivity: Automating lead assignment reduces manual work for RevOps teams and sales managers. Lead assignment rules also help identify and prioritize leads more likely to convert, saving time and resources that would otherwise be wasted on pursuing poor-fit leads. These time savings let sales teams focus on nurturing leads and closing deals.
Create a better customer experience: Leads can be assigned to sales reps who have relevant industry or product expertise, understand their unique needs, and can provide personalized solutions. This tailored approach creates a better experience for leads, which results in more conversions and higher customer satisfaction.
Improve sales forecasting: With well-defined lead assignment rules, you can gather more accurate data on lead distribution and conversion rates. This data can be used for sales forecasting, data driven decision-making, and resource allocation.
How to create lead assignment rules in Salesforce
Step 1: build your lead assignment strategy.
Before you go into your Salesforce instance and set up lead assignment rules, you need to figure out what exactly those rules will be. The options are limitless — where should you start?
It’s time to bring RevOps, sales, and marketing together to answer some questions:
Lead sources: Where do leads come from? Do we use marketing forms through Salesforce web-to-lead forms or a third-party integration? Are we importing leads via the data import wizard?
Sales team structure: How is the sales team structured? Are different teams or individuals specialized in specific products, industries, use cases, or regions?
Lead data: What info do we request from new leads? Which standard and custom fields do we require?
Sales territories: How are sales territories defined? Are there specific regions, countries, or territories we should take into account for lead assignment?
Integrations : Do we have any third-party integrations with lead assignment or distribution features? Are we using those features?
Special circumstances: Are there any priority levels or tiers for leads that require special attention? For example, do we have a designated rep or queue for leads with complex needs and use cases?
Poor fits: What should we do with leads who don’t meet any of our criteria?
It’s a lot of information to gather and organize, but it’s important to learn as much as possible up front to cover every scenario and equip your sales team with accurate data. Putting this time and effort in now will pay off tenfold in productivity once your lead rules are in place!
Step 2: Set up lead assignment rules in Salesforce
You’re almost ready to enter your lead assignment rules in SFDC . First, let’s go over some terminology. We’ve been talking about lead assignment rules as individual directives: “If the lead matches X, then do Y.” Within Salesforce lead management settings, a “lead assignment rule” refers to a set of rule entries. Rule entries are the individual criteria and actions (“If X, then do Y”). An assignment rule can consist of up to 3,000 rule entries, and you can only have one active assignment rule at a time.
For example, a rule entry can assign all leads interested in a particular product to a queue of reps who are experts on that product. In Salesforce, a lead queue is essentially a bucket for unassigned leads, and you can choose which sales reps can pull leads from each queue.
Another rule entry can assign all leads from companies with over 5,000 employees to your top enterprise sales rep.
To create a lead assignment rule in Salesforce:
From Setup, enter “Assignment Rules” in the Quick Find box, then select Lead Assignment Rules.
Enter the rule name. (Example: 2023 Standard Lead Rules)
Select “Set this as the active lead assignment rule” to activate the rule immediately.
Click Save.
Click the name of the rule you just created.
Click New in the Rule Entries section.
Enter an order number that tells Salesforce when to run this rule entry in relation to other rule entries. For example, if you want this to be the first criteria Salesforce looks at when assigning a lead, enter number one.
Select the rule criteria. What attributes must the lead have before Salesforce applies the rule entry? You can use any standard or custom field in the lead record for your criteria. For example, you want to assign leads to your U.S.-based enterprise sales team, so the company size field must be equal to or greater than 5,000 and the country field must equal the United States. You can include up to 25 filter criteria.
Choose the user or queue to be the assignee if the lead meets the criteria. For example, assign to the U.S.-based enterprise sales team queue.
Optional: Choose an email template to use when notifying the new lead owner. After you set up your lead rules, you can also use Salesforce Flow automations to notify lead owners via other channels. For example, at Calendly, we integrate Salesforce with Slack, and a workflow automatically notifies sales reps via Slack when a lead is assigned to them.
![apply lead assignment rule Screenshot of the Rule Entry Edit screen in Salesforce. The criteria fields include Lead: Created By equals and Lead: Country equals United Kingdom, France. The selected queue is UK + France Leads.](https://images.ctfassets.net/k0lk9kiuza3o/5aHYYyWCpuExNPO3B14BMf/84fddb72f6cde46c6e83cec3d0903cdd/RuleEntry.png?q=85&fm=webp)
Salesforce goes through the rule entries in order until it finds one that matches the lead's info, then routes the lead accordingly.
Let's say you have small business, mid-market, and enterprise sales team queues. Your first three rule entries would match company size to each of those three queues. If they don't have a company size listed, or the company size doesn't match any of the values in your rule entries, Salesforce will move on to the industry rule entries.
To make sure no leads fall through the cracks, you also need to set a default lead owner. If the assignment rules fail to locate an owner, or you don’t set up assignment rules, web-generated leads are assigned to the default lead owner.
To select a default lead owner:
From Setup, enter “Lead Settings” in the Quick Find box, then select Lead Settings and click Edit.
Define the Default Lead Owner. The Default Lead Owner can be a specific user or a queue.
Save your settings.
Salesforce lead assignment rule examples
As we mentioned earlier, your rule entries can include up to 25 filter criteria.
Simple rules include just one filter criteria:
By country or state/province: Route leads from specific states or countries to sales representatives who understand the regional market. You need this rule if your team uses sales territories to divide leads. For example, if the state/province equals Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, or Washington, assign the lead to the West Coast queue.
By language: Assign leads to sales reps who speak the same language.
By industry: Assign leads from different industries to salespeople who have experience working with those industries.
By company size: Assign leads based on the size of the company, assigning larger companies to a dedicated enterprise sales team.
Complex rules use two or more filter criteria. For example, you could route leads from specific states or provinces to salespeople based on their sales territory and the company size. If you have a particular rep (Bob) working enterprise leads on the West Coast, your filter criteria could say: If the state/province equals Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, or Washington, and the company size equals greater than 5,000, assign the lead to Bob.
These are just a few examples. Lead assignment rules can be customized to fit your team’s and customers’ needs. Review your strategy to choose the right combination of criteria for your sales processes, products, and customers.
What does the built-in Salesforce lead process look like in action?
A website visitor named Nora fills out a contact form to learn more about your product. She shares her name, email address, company name (Acme Inc.), and company size. You use Salesforce’s built-in web-to-lead forms , so Nora’s form submission automatically creates a lead record.
Your team has set up lead assignment rules that assign leads to sales queues based on their company size. Acme Inc. has 5,000 employees, so Nora is automatically assigned to the enterprise sales team queue.
Enterprise sales team queue members receive an email notification that a new lead has been added to the queue. Taylor, an enterprise sales rep in Acme Inc.’s territory, assigns Nora’s lead record to themself.
Taylor emails Nora to set up a qualification call.
Nora, who has been waiting to hear back from your team, agrees to meet with Taylor. After some email back-and-forth, they find a time that works.
What are the limitations of Salesforce’s built-in lead assignment rules?
Salesforce’s built-in lead assignment rules are a great place to start, but there are a few critical limitations, especially for enterprise sales teams:
Single level of evaluation: Salesforce assignment rules operate based on a single level of evaluation, meaning that once a rule matches the criteria and assigns a lead, the evaluation process stops. Your team might miss out on important info, like a complex use case or unique industry, when matching the lead with a rep.
No built-in round robin distribution: Round robin lead distribution is the process of assigning leads to reps based on factors like team member availability or equal distribution for a balanced workload. Salesforce lead assignment rules don't include an easy way to set up round robin distribution — you need an additional tool like Pardot, one of the round robin apps on AppExchange , complex Apex code , or a third-party lead routing platform .
No lead escalation settings: Lead escalation is the process of flagging a lead to higher levels of management or specialized teams for further assistance or action. This process comes into play when a lead requires additional attention or intervention beyond the assigned salesperson or team's capabilities. Unfortunately, Salesforce doesn’t have built-in settings for lead escalation rules. If your customer success team uses Service Cloud, you can set up escalation rules for customer support case escalations, but this feature isn’t included in Sales Cloud.
High maintenance for large organizations: Managing and maintaining a comprehensive set of assignment rules can become challenging and time-consuming in large organizations with complex sales structures and multiple teams or regions. Sure, you can include up to 3,000 rule entries in a single lead assignment rule, but that’s a lot to set up and keep up to date — especially if you’re trying to save your team time, not add to their workload.
Built-in Salesforce lead assignment rules and automations are a solid starting point, but what about automating lead qualification and booking? If you use Salesforce on its own, your reps might still spend a ton of time on lead reassignment to balance their workload, manual lead qualification, and email back-and-forths to schedule sales calls.
That’s where Calendly comes in.
How to automate lead assignment, qualification, and booking with Calendly
Your scheduling automation platform can be an excellent lead generation, qualification, and routing tool — especially when it integrates with Salesforce. Calendly’s Salesforce integration helps your team be more efficient and organized while creating a better experience for prospective customers.
When a lead books a meeting via a sales rep or team’s Calendly booking page, Salesforce automatically creates a new lead, contact, or opportunity. If the lead already exists in your Salesforce instance, the event is added to the lead’s existing record, so you don’t end up with duplicate lead records or time-consuming manual reassignment.
What if you don’t want to let just anyone book a meeting with your team? When you add Calendly Routing to your marketing forms, you can show scheduling pages only to leads who meet your qualifications, like prospects from specific industries or companies of a certain size. That way, your busy team can spend time on the most valuable deals.
Calendly Routing works with HubSpot , Marketo , Pardot , and Calendly forms and is built for your Salesforce CRM. You can use any form field (email, domain, company name) in any Salesforce standard object to match visitors with their account owner. Account lookups let you send known leads or customers from your website form directly to their account owner’s booking page, without needing to manually reassign leads to the right rep.
![apply lead assignment rule Screenshot showing Calendly integrates with Salesforce lookup to match and schedule leads and customers based on real-time CRM account ownership.](https://images.ctfassets.net/k0lk9kiuza3o/4whSxcMM1bp4CdNG8CMSrn/b847f2999963f794aea43dcaf6d2c913/Salesforce-Dropdown__1_.png?q=85&fm=webp)
Remember the lead assignment example we walked through earlier featuring Nora from Acme Inc.? Here's what that process looks like when you add Calendly:
Nora fills out your “contact sales” form, which is already built in HubSpot, connected to Calendly Routing , and enriched with Clearbit .
She enters her email address in the form, and Clearbit fills in the company name, size, and industry. This shortens the form, so Nora only has to input her name and job title.
Calendly checks to see if Acme Inc. has an account in your Salesforce instance. They don’t, so the next step is lead qualification .
Based on Nora’s information — company size, industry, job title — she’s a highly qualified lead, so she’s automatically routed to the booking page for your enterprise sales team.
Nora is happy about that, and immediately books a meeting time that works for her, with the exact team she needs to talk to.
On the backend, Calendly’s Round Robin meeting distribution is set to optimize for availability, so it assigns the meeting to the first available sales rep — in this case, Taylor. This automation helps your team respond to meeting requests faster, hold initial sales calls sooner, and balance the workload across reps.
Calendly creates a lead record in Salesforce with the info Nora entered into your website form (including the data from Clearbit) and an activity log of any meetings she books with your team via Calendly. Salesforce automatically makes Taylor the lead owner.
If you were relying on Salesforce’s built-in lead assignment rules, Nora’s lead record would have gone to an enterprise sales queue, and she would have had to wait for a rep to pick up the lead and reach out to her to book a meeting.
“ A good tool is one that’s so simple, sales reps can basically forget about it and let the meetings roll in. That’s essentially what happened when we implemented Calendly. ”
![apply lead assignment rule Testimonial author](https://images.ctfassets.net/k0lk9kiuza3o/3tmku4tXFTiW1t3Kd1ktLC/8de8fe732cba1d6c56d3581da4530579/julia-pan.jpeg?h=128&w=128&q=85&fm=webp)
Sales Enablement Manager at SignPost
What happens if a lead doesn’t qualify for a meeting? Instead of sending them to a booking page, you can display a custom message with next steps, ask them for more information, or redirect them to a specific URL, like a piece of gated content or a webinar signup page.
![apply lead assignment rule Screenshot showing Calendly’s built-in routing logic feature.](https://images.ctfassets.net/k0lk9kiuza3o/01sNoV0SOfVHqjS4Qm1Nle/aa020ef49a38035ed37bcf1cfcc4fd6f/-Blog_image-_Routing-logic-page-2023_io.png?q=85&fm=webp)
Automating lead assignment with Calendly Routing has been a game changer for RCReports , a compensation analysis solution for accountants and business valuators. Before connecting Calendly Routing with their Salesforce instance, RCReports’ AEs spent at least five hours a month reassigning leads booked on the wrong calendar. This created a disjointed customer experience and frustration for the sales and marketing teams.
“ Now that we’ve implemented Calendly’s routing feature with Salesforce integration, demos are always booked with the correct AE, reducing friction for both our team and the customer. ”
![apply lead assignment rule Testimonial author](https://images.ctfassets.net/k0lk9kiuza3o/3ygLd3fIy4VlaP2RnYq9qk/082b40cf5cc965fc30289e801abae76c/-Blog_headshot-_Abbie_Deaver-RCReports_-_rounded.png?h=128&w=128&q=85&fm=webp)
Abbie Deaver
Director of Marketing at RCReports
Users on Calendly’s Teams plan and above can connect Calendly to Salesforce. The full suite of Salesforce routing features , including routing by Salesforce ownership, is available on Calendly’s Enterprise plan.
To learn more about Calendly Routing, get in touch with our sales team .
Spend less time on manual lead assignment and more time closing deals
When you automate Salesforce lead assignment and routing, high-value leads stop slipping through the cracks, the workload is balanced across the team, leads are matched with the sales reps best equipped to help them, and team members have more time to focus on connecting with prospects and closing deals.
The results? A more productive team, faster sales cycle, higher conversion rates, and better customer experience.
![apply lead assignment rule How Calendly Uses Calendly](https://images.ctfassets.net/k0lk9kiuza3o/14QaTHlWiu1vks3oaLbnYq/97152956194042274d62e4d330fc5863/-Webinar-_How_Calendly_Uses_Calendly.png?h=530&q=85&fm=webp)
Webinar: How Calendly Uses Calendly to Close More Deals
Rachel Burns
Rachel is a Content Marketing Manager at Calendly. When she’s not writing, you can find her rescuing dogs, baking something, or extolling the virtue of the Oxford comma.
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Getting Started with Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce
![apply lead assignment rule Or Goldenberg](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9eu1m6zu/production/8674aa25085f73d229ae1ef90a2c350e27d41b42-600x600.jpg?auto=format&dpr=1)
Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce are a powerful tool that allow your GTM (Go-To-Market) teams to automate the process of generating leads and assigning them to the most suitable sales representatives based on specific criteria. Managing and assigning leads becomes key, particularly when dealing with high daily volumes and considering the priority of leads based on various factors. And, as we all know, speed to lead is crucial : if you waste even one minute, your conversion plummets by a shocking 391%.
Ideally, your organization should employ different lead assignment rules tailored to your go-to-market strategies and motions. For instance, the assignment rules for leads generated from a demo request on your website may differ from those for leads obtained through downloading an ebook.
A lead assignment rule consists of a prioritized set of rule entries that dictate how leads are assigned throughout your go-to-market motions, either to a specific user or to a Salesforce Queue. These rules are automatically triggered when leads are created and can also be applied to existing records.
However, there is one significant constraint with Salesforce assignment rules: only one can be active at any given time. This means that as your business scales and you implement multiple business processes, you'll need to consolidate all the complex logic into a single comprehensive assignment rule with multiple rule entries. As you can imagine, managing, maintaining, and updating such an operation can become increasingly challenging over time.
Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules Examples
- Leads from Enterprise Accounts with ARR greater than $200M are assigned to Enterprise SDR Queue.
- Leads from accounts with ARR greater than $50M (and less than $200M) are assigned to Mid Market SDR Queue.
- Leads reaching Nurture Lead Status are directed to SDR 1.
- Irrelevant leads with a ‘gmail.com’ domain are routed to a dummy user and disregarded.
- Distribute leads to reps based on their respective sales territories.
Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules: A step-by-step guide
Here is a step-by-step guide to help you set up Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules in keeping with your business needs and sales strategies.
Step 1: Log in to Salesforce:
Access your Salesforce account using your credentials.
Step 2: Navigate to Setup:
Click on the gear icon in the screen's upper-right corner to access the Setup menu.
Step 3: Access Lead Assignment Rules:
In the Setup menu, search for "Lead Assignment Rules" in the Quick Find box. Click on "Lead Assignment Rules" under the "Leads" section.
Step 4: Create a New Rule:
Click on the "New Lead Assignment Rule" button to create a new rule.
Step 5: Define Rule Entry Criteria:
Enter a suitable name for the rule and specify the rule's entry criteria.
You can decide whether to write a formula or build a prioritized set of rule entry criteria. The logic you define determines the conditions that need to be met for the rule to trigger.
Step 6: Specify Rule Assignments:
Choose the desired assignment method for your leads. Salesforce provides different assignment options, such as assigning leads to Queues or specific users. Select the appropriate option based on your business requirements, and (optionally) choose an email template to be sent to the new owner of the lead.
Step 7: Save and Activate the Rule:
Once you have configured all the necessary settings, click the "Save" button to save the lead assignment rule. After saving, activate the rule to make it operational.
Step 8: Test and Validate:
It is essential to test the rule and ensure that leads are being assigned as expected. Create test leads and verify their assignments based on the defined criteria. Make any necessary adjustments or refinements to the rule if required.
Salesforce editions and permissions for Lead Assignment Rules
After gaining an understanding of how lead assignment rules can benefit your business and determining their suitability, you may wonder, "Do I have the appropriate Salesforce edition?" The short answer is, “Yes.” Salesforce has now made this feature available in every edition.
In terms of user permissions, certain requirements must be met to view and edit lead assignment rules in Salesforce. Users must have the "Manage Leads" permission and the ability to "View Setup and Configuration" in order to access lead assignment rules. For editing purposes, users need the "Customize Application" permission along with either the "Modify All Data" or "Modify Leads" permission. If you are unable to locate this section in Salesforce or encounter difficulties with viewing or editing assignment rules, reach out to your Salesforce administrator to verify that you have the necessary permissions in place.
Assignment rules limits and challenges
Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules, while suitable for small teams with straightforward rules, come with significant limitations that can hinder efficiency for larger teams. These limitations become more apparent as the volume of leads increases and more complex use cases arise.
One major drawback is the stringent limits imposed by Salesforce on the number of rules, entries, and actions allowed per rule. These limits are illustrated in the following table:
![apply lead assignment rule Limits in Salesforce](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/9eu1m6zu/production/9b7ad18c5ad7c980e8732fd5965a726c741ff76d-1024x768.png?auto=format&dpr=1)
However, there are additional factors to consider when utilizing assignment rules in Salesforce. It is crucial to be aware of the following challenges before embarking on building your entire logic using Salesforce's native functionality:
- Limited to Leads and Cases: Assignment rules only apply to the lead and case objects. While this may suffice for simple and initial use cases, it falls short when implementing ABM (Account Based Marketing) strategy or when the need to route Opportunities arises.
- Complex QA and Audit: Salesforce's native functionality lacks versioning or debugging tools, making testing and troubleshooting assignments a laborious task. Additionally, there is no built-in record of why a lead was assigned in a particular way, further complicating the auditing process.
- Limited Assignment Options: When using assignment rules, you can only assign a Lead record to a specific user or a Salesforce Queue. Managing more intricate assignments, such as round-robin distribution, becomes challenging and costly to implement within the confines of assignment rules.
- Single Active Rule: As mentioned previously, Salesforce restricts the use of only one active lead assignment rule at a time. This means that despite having multiple processes with distinct underlying logic, you are forced to consolidate them into a single, busy rule, making management and updates cumbersome.
Considering these challenges, it becomes evident that relying solely on assignment rules may not provide the flexibility and functionality required for more complex lead management scenarios.
How Sweep Simplifies Salesforce Lead Assignment
Although assignment rules in Salesforce offer a powerful solution with a short learning curve, we recognize that the drawbacks can become a significant pain point as businesses grow and the native Salesforce tools may not fully support your team's needs.
To address these challenges, we have developed Sweep's Assignment tool, a visual no-code solution designed to simplify the implementation of assignment logic within Salesforce. This empowers organizations to build their go-to-market motions while maximizing assignment efficiency. The benefits of using Sweep's Assignment capabilities include:
- Assigning any object: From Opportunities to Accounts & Contacts and custom objects, you can apply assignment logic across various Salesforce objects.
- Achieving full visibility: Gain a comprehensive understanding of your business processes and easily track where assignments are taking place.
- Managing round-robin groups: Distribute leads equally among sales representatives using round-robin assignment to ensure fairness, or add weights to better control assignments between reps.
- Simplifying territory management and assignment: Streamline the process of managing territories and assigning leads based on specific territories.
- End-to-end lead routing capabilities: Enhance the lead routing process with advanced features such as Lead Deduplication and Lead-to-Account Matching, ensuring that leads always receive a seamless buying experience.
If you have any questions or would like to learn more about how Sweep Assignment can assist your business as it scales, please don't hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. I would be delighted to show you around or provide further insights into Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules.
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Running Lead Assignment Rules From Salesforce Flow
Last Updated on February 14, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta
To understand how to solve the same business use case using Process Builder . Check out this article Getting Started with Process Builder – Part 49 (Running Lead Assignment Rules From Process Builder) .
Big Idea or Enduring Question:
How do you run the lead assignment rule from the Salesforce flow? Lead assignment rules allow us to automatically assign Leads to the appropriate queue or user. A Lead assignment rule consists of multiple rule entries that define the conditions and order for assigning cases. From a Salesforce User interface, a user can trigger assignment rules by simply checking the Assign using the active assignment rules checkbox under the optional section.
The problem arises when you need to insert or update the Leads from Salesforce Flow and wants to trigger assignment rules. Using the Salesforce Flow a Lead will be inserted or updated but the assignment rule will not be triggered as there is no check box to use the organization’s assignment rule or a prompt to assign using the active assignment rule.
Let’s start with a business use case.
Objectives:
After reading this blog post, the reader will be able to:
- Running the lead assignment rules from Salesforce Flow
- Understand @InvocableMethod Annotation
- How to call an Apex method using Salesforce Flow
Business Use Case
Pamela Kline is working as a System administrator at Universal Containers (UC) . She has received a requirement from the management to update the following Lead fields when Lead Source changed to Partner Referra l .
- Status = Working – Contacted
- Rating = Hot
As data changed by the process, she wants to fire the assignment rule as soon as the process updates the lead record.
Automation Champion Approach (I-do):
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Salesforce-Flow-77-_New.png?resize=640%2C1060&ssl=1)
Guided Practice (We-do):
There are 4 steps to solve Pamela’s business requirement using Salesforce Flow and Apex. We must:
- Setup a lead assignment rule
- Create Apex class & Test class
- Define flow properties for record-triggered flow
- Add a decision element to check the lead source
- Add an assignment element to update status & rating
- Add a scheduled path
- Add a decision element to check if lead source changed
- Add action – call an Apex class to invoke lead assignment rule
Step 1: Setting Up Lead assignment Rule
- Click Setup .
- In the Quick Find box, type Lead Assignment Rules .
- Click on the Lead Assignment Rules | New button .
- Now create an assignment rule, as shown in the following screenshot:
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/PB-Blog-50.2-1.png?resize=640%2C278&ssl=1)
Step 2: Create an Apex class and Test class
Now, we have to understand a new Apex annotation i.e . @InvocableMethod . This annotation lets us use an Apex method as being something that can be called from somewhere other than Apex . The AssignLeadsUsingAssignmentRules class contains a single method that is passing the ids of the Leads whose Lead Source changed to Partner Referral . Create the following class in your organization.
- In the Quick Find box, type Apex Classes .
- Click on the New button .
- Copy code from GitHub and paste it into your Apex Class.
- Click Save.
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/PB-Blog-49.1.png?resize=640%2C513&ssl=1)
![](http://rss3.fun/777/templates/cheerup/res/banner1.gif)
Step 3.1: Salesforce Flow – Define Flow Properties for Before-Save Flow
- In the Quick Find box, type Flows .
- Select Flows then click on the New Flow .
- How do you want to start building : Freeform
- Object : Lead
- Trigger the Flow When : A record is created or updated
- Condition Requirements: None
- Optimize the Flow For : Fast Field Updates
- Click Done .
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Fast-Field-Updates-Flow.png?resize=640%2C539&ssl=1)
Step 3.2: Salesforce Flow – Using Decision Element to Check the Lead Source
Now we will use the Decision element to check the lead source to ensure that it is equal to Partner Referral.
- Under Toolbox , select Element .
- Drag-and-drop Decision element onto the Flow designer.
- Enter a name in the Label field; the API Name will auto-populate.
- Under Outcome Details , enter the Label the API Name will auto-populate.
- Resource: {!$Record.LeadSource}
- Operator: Equals
- Value: Partner Referral
- When to Execute Outcome : Only if the record that triggered the flow to run is updated to meet the condition requirements
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Decision-element-in-Flow-Example.png?resize=640%2C378&ssl=1)
Step 3.3: Salesforce Flow – Adding an Assignment Element to Update Rating and Status
- Drag-and-drop the Assignment Element element onto the Flow designer.
- Enter a name in the Label field- the API Name will auto-populate.
- Field: {!$Record.Rating}
- Add Condition
- Field: {!$Record.Status}
- Value: Working – Contacted
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Assignment-Element-in-Flow.png?resize=640%2C409&ssl=1)
- Click Save .
- Enter Flow Label the API Name will auto-populate.
- Click Show Advanced .
- API Version for Running the Flow : 53
- Interview Label : Record-Trigger: Lead Before Save {!$Flow.CurrentDateTime}
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Save-Flow-blog-77.png?resize=640%2C253&ssl=1)
Step 4.1: Salesforce Flow – Define Flow Properties for After-Save Flow
- Field : Lead Source
- Operator: Euqals
- Optimize the Flow For : Action and Related Records
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Create-a-Schedule-Path-in-Flow.png?resize=640%2C543&ssl=1)
Step 4.2: Salesforce Flow – Add Scheduled Paths
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Scheduled-Path-Flow.png?resize=364%2C312&ssl=1)
- Under SCHEDULED PATHS , click on the New Scheduled Path .
- Under Scheduled Path Details , enter the Label the API Name will auto-populate.
- Time Source : Lead: Last Modified Date
- Offset Number : 1
- Offset Options : Minutes After
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/1-Minutes-Wait-in-Flow.png?resize=640%2C306&ssl=1)
Step 4.3: Salesforce Flow – Adding an Action to Call Apex class to Trigger Lead Assignment Rule
- Drag-and-drop the Actions element onto the Flow designer.
- Select the AssignLeadsUsingAssignmentRules Apex class.
- Field: LeadIds
- Value: {!$Record.Id}
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Lead-Assign-via-Flow.png?resize=640%2C367&ssl=1)
- Interview Label : Record-Trigger: Lead After Save {!$Flow.CurrentDateTime}
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Lead-After-Save-Flow-Blog-77.png?resize=640%2C255&ssl=1)
Proof of Concept
Now onward, if a business user updates the Lead Source to Partner Referral , Process Builder will automatically update Status , Type , and Assign it to the right user or queue based on the lead assignment rule.
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/PB-Blog-49.10.png?resize=640%2C438&ssl=1)
Monitor Your Schedule Flow
To monitor Flows that are scheduled, navigate to the following path:
- Navigate to Setup (Gear Icon) | Environments | Monitoring | Time-Based Workflow .
![apply lead assignment rule](https://i0.wp.com/automationchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Schedule-Flow-Queue.png?resize=640%2C321&ssl=1)
- Use the Delete button to delete the time-based Flow job from the queue.
Formative Assessment:
I want to hear from you! What is one thing you learned from this post? How do you envision applying this new knowledge in the real world? Let me know by Tweeting me at @automationchamp , or find me on LinkedIn.
Submit Query!
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9 thoughts on “ running lead assignment rules from salesforce flow ”.
It ran repeatedly, every minute, over and over again. I was getting notification email every minute when testing. I did the same steps as you mentionned, with a record triggered flow containing the apex action.
I found that this ran repeatedly, every minute, over and over again. Was easy to spot because I modified the Apex to include sending the user notification email as well – so I was getting notification email every minute when testing.
When I updated the ‘Time Source’ in the flow scheduled path from ‘Time Source: Lead: Last Modified Date’ to ‘Time Source: When Lead is Created or Updated’ that seems to have solved the problem.
Was curious if you had the same experience or if there was some other nuance happening.
It also looks like you had originally intended to use a decision element in step 4.3 but changed that to flow entry requirements, likely because the scheduled path can’t assess the prior and current values the same way the starting node can.
Thank you for sharing your valuable feedback. I have a quick question for you: When executing the Apex class, do you utilize a Record-triggered Flow or a Scheduled-triggered Flow?
after the apex class fires, noticed the lead owner is assigned to default lead owner, instead of using lead assignment rule. Any clue?
Thank you for an excellent tutorial 🙂 you solved my problem! Very much appreciated
Anyone getting issues with an error on mass updates “Apex error occurred: System.QueryException: List has more than 1 row for assignment to SObject “? if each one is called individually, I don’t understand how there is more than 1 row for assignment. Sometimes I get an email with this error only to see that the trigger actually worked for the specified record so a bit odd. Thanks!
Thank you for the great tutorial. Why add the 1 minute wait? Is that just to take avoid too much synchronous automation? Or is it required for another reason?
You’re right Kevin (to make the process asynchronous).
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Leandata showcases power of modern revenue orchestration at opsstars 2022, leandata announces winners of the 2022 opsstars awards, what are lead assignment rules in salesforce.
Lead assignment rules are a powerful feature within Salesforce to assist your team’s automation of its lead generation and customer support processes. Assignment rules in Salesforce are used to define to whom your Leads and Cases (customer questions, issues or feedback) are assigned based on any one of a number of specified criteria you determine.
Organizations typically develop lead assignment rules for their GTM processes or flows:
- Rules for inbound Leads
- Rules for website-generated Leads
- Rules for importing Leads from an event
For case assignments, a company might establish one case assignment rule for weekdays and another assignment rule for weekends and holidays.
A lead or case assignment rule often consists of multiple rule entries to specify exactly how leads and cases are assigned throughout your go-to-market teams. For example, related to customer service inquiries, a standard case assignment rule might have multiple entries. Cases with “Type equals Gold” are assigned to the Gold Level service queue, cases with “Type equals Silver” are assigned to the Silver Level service” queue, and so on.
![apply lead assignment rule flowchart with arrows and people](https://www.leandata.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/DALL·E-2024-04-11-09.27.43-A-very-simple-empty-flowchart-depicting-a-journey-from-one-end-to-the-other-featuring-minimalist-icon-looking-humans-and-arrows.-The-flowchart-shoul-1088x622.webp)
As organizations grow and scale, they operationalize multiple GTM motions: inbound, outbound, account-based, upsell/cross-sell, and hybrid. However, many are limited to having just one rule in Salesforce.
As a work-around, many organizations create one massive lead assignment ruleset. They then wedge all of their rule entries into that one big ruleset, regardless of how many different motions that represents. Over time, Salesforce lead assignment rules can quickly become unmanageable .
This post covers the best practices for Salesforce lead and case assignment rules. The ultimate goal is to fully engaging your hard-won leads and speed up your organization’s time-to-revenue.
How to Define Assignment Rules
Your Salesforce administrator can only have one rule in effect at any particular moment in your go-to-market motions, and that assignment rule is intended to both automate lead generation processes and other customer-facing processes routed through your CRM.
Lead assignment rules specify how leads are assigned to users or queues as they are created manually, captured from your website, or imported via SFDC’s Data Import Wizard.
Case assignment rules determine how cases are assigned to users or put into queues as they are created, either manually or through the use of Web-to-Case, Email-to-Case, On-Demand Email-to-Case, the Self-Service portal, the Customer Portal, Outlook, or other data generation applications.
Criteria for Lead Assignment Rules
Okay, so you’ve decided that lead assignment rules in Salesforce make sense for your revenue operations team – now what?
Well, first, you’ll need to determine the edition of your Salesforce instance. Lead assignment rules are available in the Group, Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions of SFDC. Case assignment rules, conversely, are available only in the Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
With regard to User Permissions, to view assignment rules, you’ll need View Setup and Configuration permissions. However, to create or change assignment rules, you’ll need Customize Application. If you are not your organization’s Salesforce administrator, you should check with them before attempting to head off on your own.
![apply lead assignment rule lead-assignment-rules-criteria](https://leandata.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Getting-It-Done-photo-by-Mimi-Thian-on-Unsplash-1024x768.jpg)
How to Create Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules
Creating lead and case assignment rules in Salesforce is a relatively straightforward process.
- Login to Salesforce and select Setup in the upper right corner of the horizontal navigation bar.
- In the Setup search box , type “assignment rules” and then select either Lead Assignment Rules or Case Assignment Rules.
- Select New to create a new assignment rule.
- In the Rule Name box, type a name and specify whether it should be active for leads or cases created manually and by those created automatically by web and email. When done, click Save .
- Click open your newly created rule and select New in the Rule Entries to specify your rule criteria.
- Step 1 in the “Enter the rule entry” window requires you to enter an Order for your new rule (the Order is the order in which the entry is processed, like a queue).
- In Step 2, you determine whether your new rule is based on meeting a set of criteria or a formula. In the Run this rule if the dropdown box, select either “criteria are met” or “formula evaluates to true.”
- Lastly, in Step 3, select the user or queue to whom your rule will assign your new lead or case (use the lookup feature to find specific users or a queue). After completing Step 3, select Save .
Why Are Your Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules Not Working?
If you discover your lead or case assignment rules are not working, here are a few tips to quickly troubleshoot the root cause.
First, check to ensure the assignment rule is active. Remember, only one case or lead assignment rule can be active at one time. Secondly, ensure the record is assigned to the correct user or queue.
Make certain to select the checkbox Assign using active assignment rule . In support of this step, enable field History tracking on case or lead owner, as well as add object History (case or lead) in your page layout.
One common problem is overlapping rule entries, or rule entries in the wrong order. With dozens of rule entries, many will overlap, causing records to get assigned unpredictably. For example, if entry #1 assigns California leads to John, and entry #2 assigns Demo Request leads to Jane, then John might wonder why he’s receiving Demo Requests leads who are supposed to go to Jane.
Assignment Rule Examples
The image, below, shows sample rule entries being entered into Salesforce for a variety of “what if” situations:
- Junk leads containing “test” are sent to an unassigned queue
- Demo requests are routed directly to SDR 3
- Leads at accounts with over $100 million in annual revenue are routed to AE 1
- Leads in certain states are sent to their respective representatives
![apply lead assignment rule sample-lead-assignment-rules](https://leandata.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Sample-Lead-Assignment-Rules-image-1024x433.png)
How LeanData Simplifies Salesforce Lead Assignment
Creating lead and assignment rules in Salesforce is relatively straightforward. However, as your GTM motions become more and more complex, it becomes necessary to populate that one rule with multiple defining rule entries. As you grow and scale, your rule threatens to become unwieldy. Then these problems arise:
- Difficulty in both comprehending and managing
- Poor visibility, making it difficult to troubleshoot and validate
- Restrictions allowing only the criteria on the routed record
![apply lead assignment rule salesforce-lead-assignment-rules-example](https://leandata.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Lead-Assignment-rules.png)
LeanData’s lead routing flow and assignment solution is a native Salesforce application that allows users to create flows in an easy-to-understand visual graph. Its visible representation of an organization’s desired lead flow affords many benefits to users, including:
- Easier ability to visualize and understand complex flows
- Real-time visibility of the routing of leads and the ability to quickly troubleshoot and make adjustments
- At-a-glance ability to use information on matched records for routing decisions and actions
![apply lead assignment rule leandata-routing-assignment-flow](https://leandata.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/LeanData-Routing-assignment-flow.png)
Assignment rules in Salesforce are a relatively easy-to-learn feature that can be very quickly implemented, delivering a flexible and powerful logic to your CRM processes. Automating your lead and customer processes will accelerate your GTM motions and deliver your organization a sustainable competitive advantage.
For more best practices, read the eBook, “ Best Practices for a Winning B2B Marketing Data Strategy .”
- lead assignment rules
- lead assignment rules salesforce
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Ray Hartjen
Ray Hartjen is an experienced writer for the tech industry and published author. You can connect with Ray on both LinkedIn & Twitter .
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How to use Salesforce lead assignment rules
When your organization gets to the point that you have a) leads coming in on a regular basis and b) multiple sales reps, you quickly realize you need a way to divide up those leads among your reps. If you're using Salesforce, you may have noticed a built-in feature called Lead Assignment Rules. Sounds perfect, right? Sort of. We'll walk you through it.
Here's our agenda:
- The basics of lead assignment rules
Matching and assigning with rule entries
- Issues and challenges with lead assignment rules
The basics of lead assignment rules in Salesforce
Let's take a look at lead assignment rules in Salesforce. Go to your Salesforce org's Setup section and search for "lead assignment" in the Quick Find box. You'll find these buried under Feature Settings > Marketing > Lead Assignment Rules. If you don't see it, make sure you have permissions for "View Setup and Configuration" and "Customize Application".
![apply lead assignment rule Salesforce lead assignment rule editor](https://www.gradient.works/hs-fs/hubfs/LeadAssignmentRuleEdit-1.png?width=3360&name=LeadAssignmentRuleEdit-1.png)
- Unique names - Every lead assignment rule has a unique name [1].
- A lead assignment rule is really a list of "rule entries" - Salesforce calls each of the individual rules in the list a "rule entry" [2]. Each rule entry allows you to say something along the lines of: "if a lead meets these criteria, assign it to this user (or queue - more on that in a moment)".
- Rule entry order matters - The list of rule entries [2] is processed in a specific order you define. Salesforce will process each rule entry until it finds a match. Once it finds a match, it will assign the lead based on how the rule entry is configured.
- Only one active rule at a time - You can only have one lead assignment rule set to active [3].
Now that we've got a decent idea about what a lead assignment rule looks like, let's dive into rule entries.
Every rule entry has three parts:
- Order - This is a number that indicates where the entry exists in the list. Rule entries are evaluated starting at 1 and then processing until one of the rules matches.
- Matching Criteria - Leads are compared to the matching criteria for each rule to determine if the lead matches. The first rule that matches is used to determine assignment.
- Assignment - This tells Salesforce what you want to do once a lead has matched the matching criteria. Usually, you'll tell Salesforce to assign it to a user or a queue.
Order is pretty straightforward. The complexity really lies in matching criteria and assignment. let's spend some time on those.
Matching criteria
There are two types of matching criteria: filter criteria and formulas. You'll probably use filter criteria the most, so let's start with that one:
![apply lead assignment rule Salesforce lead assignment rule entry with filter criteria](https://www.gradient.works/hs-fs/hubfs/NewRuleEntryCriteria.png?width=3360&name=NewRuleEntryCriteria.png)
One key limitation is that you can only configure criteria using fields from the lead, the current user, and the campaign associated with the lead.
Here's what it looks like to create a formula rule entry:
![apply lead assignment rule Salesforce lead assignment rule entry with formula](https://www.gradient.works/hs-fs/hubfs/NewRuleEntryFormula.png?width=3360&name=NewRuleEntryFormula.png)
hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(8216850, 'e84fc167-06c5-4b7b-bb34-42ccff0e2db4', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});
Let's go back to the rule entry screen and focus on the assignment section:
![apply lead assignment rule Salesforce lead assignment rule user and queue assignment](https://www.gradient.works/hs-fs/hubfs/NewRuleEntryAssignment-1.png?width=3360&name=NewRuleEntryAssignment-1.png)
So, what's the difference between a user and a queue?
- User - In business terms, this is a particular sales rep who will be responsible for managing the lead. In technical terms, this is an active Salesforce user configured in your Salesforce org.
- Queue - A Queue is a list of records (usually Leads, but not always) that are accessible to a specific group of users. Each of those users can take ownership of a record from the queue, removing it for the others. When you assign ownership of a Lead to a Queue, you're effectively making it first-come, first-serve for a group of users. This is not the same as a "round-robin" assignment where you assign the Lead to one person from a list of users.
There's one last thing to know about assigning ownership. Note the checkbox labeled "Do not Reassign Owner"[3]. This controls what happens when a lead is updated and matches the criteria. If this is checked, the assignment will essentially be ignored. Use this to prevent toggling users back and forth.
The last field, "Email Template" [4] allows you to specify a particular email template to use for notifying the new assignee when the assignment is complete.
Issues and challenges
Lead Assignment Rules are a reasonable choice for a small team with simple rules. They work and the only cost to you is the administrative overhead of creating and maintaining them. Unfortunately, they're extremely limited and don't cover many common use cases. They also become very brittle as your team size and lead velocity increase. Here are a few common issues and challenges:
- Leads only - They only apply to the Lead object (there are Case Assignment Rules for Cases, but that's it). This may make them a poor fit for your sales process if you need to do lead-to-account matching or you're pursuing an account-based strategy . If you need to assign other things besides Leads, you'll need to try a more flexible automation solution like Flow .
- Hard to test - Unlike Process Builder or Flow, your Lead Assignment Rules don't provide any form of versioning or debugging so it's hard to test them without just doing it live.
- Hard to audit - There's no record of why a lead was assigned in a particular way. You'll have to go look through your rule entries to figure it out. This can quickly get painful as the number of rules increases.
- One rule at a time - If your company has very different rules for different leads (e.g. from different campaign sources or applicable to different product lines), it can be very challenging to craft your rule entries in a way that handles more than one lead routing flow.
- No round-robin - It's technically possible to do a very poor version of round-robin with Lead Assignment Rules, we don't recommend it. It's extremely brittle and will break without lots of maintenance.
Where to go from here?
If you've got a small team with simple processes, give Salesforce lead assignment rules a try; they may give you just what you need. If you find yourself needing to assign other objects besides Leads, perform round-robin rep assignments or maintain a full audit trail, you might want to consider Gradient Works.
![apply lead assignment rule Hayes Davis](https://www.gradient.works/hs-fs/hubfs/hayes-headshot.png?width=150&name=hayes-headshot.png)
Hayes Davis
Hayes Davis is co-founder of Gradient Works. Previously, Hayes was SVP of Revenue Operations at Cision, where he ran a global team of 50 supporting nearly 600 sellers. He was also co-founder and CEO of Union Metrics until its successful acquisition by TrendKite in 2018. Hayes has a background in computer science.
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Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce
- ⏱️ 4 minutes
One of the significant aspects of the Salesforce solution is its ability to have automated workflows or process flows for most of the day-to-day business use cases. In a sales process, leads can be generated in volumes daily, and assigning those leads to the right agent or team is a cumbersome task. Leads can be created via different channels. For example, people can enquire about the service through the company website (Web to lead) or leads can be uploaded using import data wizard (Bulk upload), or leads can be created manually in the CRM application.
The leads generated through different channels have to be assigned properly, considering the priority of the leads based on certain factors. Thus lead assignment rule is paramount because it automates the process of assigning the lead to the proper team or agent.
So, what is Assignment Rules in Salesforce?
Salesforce Assignment Rules automate lead and case distribution by routing them to specific users or queues based on criteria like geography or record type. Rules can be customized to meet your organization’s unique needs.
How to Set Up Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce?
1. From Setup, “Quick Find” search box, type “Lead assignment.” You will be able to see “Lead Assignment Rules.”
![Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce 1 Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce](https://dwlrs858nh2or.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/21130945/Screenshot-from-2022-12-15-23-54-15.webp)
2. Select the “New” button to create a new lead assignment rule.
3. Enter the rule name and activate the “Active” checkbox.
![Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce 2 Screenshot from 2022 12 15 23 54 38](https://dwlrs858nh2or.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/21130945/Screenshot-from-2022-12-15-23-54-38.webp)
4. To specify your rule criteria, open your newly created rule and select New in the Rule Entries section.
5. On this page, you have 3 tasks.
a. Step 1: Determine the order in which the rule entry will be processed – you only need to specify the sort order here. Let’s give 1 now.
b. Step 2 – Select the criteria for the rule entry – In our example, let’s take an assignment based on geography. Leads originating from the USA have to be assigned to the ‘USA Lead Management team.’ Leads generated outside the USA need to be handled by the ‘Other Countries’ team. In sort order 1, we will manage USA-based leads. So select the conditions as in the below image.
c. Step 3 – Select the user or queue to assign the lead to – here, we can assign the lead to either a user or a queue. In our example, we will assign USA-based leads to the ‘USA Lead Management queue. When you select the email template, all the members in the queue will get notified if a new lead is assigned to them.
![Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce 3 Screenshot from 2022 12 15 23 54 54](https://dwlrs858nh2or.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/21130945/Screenshot-from-2022-12-15-23-54-54.webp)
6. Repeat processes in (5) to assign leads generated in countries other than the USA. Here, the sort order should be 2. Country NOT EQUAL to the USA.
![Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce 4 Screenshot from 2022 12 15 23 55 05](https://dwlrs858nh2or.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/21130944/Screenshot-from-2022-12-15-23-55-05.webp)
Lead Assignment Rule: Did You Know?
- Only one active assignment rule is possible at a time. You can create multiple assignment rules, but only one can be active at a time.
- The Group, Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions all include lead assignment rules.
- Typically an admin user with a System administrator profile will be able to set up lead assignment and routing. However, a user with a less privileged profile will need to check if they have “View Setup and Configuration” permission enabled to view the assignment rules. To create or change assignment rules, one must have “Customize Application” permission in their profile or permission set.
- In the lead page layout, if you select ‘Layout Properties,’ you can see an option for the ‘Lead Assignment Checkbox.’ You can show this option on the lead edit page.
![Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce 5 Screenshot from 2022 12 15 23 55 26](https://dwlrs858nh2or.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/21130944/Screenshot-from-2022-12-15-23-55-26.webp)
So, basically, lead assignment rules can help ensure that your leads are handled efficiently and effectively, and they can help distribute leads evenly among your sales team.
Now, that’s all about the Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce. If you wish to learn more about Lead assignments or anything about Salesforce, join our saasguru Slack community and talk with seasoned Salesforce professionals.
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Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules are a numbered set of distribution rules that determine which owner a Lead record should be assigned (either a specific user or to a Salesforce Queue ).
Assignment rules automate your organization’s lead generation and support processes. Use lead assignment rules to specify how leads are assigned to users...
Create a Round Robin Lead Assignment Rule Keep your team's workload even by auto-assigning new leads to each user. Round robin assignment means that each new lead is assigned to a different user until everyone has been assigned the same amount and the cycle repeats.
We'll cover the benefits, how to plan your lead assignment strategy, and a step-by-step walkthrough of adding lead assignment rules in Salesforce. We'll also explore the power of scheduling automation to simplify and speed up lead assignment, routing, and qualification.
A lead assignment rule consists of a prioritized set of rule entries that dictate how leads are assigned throughout your go-to-market motions, either to a specific user or to a Salesforce Queue. These rules are automatically triggered when leads are created and can also be applied to existing records.
How do you run the lead assignment rule from the Salesforce flow? Lead assignment rules allow us to automatically assign Leads to the appropriate queue or user. A Lead assignment rule consists of multiple rule entries that define the conditions and order for assigning cases.
Assignment rules allow you to automatically apply criteria to sort, queue, or act on leads. For example, use assignment rules to automatically assign leads to the lead inbox queue for Partner Central.
Over time, Salesforce lead assignment rules can quickly become unmanageable. This post covers the best practices for Salesforce lead and case assignment rules. The ultimate goal is to fully engaging your hard-won leads and speed up your organization’s time-to-revenue.
A lead assignment rule is really a list of "rule entries" - Salesforce calls each of the individual rules in the list a "rule entry" [2]. Each rule entry allows you to say something along the lines of: "if a lead meets these criteria, assign it to this user (or queue - more on that in a moment)".
Salesforce Assignment Rules automate lead and case distribution by routing them to specific users or queues based on criteria like geography or record type. Rules can be customized to meet your organization’s unique needs. How to Set Up Lead Assignment Rules in Salesforce? 1. From Setup, “Quick Find” search box, type “Lead assignment.”