salesforce maps assignment rule

About 10 mins

Learning Objectives

Assign nearby containers, comparison data, the power of the legend, practice with the trailhead simulator, intelligent, attribute-based optimization.

• Challenge +100 points

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Discover more, create an optimal territory alignment.

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

• Select and compare territory changes.
• Add new territories.
• Optimize and save territories.

In the previous unit, Linda laid the framework for planning territories by creating a data set and importing her existing territory alignment. Now it’s time to make changes to her territory alignment.

Territory Planning data is isolated from production data and assignments. This means Linda can make changes and see the immediate impact of these changes on annual revenue and unit count. Changes are not updated in Salesforce until data is published and activated.

Linda shifts her attention to the map view. She’s excited to see that all the areas in the Southeast region were automatically assigned a territory.

In the past, there were often gaps in territory coverage due to missing zip codes in her Salesforce org. It took hours to search for unassigned areas, locate nearby accounts, and assign ownership. Now with Territory Planning, Linda selects Automatically assign nearby containers as part of her alignment design. Missing zip codes/postal codes are automatically assigned to nearby accounts based on their proximity to each territory.

Each territory displays a circle that represents the center of the territory. Units are scattered throughout the map. Under the Legend panel, Linda selects United States Postal Code to see the list of zip codes missing from her org. She unchecks any area she wants to keep unassigned.

She wants to see a comparison of the annual revenue in her current alignment versus the annual revenue of any proposed changes. To view this, as an option, Territory Planning displays a comparison chart at the bottom of the map. Linda drags the lassoed area to different territories and uses the comparison chart to view the impact of these changes on the annual revenue of each selected territory.

Once satisfied with her proposed changes, Linda selects the territory area, reassigns it to another territory, and applies her changes. The changes automatically display in the Legend fields.

At this point, Linda has changed the assignment of territories and created a new territory. She sees the territory distribution among reps and by glancing at the unit count and annual revenue in the territory, it’s clear that they’re not evenly distributed. To solve this issue, she selects Optimize  to ensure an even distribution of territories based on annual revenue. She wants every territory to have the appropriate coverage, and she also needs to ensure the reps have an equal chance to succeed. This results in happier customers, on average, and greatly reduces costly attrition.

In this unit, Linda made changes to her territory alignment. Now you can practice using the Trailhead Simulator. You use the simulator instead of a Trailhead Playground to follow along and try out the steps in the simulator. 

For the best experience, view the Trailhead Simulator on a computer, not a mobile device. The Trailhead Simulator is different from a Trailhead Playground. The simulator doesn’t store your progress or the data you enter. If you close your browser, the simulation starts from the beginning each time you launch it. You can use the navigation controls at the bottom of the simulator to find where you left off. 

Launch the Trailhead Simulator .

Optimization is a powerful feature of Territory Planning; it optimizes territories based on the attribute that matters most. In this case, Linda wants to balance her territories based on annual revenue and uses distance logic to determine the actual drive time between accounts. Distance logic provides two options.

• As the Crow Flies: Relies on straight line, point-to-point distances
• Drive Time Network: Relies on local road networks, estimated distance, and estimated drive times

Linda selects Drive Time Network .

Now she can set her preference for optimization. There are three optimization options.

• Balance:  Provides an equal distribution of the selected attribute across territory areas
• Continuity: Provides the minimum amount of Unit/Container reassignments across territory areas. If selected this will increase balance with minimal impact on your alignment.
• Compactness: Provides the minimum distance between Units and Containers within Territory Areas. Smaller drive time networks decrease mileage. Use this if your organization is focused on minimizing drive time.

With Territory Planning, you can prioritize one, a combination of two, or all three options. Linda selects all three.

Satisfied with her design, she collaborates with leadership. Once finalized, she publishes her design. She must choose from the following six publishing options.

• Publish to Sales Territories : Publishes a Salesforce Territory Model in Sales Territories. If selecting this option, changes must also be activated in the respective tool for changes to apply.
• Publish to Salesforce Maps: Saves territories as shape layers in a folder in Salesforce Maps. If users have access to the folder, they can view their territories, overlay account information, and plan optimal routes and schedules within their assigned territories. Optionally creates Auto Assignment rules to geographically route records to the correct user.
• Publish to PDF: Create PDF representations of both map and map legend for all specified layers of an Alignment. Select between current level or individual territories.
• Publish to Salesforce Fields: Writes assignment values from Territory Planning to fields found within Salesforce records such as Accounts, Opportunities, Leads, and Custom Objects.
• Publish to CSV File: Create a CSV extract for your alignment and include area, boundary, and/or unit information.
• Publish to Field Service: Create service territories and service territory polygons from your assigned boundaries in Territory Planning to use in Field Service.

Linda selects Sales Territories and clicks Next . 

The Sales Territories dialog box contains the following options.

• Publish Scope: This offers two options: Publish your entire alignment or the specific focus you are working in.
• Publish Level: This selects a hierarchy level to publish.
• Publish Method: This publishes new territories, overwrites existing territories, or overwrites matching territories.
• Territory Model: This is the model that the territories are published to.
• Parent Territory : This selection determines the parent territory for the selected level.
• Territory Type : This is the territory type that is assigned to every territory in the alignment.
• Assignment Rule Field: This selects any standard or custom account field to base your territory assignment rules on, such as zip code or state.
• Publish locked units as manually assigned accounts:  If a territory contains locked accounts, then they can publish those assignments manually. This is typically for exception accounts that do not match the geo assignment rules (that is, an account in a zip code that is owned by a different rep).

Linda completes the dialogue box and publishes her new alignment.

In this case, she also chooses Publish to Salesforce Maps . She saves the territory shape layers in a folder accessible to the sales team. Now the Cloud Kicks sales team can use these additional shape layers in Salesforce Maps to graphically visualize their territories and create optimized routes and schedules to improve productivity and revenue.

Throughout this unit, Linda worked to realign territories for Cloud Kicks. She successfully visualized new territories and easily made changes using Territory Planning. Changes to key attributes were automatically updated and she saw the immediate impact of any change. All the while, her realignments were isolated from production data so Linda can safely make as many changes as needed and share realignments with management before activating any final changes.

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Territory management in salesforce: 10 things you need to know.

By Andreea Doroftei

In this article, we’ll go through ten of the features and considerations you should be aware of before implementing Sales Territories in your Salesforce organization.

What Is Salesforce Sales Territories?

What is so special about sales territories, 1. data model.

2. Supported Objects

3. Territory Model Considerations

• Planning : This is the preview state of any territory model you create, during which you can make changes without much impact and review the setup prior to deploying it.
• Active : Only one territory model can be in the active state at a time, and this is the model on which record access and any territory forecasting will be based. Changes can still be made to this model as needed, users can be re-assigned, and new territories can be created, but these will have implications, such as sharing recalculation.
• Archived : Once a territory model is no longer in use and a new one is ready to go live, it can be easily archived from Setup. You will no longer be able to make changes to this model, including adjusting any of the account assignments or reactivating it, for example. Territories from the archived model will also be removed from the opportunity Territory2Id field automatically, but as long as you don’t delete the archived model, the past assignment will be visible in the Assigned Territories related list on Accounts. Territory forecasts and forecast types will also be deleted as a result of the archival.

4. Assignment Rules

5. Permissions

6. user assignment.

7. Sales Territories and Automation

8. Reports and Queries on Sales Territories Data

9. Field History Tracking

10. Territory Planning

Final Thoughts

Andreea doroftei.

Andreea is a Salesforce Technical Instructor at Salesforce Ben. She is an 18x certified Salesforce Professional with a passion for User Experience and Automation. 

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Salesforce Assignment Rules Deep Dive

• July 7, 2022

What Are Salesforce Assignment Rules

Assignment rules are a standard feature in Salesforce used to automate the assignment of leads and cases. They can be a great alternative to manually assigning records. However, there are more than a few limitations you’ll want to be aware of. In this article we’ll discuss the benefits and limitations of Salesforce assignment rules so you can decide if they make sense for your organization. We’ll also share advice and guidance on how to effectively configure assignment rules.

The Benefits of Assignment Rules

Salesforce assignment rules are a powerful tool designed to streamline the distribution and management of leads and cases within an organization. By automating the assignment process, these rules ensure that leads and cases are instantly assigned to the most appropriate team members based on specific criteria such as product interest, priority, and geographic location. This target approach helps to accelerate response times, balance workload, improve team performance, and increase customer satisfaction. The use of assignment rules in Salesforce, therefore, represents a strategic advantage for businesses looking to optimize their sales and support workflows, ultimately driving growth and customer loyalty.

Limitations of Assignment Rules

While Salesforce assignment rules offer significant advantages, they also have limitations that organizations should be aware of:

• Limited to leads and cases : One of the most significant limitations of Salesforce assignment rules is the inability to assign standard or custom objects beyond leads and cases. This restriction often prompts organizations to look for an alternative solution that can assign any object .
• Lack of round robin assignment : They do not support round robin assignment, which is essential for most modern sales and support teams. Instead, each rule assigns records to a specific user or queue you designate.
• Lack of workload-based assignment : They don’t consider the existing workload of team members, potentially leading to an uneven distribution of leads and cases. This can result in slow response times and employee burnout.
• Lack of availability-based assignment : They don’t consider the availability of team members, resulting in leads and cases being assigned to team members that are away from work or otherwise unavailable.
• Difficult to maintain : Assignment rules can quickly become difficult to manage—even for small teams with simple assignment logic. Here’s an example of what a small portion of a typical assignment rule looks like:

Assignment rules can still be very useful despite these limitations. Continue reading to learn how assignment rules can be used to optimize your lead and case routing process.

How Assignment Rules Work

An assignment rule is a collection of conditional statements known as assignment rule entries. Each assignment rule entry contains one or more conditions and a user or queue to whom matching records will be assigned.

The Sort Order field can be used to change the order in which assignment rules are executed. Leads and cases will be evaluated against assignment rule entries in order and assigned by the first assignment rule entry that matches.

In the example above, we’ve prioritized our rules for Canada provinces (e.g. Ontario) higher than our country-wide Canada rule entry to ensure that leads from specific provinces don’t get assigned to the wrong person.

Next we’ll step you through how to actually create an assignment rule. 

How to Create Assignment Rules

You’ll need the “Customize Application” permission in order to manage assignment rules. If you don’t have this permission, contact your Salesforce administrator.

Ready to create your first assignment rule? Follow these steps:

• Login to Salesforce.
• Navigate to Setup .
• Search for “assignment rules” in Quick Find and click either Lead Assignment Rules or Case Assignment Rules .
• Click New to create a new rule.
• Name your rule and then click Save . We recommend leaving the Active box unchecked for now. 

Now you’re ready to specify how leads or cases will be assigned.

• Click on the rule you created.
• Click New to create a rule entry.
• Sort Order : this controls the order in which rules are executed.
• Criteria : you can enter one or more filters to define which records should be assigned by this rule.
• Owner : choose a user or queue to which records should be assigned. Alternatively you can check the Do Not Reassign Owner checkbox if this rule should not assign records.
• (Optional) Select an email template for notifying users of assignments.
• Click “ Save. ”
• Repeat the above steps for any additional rule entries.

Activate Your Assignment Rule

You can follow these steps to activate your assignment rule:

• Navigate to your assignment rule.
• Click the Edit
• Check the Active
• Click Save .

Keep in mind that only one assignment rule can be active at a time. We’ll discuss how your active assignment rule can be used to assign records in the next section.

What Triggers Assignment Rules in Salesforce

There is often some confusion about how and when assignment rules run. There are a few different ways these rules can be triggered:

• Creating a New Record : When a new lead or case is created, either manually or through an automated process, assignment rules can be triggered to assign the record to the appropriate user or queue.
• Updating a Record : If a record is updated and meets certain criteria set in the assignment rules, this can also trigger the reassignment of the lead or case.
• Web-to-Lead or Web-to-Case Submission : When leads or cases are generated through Salesforce’s web-to-lead or web-to-case features, assignment rules can automatically assign these incoming records.
• Data Import : When importing data into Salesforce, you can opt to apply assignment rules to the imported records, ensuring they are assigned according to the established criteria.
• API Creation or Update : Records created or updated via Salesforce’s API can also trigger assignment rules, depending on the configuration.
• Manual Triggering : Users with the appropriate permissions can manually apply assignment rules to leads or cases, either individually or in bulk.

Understanding these triggers is essential to effectively utilizing assignment rules in Salesforce, ensuring that leads and cases are assigned to the right team members promptly and efficiently.

Tips and Tricks

• It’s always a good idea to include a final rule entry with no conditions. This will be used to catch anything that didn’t match your rule criteria and assign it to a user or queue for review.
• It’s also a good idea to include a rule entry that assigns junk (e.g. spam, test records, etc.) to a queue for review and deletion.
• We recommend you test assignment rules in a sandbox before you add to your production org. However, keep in mind that assignment rules cannot be deployed from a sandbox to a production org.
• Custom formula fields can help to simplify complex assignment rules. For example, rather than entering lengthy criteria (e.g. lists of states by region) you could create a formula field instead. This would reduce your criteria from “STATE/PROVINCE EQUALS IL,IN,IA,KS,MI,MN,MO,NE,ND,OH,SD,WI” to “REGION EQUALS Midwest”.
• You can enable field history tracking on the owner field to track assignments made by your assignment rules.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens to records that don’t meet salesforce assignment rule criteria.

These records will be assigned to whomever is designated as the default lead owner or case owner.

What are the different types of assignment rules in Salesforce?

Salesforce currently support lead and case assignment rules. Additionally, account assignment rules can be created as part of enterprise territory management.

What is the order of execution for assignment rules?

It’s important to understand exactly when assignment rules are run in relation to other events. For example, assignment rules are run after apex triggers and before workflow rules. See Salesforce’s Triggers and Order of Execution article for a comprehensive list of events and the order in which they’re executed.

How do you run assignment rules when creating or editing records using the REST API?

You can use the Sforce-Auto-Assign header when making REST API calls to control whether or not assignment rules run.

Salesforce assignment rules can be a valuables tool for many organizations. However, it’s important to understand the limitations. If you’re struggling with assignment rules it may be time to look at alternative solutions. Kubaru is a powerful automated assignment application for Salesforce. Check us out on the Salesforce AppExchange or contact us to schedule a demo.  

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