Managing Technician Skills

Skills let you control which technicians appear in the assignment list for a task, based on the categories and subcategories they're qualified to work on. For example, only your plumbers show up when assigning a plumbing task.

Skills are optional and opt-in per person — if you don't set up any skills for someone, nothing changes for them. Once you give a technician a skill, they become "skills-enforced" and will only be offered for work that matches their skills.

💡 Skills affect who you can assign a task to. They don't change what a technician can see or do on tasks already assigned to them.

How Skills work

A skill is a link between a technician and a category or subcategory.
Grant a whole category and the technician automatically gets every subcategory under it — you only manage the one category entry.
A technician with no skills is unaffected — they remain available for assignment exactly as before.
A technician with one or more skills is enforced: they only appear in the assignment list for tasks whose category/subcategory matches a skill they hold.
People already involved with a task are never hidden. The task's creator, its current assignee, and anyone who has already worked on it stay assignable regardless of skills.

Setting up skills

There are three ways to manage skills — use whichever fits what you're doing.

1. The Skills Matrix (best for setup at scale)

Go to Setup → Skills. You'll see a grid with technicians across the top and categories/subcategories down the side. Check a box where a technician should have a skill.

Use the Team, Role, and Category/Subcategory filters at the top to narrow the grid. Selecting a category shows that category and all of its subcategories.

2. From a person

On a technician's profile, open the Skills section and choose the categories/subcategories they're qualified for.

3. From a category or subcategory

On a category or subcategory, use the Skills action to add the people who are qualified for it.

Turning enforcement on or off for a person

The first time you give someone a skill, skills enforcement turns on for them automatically. Each technician has a Skilled User switch you can use to:

Pause enforcement — keep their recorded skills but temporarily make them available everywhere again.
Record without enforcing — note someone's skills for reference without limiting their assignments yet.

Overriding skills when assigning ("View all")

Sometimes you need to assign a task to someone outside the usual skill set. On the Task Details and task creation screens, next to Assigned To, users with the right permission see a (view all) link:

(view all) — show every eligible technician, ignoring skills.
(view skilled) — switch back to only skilled technicians.

[Screenshot: (view all) toggle next to Assigned To]

This link only appears for users whose role has the Skills – Ignore on Assignment permission. The standard task-list assignment stays skills-limited for everyone.

Permissions

Skills are controlled by two role permissions on Setup → Roles / Security (under Task Administration):

Permission	What it allows
Skills – Admin	Manage skills (the Skills Matrix, and the Skills options on people and categories).
Skills – Ignore on Assignment	Use the (view all) override when assigning a task.

Reporting on skills

The Skills Matrix report (in Reports) shows which technicians hold which skills — technicians across the top, categories/subcategories down the side. By default it lists only skilled technicians; you can switch it to show everyone, and filter by team, role, or category/subcategory.

Frequently asked questions

If I don't set up any skills, does anything change? No. Assignment works exactly as before until you give someone a skill.
I gave a technician a category — do I have to add each subcategory too? No. Granting a category automatically covers all of its subcategories.
A technician disappeared from the assignment list — why? They likely have skills set (so they're enforced) and don't have a skill matching that task's category/subcategory. Add the matching skill, pause their enforcement with the Skilled User switch, or use (view all) if you have the permission.
Can I still assign a task to someone who already worked on it? Yes. Anyone who created, is assigned to, or has worked on a task always stays assignable.