Routing: choose who becomes the primary contact when a firm invites you

What this page decides

When another firm invites yours to work on an engagement, somebody at your firm becomes that engagement's primary contact. Without any rules, that is always your firm's main point of contact.

Settings › Routing lets you change that. You write rules in your own words — "Tax Services referrals go to Avery Chen" — and FirmLinks uses them to pick the primary contact for each new invitation.

Who can see it and who can change it

Everyone at your firm can open Settings › Routing and read the rules, so anyone told "there's a rule for that" can go and look at it.

Only an administrator can add, change, reorder or delete rules. Everyone else sees the list read-only, with the line "Only an administrator can change these rules. Ask one to make a change."

How the rules are used

• The rules are read in order, top to bottom, and the first rule that matches wins. The rules below it are not looked at for that invitation. Each rule is numbered so you can see its place.
• If no rule matches, the primary contact is your firm's main point of contact, exactly as it would be with no rules. The line under the list names that person.
• A rule is applied the first time your firm is invited to a given engagement. If the same firm invites you again on that engagement, the contact you already have stays — so a change you made by hand is never overwritten by a rule.
• Changing or deleting a rule does not touch engagements already routed. They keep the primary contact they were given.

With no rules yet, the page tells you where every invitation goes today: "Every engagement you are invited to goes to [name], your firm's main point of contact."

Adding a rule

1. Click Add rule.
2. In Write the rule in your own words, describe when the rule applies and who the work should go to.
3. Click Save.

FirmLinks reads your sentence and, if it understood it, adds the rule to the bottom of the list, written out the way it understood it. If it could not read part of it, the dialog stays open, says "Your changes are not saved", and lists what it could not read so you can reword it. Nothing is saved until the whole sentence is understood.

What a rule can look at

The dialog lists the words that work. A rule can be based on:

• Type of assignment — Internal Assignment, Partnership, Referral, Consultation or Firm Vendor.
• A service, or a whole category — for example Audit & Assurance or Tax Services, or the name of one service.
• How many services you were invited to — 3 or more services, or only one service.
• Who is inviting you — a firm's name, from the firms you are connected to.
• When they need an answer — for example due within 7 days.
• How you are connected to them — a direct connection, the open network, any group, or one group by name.

You can combine conditions in one rule — "Referrals from Hartwell & Associates for Tax Services go to Avery Chen". A rule cannot say "or"; write two rules instead, and the one nearer the top wins.

An invitation does not carry the client's industry, location or size, so a rule based on those would never match. FirmLinks refuses it and tells you what an invitation does carry.

Who a rule can send the work to

The primary contact can be:

• a person at your firm, by their full name;
• the main contact for that service — the person set as main contact for the invited service on your Settings › Services page;
• our main point of contact.

If two people at your firm match a name, FirmLinks lists them and asks you to write the full name.

Adding an additional contact

A rule can also name one additional contact, who is added to the engagement alongside the primary contact. Write it into the same sentence:

"Tax Services referrals go to Avery Chen, and add Julie Winters as an additional contact."

The additional contact has to be someone other than the primary contact. To remove them later, edit the rule and write the sentence again without that part.

Categories are limited to your firm's service lines

A rule can only name a category that sits under one of the service lines your firm holds on Settings › Services. If you want a rule for a category in another service line, add that service line first.

When two categories share a name

Some category names exist in more than one service line — for example the same name under the United States, Canada and International accounting lines. When your sentence could mean more than one, FirmLinks says More than one area is called “…”. Write which one. and lists the choices, each with its country — for example Audit & Assurance, United States.

Add the country or kind of work to your sentence to choose one:

• Country: United States, U.S., USA, American, Canada, Canadian or International.
• Kind of work: accounting, legal, information technology (or IT, in capitals), marketing or wealth management.

The IT and Marketing service lines are not tied to any country, so their choices show the country label Global, and naming a country does not rule them out. Where a name appears in both the IT and Marketing lines, write IT or marketing to choose. Where two choices would read the same, the kind of work is shown after them, for example · Accounting.

Reading the list

Each rule shows:

• its conditions, one per line, joined by and. A category shows how many services it covers, for example Audit & Assurance · 51 services;
• a Primary contact line with the person (and their email when it is a named person);
• an Additional contact line, if the rule has one.

When a rule needs attention

Rules can stop working when something they point at changes. A rule with a problem is marked with a warning icon, and shows what went wrong instead of its contact, for example:

• "[Name] is no longer at your firm. This rule is being skipped."
• "[Name] was deactivated. This rule is being skipped."
• “[Name]” no longer exists. This rule is being skipped.
• “[Category]” is no longer one of your service lines. — the rule names a category in a service line your firm has since removed.

When rules are being skipped, a line above the list says how many, and that the engagements they would have routed are going to your main point of contact instead. Edit the rule to point it somewhere that exists, or delete it.

If the additional contact on a rule has left, the rule keeps working for its primary contact and simply adds no one else.

Editing, reordering and deleting

Each rule has an actions menu:

• Edit… opens your original sentence to change. If the new wording can't be read, the rule keeps working as it was until you fix it or cancel.
• Move up and Move down change its place in the order. You can also drag a rule by its handle, or focus the handle and use the up and down arrow keys.
• Delete… asks you to confirm, then removes the rule and the sentence you wrote for it.

There is no Save button on the page itself. Reordering and deleting save straight away.