Short answer
Round robin hands new leads out in turn: rep A, then B, then C, then A again. Balanced gives each lead to the rep who currently holds the fewest open leads in that campaign. Either way, a rep only gets leads they're allowed to take (team, skills, licensed state). The assignment runs every minute.
Under the campaign's Lead routing settings, Give new leads an owner takes three values: *No, leave them unowned*, *Round robin (in turn)* and *Balanced (fewest open leads)*. Pick one of the last two and every unowned lead in the campaign gets an owner automatically.
How assignment runs
Every minute, the dialer goes through each campaign that has auto-assignment on and:
- Finds the agents who can work it: members of the campaign's teams (or everyone, if no teams are set), with every skill the campaign requires.
- Takes unowned leads that are still open (waiting or being dialed), oldest first, up to 500 per campaign per minute.
- For each lead, narrows the agents to those with the skills that lead needs, such as its licensed state or language.
- Picks the owner with round robin or balanced.
Need it right away? Use Distribute now in the campaign settings instead of waiting for the next minute.
A lead is only ever given to an unowned contact. Leads that already have an owner, set by hand or synced from a CRM, are never reassigned.
Round robin
Reps are put in a fixed order, and each lead goes to the next eligible rep after the one who got the last lead. The campaign remembers its place, so the rotation keeps going across batches and days.
| Lead | Eligible reps | Goes to |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A, B, C | A |
| 2 | A, B, C | B |
| 3 (Texas, only A and C licensed) | A, C | C |
| 4 | A, B, C | A |
Good for: an even flow of new leads. Everyone gets the same number of fresh leads, however fast they work.
Balanced
Each lead goes to the eligible rep with the fewest open leads in that campaign right now.
Good for: keeping workloads even. A rep who closes out their list quickly gets more. A rep with a backlog gets fewer until they catch up.
Which should you use?
- Fairness in new lead flow (commission teams): round robin.
- Even workloads and fast follow-up: balanced.
What assignment doesn't do
- It doesn't change who dials a lead in a shared campaign. Pair it with *Agents get their own leads first* or *Only the owner calls their leads*. See the lead-owner modes.
- It skips leads nobody is eligible for, such as a lead in a state no agent is licensed in. Those wait without an owner.
- It doesn't move leads off a rep who goes offline. Use a release time in owner-only campaigns for that.