A contact center is described along with various methods and mechanisms for administering the same. In general, methods and mechanisms are disclosed that are configured to provide interactive voice response (IVR) functionality as one or more distributed resources capable of being assigned work items via a work assignment engine. Assigning work items may be performed via the work assignment engine running an IVR script. This IVR script may be configured to determine information associated with a work item such that an efficient work assignment can be made. In some cases, business rules and the information associated with the work item can affect the work assignment.