Ascentis (discontinued) vs. Verint Workforce Management

In working with Ascentis in payroll, the program makes my job so much easier. I am new to this position and the learning process has been so much easier with this product than those in the past. I appreciate the patience I am given when I call in for assistance as well.

One well suited area for WFM is scheduling. Once an associate's schedule is calculated or set, it is easy to see and manage if needed, but ultimately provides off hand assistance managing day to day workflow and activities such as training, meetings, or time off. The layout, display, and color coordinated scheduling offers an easy way to track associates. Discrepancies easily stand out and can be addressed and updated immediately.

• Easy to use software. I have had several new HR employees comment on how easy the system is to learn!
• Problem Solving- Ascentis is always problem solving! When we were in the process of selecting a new payroll company, we needed unemployment claims management assistance for our locations, something Ascentis did not currently offer. The sales rep went out of his way to find a unemployment claims management company that would work with Ascentis and us. That company has helped us keep an 80% win rate for our claims!
• User conference- Engage is an awesome way to learn more about the products Ascentis has available as well and meet up with the staff you work with every day!

• Verint Workforce Management does a nice job of providing a broad suite of tools that allow us to build out our own back-office WFM program that may differ from other back-office areas.
• The capabilities of the broader Verint platform tie in nicely with Verint Workforce Management, so we can use DPA, My Time, Scorecard, and Forecasting and Scheduling to manage operations from front to back.
• User experiences and access can be tailored depending on the roles of the employees so as not to overwhelm someone with too many tools.

• Updating the system so it is one platform and not two.
• Create changes to the benefit enrollment process and upgrade the system so hire dates do not need to be changed to trigger benefits for status changes.
• Focus updates on HR Admin, mobile application, ATS and transitioning to one platform. Larger areas of focus have been on the payroll portion of the system with a few updates to other areas.
• When something is broken, quicker turn time on fixing the issue.
• System needs updates to support AAP reporting.

• Ability to properly optimize events, classes, coachings, etc for Outbound specific groups.
• Having Verint forecast lists for queues after adding historical weeks in.
• Removing someone from a class that has moved to another organization and is no longer visible within mine.
• No limit on the number of pauses. This is causing a major issue at my company around adherence and a lot of unnecessary time for my team to go in and add exceptions in order to have their adherence look correct.
• When submitting a coaching request in the module, give the submitter the ability to select all of their employees but also select only one employee per session. This is the biggest complaint among the staff about using the Coaching Module. They don't like that they have to submit multiple requests for One-on-Ones for each employee and would prefer to submit one request and have it communicated to Verint Workforce Management that there should only be one person in each session.
• Sorting by shift event time is no longer an option in the Calendar screen.
• I preferred the Calendar screen when I was able to view all employees at once, and now it is limited to 50 per page.

This rating would be a 10 if it were not for some issues we have been having recently with the benefit carrier connections. The carrier connections are critical for us so how these issues are resolved will be key in our renewal decision.

Whilst Verint Workforce Management is doing much of the work we were hoping it would do, there are some limitations that cause hesitancy when deciding if it is the tool for the future. No further exploration has taken place to seek alternatives to date. It is good for the Contact element of our business but not for the rest of the business, meaning we have to use two planning tools currently.

I'd give it a 7.5. If the modules were easier to access and not so buried (or placed in left field to find), I would give it a higher rating. As I said, as the potential to be great if ACCESS to other modules was easier.

They normally give you notice when an update will affect the use of the system. Otherwise, when we have an error , we send a message to the support team. Sometimes someone will get right back with you and sometimes it takes a while.

Yes, this pages do load pretty good but there are times when things are slow and I believe that's because they are sometimes trying to do updates.

Support is attentive and quick to answer the call and get the answer for you. If they for any reason cannot answer right then, they are back to you within a day and always seem to have a sense of urgency. You truly get the impression that they are aiming to make you happy.

First, to clarify our "in-person" training was done mainly through Web-X meetings and conference calls. It was the closest thing we got to as far as an "in-person" training for this software. However, for the large majority of it, this type of training worked out well. We were able to share our screens and the trainer was able to share his/her screen. We could follow along with what we were doing in our database in real time and see how different functions worked and how manipulating our information could produce different results. It was also nice in that it provided for real-time results if something hadn't been coded correctly or we were having issues as to why something wasn't working the way we thought it should be. However, it did have some downsides in that we often had to rely on a conference phone and that made it difficult to hear people on both sides. Also, sometimes the trainers had internet difficulties when working from home and that caused issues with the WebX meetings.

Ascentis HR has a number of online training videos to watch on a number of different topics. I gave it a lower rating because there is not much interactivity with the videos and it seems to cater to really only one or two learning styles. Plus, one has to be pretty motivated to go to a separate area to access the videos and then pull up a specific one to watch it and then learn. From my experience, people know that they are there, many just don't take the time and effort to go find them and actually watch them - especially since the username and password are different from their normal username and password.

It was very easy to implement, but the customization pieces should really be fleshed out in order to determine the full need of an organization at the time of implementation. I believe if a little more time was spent on the requirements, the recruiting module would not have to be customized again at a cost at a later date.

Ascentis has far better customer service and the implementation experience was also better. The ability to do a lot of customization is also easier with Ascentis as it's smaller organization. The payroll has positive and negatives compared to ADP but the accuracy is the same in both. Ascentis just started their community site which doesn't have a lot of traffic but hopefully can become more like ADP's community site, which was extremely helpful to me as an administrator.

Verint Workforce Management provides more visibility on associate planned activities. It is excellent at taking multiple factors into consideration to set manageable goals and improve performance. There are a variety of options to fine tune so it is specific to the company's needs. There are multiple online resources available to become more familiar with its functionality

Large acquisition would be very complicated, seems more appropriate for companies under 100

• HR DPT. is much more effective, as we can assess any employee information no matter where we are, etc. This helps to provide information immediately when requested!
• Employees have access to Ascentis, and therefore to their timecard, open enrollment, etc., from anywhere at any time!
• Time, PTO requests, employee goals, and evaluations can be approved from anywhere at any time!
• Recruiting can be accessed any where at any time, and this helps with hiring, internal communication, etc.

• Definitely Verint has improved our service goals related to Staffing. It's a no brainer.
• The Style of employee self service has improved admin productivity.
• Reporting has been tough; We write our own to supplement the stock reports. Going to the cloud is going to be difficult for us.