Aspect Workforce Management vs Sparkrock

Aspect Workforce Management

- The solution is well suited for front office contact center operations. It's ability to do scenario based planning is a big benefit- If you are implementing it for back office (processing) or a combination of front and back office solutions you may want to consider other solutions- The reason I rated high is because we used it for front office, call center operations

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FERENC CSATLÓS; MBA, PMP

VP, Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO)

Erie Insurance GroupBroadcast Media, 10,001+ employees

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Sparkrock

Altus Dynamics works very hard to make the solution work for the client. I don't see a disadvantage to using this solution.

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Phyllis Fidler

Manager of General Accounting

King's University College at the University of Western OntarioEducation Management, 501-1000 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Aspect Workforce Management

—

Sparkrock

7.7

Pay calculation

—

7.4

Benefit plan administration

—

7.3

Direct deposit files

—

8.9

Salary revision and increment management

—

7.4

Reimbursement management

—

7.4

Aspect Workforce Management

—

Sparkrock

3.6

API for custom integration

—

2.7

Plug-ins

—

4.5

Aspect Workforce Management

—

Sparkrock

7.2

Single sign-on capability

—

7.1

Role-based user permissions

—

7.2

Aspect Workforce Management

—

Sparkrock

7.1

Dashboards

—

7.1

Standard reports

—

6.6

Custom reports

—

7.4

Aspect Workforce Management

—

Sparkrock

7.8

Accounts payable

—

8.9

Accounts receivable

—

7.8

Aspect Workforce Management

—

Sparkrock

7.3

Inventory tracking

—

7.3

Pros

The tool offers a great deal of flexibility in forecasting approaches. It allows you to track seasonality, growth, day of week factors, arrival patterns, store information on holidays and special events. You have the flexibility to forecast based on historical data or user defined data or a combination.
Although somewhat complex to configure initially, the scheduling features are also quite flexible allow you to create schedule scenarios for the most unique situations.
There are a great number of reports available in the tool and the tools offers you a variety of different options for pulling the same data making it much easier to analyze and trend. You can also set up routine reports to automatically run and export in a variety of different formats and save to shared drives or even email to specific users.
The agent interface "Empower" it also very intuitive making it easy for agents to view their schedules, request time off, participate in shift bids and view their own performance reports.

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Wendy Fowler

Director of Consulting

Quality Service Solutions, LLCProfessional Training & Coaching, 1-10 employees

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Dimension combinations allow us to report on expenses in various ways.
The support from Altus Dynamics is superb. They truly understand our business processes and help mold the software solution around that.
The migration to the Altus Dynamics ERP is one of the smoothest deployments of my career.

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Shaun Sinden

IT Supervisor

Calgary Real Estate BoardReal Estate, 51-200 employees

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Cons

workforce app seems a little outdated and could be improved
more room for customization- not necessary but employees like to have a little creative outlet so it could be good to allow changes to the dashboard look
removing the requests from the inbox is a little time consuming- you have to delete each request manually one by one, there isn't a way to batch delete them

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Verified User

Representative in Customer Service

Entertainment Company, 10,001+ employees

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Reporting - the canned reports do not meet our needs.
Budgeting module - needs improvement and updating.

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Verified User

Professional in Finance and Accounting

Education Management Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Aspect Workforce Management8.5

Based on 6 answers

While I support other customers who utilize the software, the response from our customers is over-whelmingly positive. Many customers who have not had any type of workforce management software in the past use spreadsheets to schedule and forecast agents. This can be extremely complicated and a nightmare to control. The time saved by having a product that can quickly complete these functions for you is worth the investment. Also, we have several customers who had no way to track what their agents are doing and have found many problems in their call-center with the software. After rolling out a program where their adherence was tracked and actually 'mattered', they were able to see increased efficency from their agents.

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Rachel Honeywood

Tier 3 Support Engineer

United States Advanced Networks (USAN)Telecommunications, 51-200 employees

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Sparkrock9.1

Based on 1 answer

We are already scheduled for our upgrade to NAV 2016 beginning in May 2016.

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Phyllis Fidler

Manager of General Accounting

King's University College at the University of Western OntarioEducation Management, 501-1000 employees

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Usability

Aspect Workforce Management8.0

Based on 1 answer

Once the initial set up of the software is complete and/or you are familiar with the software, it is easy to use and runs like a dream. However, if you are unfamiliar with the software or have used a competitor's product, some features can seem difficult to learn or get used to.

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Rachel Honeywood

Tier 3 Support Engineer

United States Advanced Networks (USAN)Telecommunications, 51-200 employees

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No score

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Support

Aspect Workforce Management8.0

Based on 1 answer

I was impressed with the support I received. There were never any long delays when I had issues and the representatives that I worked with were always patient and eager to fully understand not only my problem but our business processes surrounding the problem.

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Verified User

Analyst in Customer Service

Utilities Company, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

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Implementation

Aspect Workforce Management9.0

Based on 1 answer

Implementation of the software was not difficult but it was tedious for us due to the fact that our processes had not kept up with the times and we had to make a large number of process changes along with setting up the software.

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Verified User

Analyst in Customer Service

Utilities Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

One of the primary reason why we selected Aspect eWFM solution was because of the scenario based modeling functionality. In other solutions (such as IEX, Blue Pumpin..etc) this functionality is not available. In our industry it was critical to be able to use scenario based modeling and quickly react the call volume spikes.

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FERENC CSATLÓS; MBA, PMP

VP, Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO)

Erie Insurance GroupBroadcast Media, 10,001+ employees

View all 8 answers on this topic

We came from a product that was specific to our industry. It was old, tired and did not do many of the things the Altus Dynamics solution does. The only other product that we seriously considered was Microsoft Dynamics GP, however our finance team felt that product was too light for our needs and growth

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Shaun Sinden

IT Supervisor

Calgary Real Estate BoardReal Estate, 51-200 employees

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Return on Investment

The workforce management team was able to decrease the cycle time forecasting, staffing and scheduling staff; resulted in higher employee engagement
The scenario based planning enabled us to develop a more accurate call volume forecast thus staffing the contact centers appropriately; approximately $500k savings realized in labor expenses (reduced FTE headcount, while meeting the same level of service level measures)
Improved customer experience due to staffing the call center properly (answered 80 percent of our calls within 20 seconds)

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FERENC CSATLÓS; MBA, PMP

VP, Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO)

Erie Insurance GroupBroadcast Media, 10,001+ employees

View all 8 answers on this topic