HP Updates Its Qfiniti WFO Suite
HP WFO Software yesterday released version 10.3 of its Qfiniti Workforce Optimization (WFO) suite, with additional connectivity and functionality to help contact centers manage call recording, agent productivity, and customer engagement.
A big thrust with this latest release is greater support for call recording, according to Steve Graff, chief technology architect at HP Qfiniti. In addition to broad telephony switch support, HP Qfiniti 10.3 has added support for contact centers using Genesys' Session Initiation Protocol-based Active Call Recording Interface or Cisco Systems' Unified Contact Center Express and Unified Contact Center Enterprise.
"So many businesses are moving their contact centers to SIP," Graff says.
The Qfiniti product also now supports encrypted call recordings in the Cisco environment. Many of Cisco's customers—particularly in the financial services market—require encrypted communications to meet privacy and compliance regulations, and HP Qfiniti 10.3 can now record these calls using the Cisco Active Call Recording interface. "They can encrypt the voice going over their network, and we offer the ability to record the conversation, even when it's encrypted," Graff says.
The market, he adds, drove HP to the Genesys and Cisco integrations. "In an effort to better support our customers who are already using Genesys and Cisco or are considering these systems, we have extended Qfiniti connectivity to these platforms," he states.
Qfiniti 10.3 also offers improved agent performance management. Within the HP Qfiniti Advise module, contact center agents can appeal evaluation scorecards, supervisors can review and amend scores, and escalations can be managed. In addition, integrated analytics provide visibility into which agents are appealing scores, which supervisors are receiving appeals, and what issues are being escalated most often.
This, Graff says, "rounds out the calibration processes to make agent scoring and evaluations more equitable."
It builds off functionality specifically requested by customers at last year's HP users' conference, according to Graff. "Many of our customers were using SurveyMonkey before, but they weren't able to get our analytics with it," he says. "With 10.3, we built those features and functions right into the product so [users] don't have to go outside the application."
Also 10.3 adds advanced, dynamic dashboards and reports to the HP Qfiniti Optimize module toimprove supervisors' visibility into workflow processes and agent performance. Supervisors can monitor individual processes, such as order entry or call wrap-up, to identity opportunities for automation or to track specific processes that relate to key performance indicators.
The new release also expands browser support. HP Qfiniti has long supported Microsoft Internet Explorer, but the new version also adds support for Google Chrome.
HP Qfiniti 10.3, like most of HP's contact center offerings, are geared toward medium to large enterprise contact centers with multiple locations, according to Henry Eakland, director of product marketing for HP's Qfiniti and Explorer product lines. "Our sweet spot is facilities with 200 or more contact center agents," he says.
And though financial services are a big user of the product, Eakland says there is "no single vertical that we're most focused on." Qfiniti 10.3 can be used across many industries, he adds.
Much of the Qfinity product line is the result of HP's controversial acquisition of Autonomy for $10.3 billion in 2011.
According to Graff, the product line extends all the way back to the 1990s when eTalk launched as a company. eTalk was later acquired by Autonomy in 2005.
In other news, HP also yesterday launched the HP Helion Business Applications for Oracle solution to help companies transform, deploy, and manage their Oracle applications on HP Helion Managed Cloud platforms. These platforms support a mix of applications, new implementations, and application upgrades.
The Helion Business Applications for Oracle include:
- Pre-priced cloud configurations for Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle's PeopleSoft and Oracle Fusion Middleware solutions;
- Advisory services to plan the transformation to the cloud;
- Application provisioning flexibility;
- Ready-to-use platform and architecture; and
- Support for most Oracle applications, middleware, and databases.
"We continue to see a rapid uptick in clients that are moving their critical business applications to cloud-based solutions, as they seek to benefit from improved flexibility and reduced [total cost of ownership]," said Robert Hildenbrand, vice president of worldwide Oracle Applications Services at HP Enterprise Services, in a statement. "HP's Helion managed cloud solutions offer our clients an enterprise-grade cloud solution that allows them to deploy a wide portfolio of applications into the cloud."
HP is a member of the Oracle Partner Network and has worked with Oracle clients to modernize their businesses, transition to the cloud, and realize greater agility, flexibility, and cost savings. The company in December launched the HP Digital Customer Experiences Package for Oracle, with services intended to enhance, personalize, and solidify customer engagement in multiple channels.