Inova Launches Web-Based Analytical Tool

Inova Solutions today launched Performance Tracker 2.0, a new Web-based tool for contact centers that consolidates historical and real-time data from different sources to enable rapid response to changing conditions. Since the tool is Web-based, executives, supervisors, managers, and other users can use it from any place with Web access.

Performance Tracker was built on the popular Microsoft SharePoint platform, which integrates business intelligence (BI) capabilities such as dashboards, scorecards, key performance indicators (KPIs), and other business data connectivity technologies such as Microsoft's own "Web Parts," which visualize information stored in back-end programs. The application provides graphical representation of KPIs, chats, grids, and gauges, which individual users or central administrators can customize for preferred designs, says Will Harvie, product manager at Charlottesville, Va.-based Inova Solutions. Performance Tracker also offers a unified dashboard view of multiple sites and data sources, integrating historical and real-time information.

Harvie adds that by combining real-time and historical information from different sources, such as automatic call distributors, workforce management systems, and internal databases, management can continuously improve various KPIs. As an example, Harvie describes how a contact center manager can use historical information -- such as, say, "Monday call volumes" -- and real-time information -- such as "available agents" -- to set up more-efficient call-routing on a daily basis and thus improve service levels. The application's metrics and representations also help managers get a better feel of costs per contact, enabling them to plan better cost-reduction strategies, according to Harvie.

For customization, Performance Tracker relies on what Harvie calls "easy-to-use" wizards. Once properly configured, the dashboards enable managers and supervisors to spend less time creating reports and more time with agents in order to improve their performance levels, Harvie says.

The application presents high-level business and operational metrics with drill-down capabilities -- a feature, Harvie says, driven by customer demand, particularly in the aftermath of the wave of mergers and acquisitions in the contact center industry. "Many enterprises have multiple contact centers. You can look at enterprise-level data and you can dig down to a contact center level, a team level, even down to the individual agent himself. You can also look into any items that look suspicious. You can drill down into more detail as to what is comprising the data." The drill-downs, he adds, can also be customized to view performance not only by team, but by role within the team, by business line, or by a host of other different parameters.

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