Microsoft has built a workforce management (WFM) adapter – together with TTEC Digital - for its CCaaS platform: Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
The “WFM Adapter” allows businesses to pull forecasting, live reporting, and historical reporting data from four of the WFM market’s most prominent providers. They are: Verint, NICE, Calabrio, and Alvaria.
Such capabilities are a critical addition to Microsoft’s CCaaS portfolio. After all, the tech juggernaut has only so far released native forecasting capabilities in public preview for its CCaaS platform.
As such, Dynamics 365 Customer Service customers will have so far kept their resource planning activities siloed from their central contact center platform. Yet, that will now change for many.
After all, the adapter is bidirectional, allowing data to shift seamlessly between the systems.
Moreover, the WFM adapter also offers "schedule sync" functionality. As Gopal Yuvaraj, Product Manager at Microsoft, stated in a Microsoft blog post:
With the enhanced adapter, organizations can use the schedule sync feature to seamlessly import schedules created in the WFM system directly into the agent calendar in Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
"This functionality empowers agents to conveniently review their daily schedules, including breaks, training sessions, and other activities directly in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, eliminating the need to navigate to an external WFM system."
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Here's a sneak peek of what this schedule sync feature looks like[/caption]
In implementing the feature and securing these benefits, Yuvaraj also claims contact centers may bolster agent performance and overall team efficiency.
Nevertheless, so far, schedule sync only supports Calabrio's WFM software, with Microsoft promising to expand its support for the other three providers, too.
Joint customers of Microsoft and those providers may still – however – benefit from the bidirectional data flow. Moreover, Yuvaraj promises "maximum flexibility and customization for connecting WFM solutions with Dynamics 365 Customer Service."
Expect Native WEM Capabilities to Come Soon
Microsoft has pledged to continue evolving its WFM Adapter to support "any" third-party WFM tool.
