First, what is Workforce Management (WFM)? In short, it's scheduling software. Last year, when Allan Rosenberg wrote about WFM, he said it did four things in call centers:

• Forecasting the volume of customer contacts
  
• Using the forecasts to create agent schedules that will meet your service level requirements,
  
• Assigning those schedules to agents
  
• Managing changes on an ongoing basis.

That's pretty clear. Rosenberg says that unless you have a call center with fewer than 20 agents, you need workforce management software.

Joe Fleischer noticed a trend in WFM two years ago: "lighter, browser-based versions of their products that let agents and managers view and adjust schedules." And Rosenberg pointed to a trend last year: "the growing integration of WFM software with other Workforce Optimization products such as quality monitoring applications." He listed some alliances between firms like Witness, a quality monitoring specialist, and Blue Pumpkin, a WFM developer.

Is WFM just glorified scheduling software? In our
2004 WFM article, Joe Fleischer said this: "Instead of describing workforce management in isolation, and as a means of control, we have to recognize that it's yet another tool for helping call centers improve their service to customers. Like call monitoring, workforce management is less useful as a standalone verification of compliance than it is as a contributor to an overall index of performance."

Finally, here is the list of contacts and vendors from last year's WFM article. These are the vendors and others that we know of now. If you know of anyone who should be added to this list, please let us know.

acē Solutions
Aspect Communications
The Call Center School
Expert Solutions International
Envision
Genesys
GMT
IEX
InVision Software
ISC Consultants
Left Bank Solutions
OdySoft/Calabrio
Pipkins
Portage Communications
Professional Resource Management
Q-Max Systems
Symon
Witness Systems
The Workforce Management Group