Top Digital Experience Monitoring Solutions for Employee Experience

Employees' expectations of workplace technology are rising, requiring IT teams to deliver a seamless and productive digital employee experience (DEX) to drive productivity, satisfaction and organizational success. Digital experience monitoring (DEM) tools play a vital role in achieving this mission by providing insights into application performance, network health, endpoint performance and user sentiment. 

Whether you're looking to resolve issues faster, prevent them entirely or gain visibility into your digital environment's blind spots, choosing the right digital experience monitoring tools is crucial. This article will examine key considerations, leading DEM vendors and ideal use cases so you can choose the best option for your organization. 

What should I consider when choosing a digital experience monitoring solution? 

It's important to assess several key factors when selecting a DEM solution that matches your organization's needs and goals. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind:

1. Real-time analytics and reporting capabilities: This allows you to monitor the DEX continuously, identify issues as they arise, and make data-driven decisions to improve performance and employee satisfaction.
2. AI capabilities: Does the solution leverage AI and machine learning to automate root-cause analysis, identify issues impacting employee experience (EX) and suggest remediation steps? You'll also want to assess if the tool supports natural language querying, allowing both managers and IT admins to easily retrieve EX insights and reports and write scripts without complex commands.
3. Employee sentiment analysis: Does the solution provide insight into how employees feel about their digital experiences at work? Choose a digital experience monitoring solution that allows you to gather feedback and insights directly from employees, helping you address their concerns and enhance their overall experience.
4. Automated remediation: Can the solution identify problems and automatically remediate them through pre-built workflows, runbooks and playbooks? Consider solutions that offer a combination of automated remediation and user-driven self-service remediation capabilities to empower employees to resolve issues quickly on their own.
5. Integration with existing systems: Does the digital experience monitoring solution seamlessly integrate with your current IT infrastructure, including applications, networks and devices? This integration is crucial for providing a comprehensive view of the digital experience and avoiding data silos. It also helps you identify bottlenecks, troubleshoot issues and maintain uninterrupted operations.

These five factors will help guide you in choosing the right digital experience monitoring solution that meets your technical requirements and supports your organization's broader goals of enhancing the overall DEX. 

What are the top digital experience monitoring solutions?

With numerous digital experience monitoring solutions available on the market today, choosing the right one for your organization can be challenging. Our experts have evaluated, tested and deployed eight leading DEM vendors in our Advanced Technology Center (ATC), providing insights into their solution's strengths, capabilities and ideal use cases. Here are the top solutions (listed in no specific order): 

• Nexthink
• Lakeside Software
• Omnissa Workspace ONE Experience Management
• Riverbed Aternity Digital Experience Management
• ThousandEyes Digital Experience Assurance
• IR
• Zscaler Digital Experience
• Splunk Observability

Nexthink

Nexthink is considered a pioneer in the digital experience monitoring (DEM) space, with a strong focus on helping organizations create comprehensive DEX strategies. Nexthink's platform provides deep visibility into end-user experience, allowing organizations to "see, diagnose and fix" issues impacting employee productivity and satisfaction. Its solutions, including Nexthink Engage and Adopt, are designed to optimize processes like annual reviews and password resets through targeted campaigns and in-app guidance. Nexthink has been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for DEX Management Tools, highlighting its performance and innovation in the industry.

Notable features:

• Robust employee sentiment workflows, including user-driven automation to resolve common issues.
• Integrations with Service Desk tools to provide technicians with real-time endpoint data.
• "Adopt" module that adds telemetry to web-based applications for enhanced monitoring.

Best for:

• Organizations looking to create a holistic DEX strategy around Nexthink to support a dedicated DEX program and team with defined roles and responsibilities.
• Companies focused on improving EX and increasing sentiment.
• Enterprises wanting to leverage user-driven automation to reduce Service Desk tickets.

Lakeside Software

Lakeside Software is a long-standing vendor in the DEM space known for its comprehensive data collection capabilities. Its platform provides insights into end-user experience through automated root-cause analysis, empowering IT teams to quickly identify and resolve issues impacting productivity. Lakeside was named AI Company of the Year by CIOReview and a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for DEX Management Tools.

Notable features:

• Lakeside's SysTrack Intelligence platform collects the most data points of any DEM solution on the market (10,000 data points every 15 seconds across your entire endpoint estate).
• Automated root-cause analysis to pinpoint the source of performance problems.
• Highly customizable dashboards and reporting.

Best for:

• Organizations in highly regulated industries like financial services, healthcare or government that need to closely monitor and report on specific performance and compliance metrics.
• Companies undergoing major digital transformation initiatives that need to closely track the end-user experience as new technologies are rolled out.
• Organizations with a history of hard-to-diagnose performance issues that require in-depth data analysis to identify root causes.
• Organizations with the resources to invest time in actively customizing the Lakeside platform.

Omnissa Workspace One Experience Management

Omnissa Workspace One Experience Management, formerly known as Intelligence, is a standalone DEM tool that integrates seamlessly with the Workspace One Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) platform. This tight integration allows organizations to gain comprehensive visibility into end-user experience while also enabling direct remediation actions on managed devices. Gartner® ranked Omnissa favorably in its Critical Capabilities for Digital Employee Experience Management Tools report due to its high scores across five key use cases, including IT operations, IT support, experience analysis, employee enablement and adoption, and employee personas.

Notable features:

• Ability to monitor performance and experience on nearly any device, including mobile and frontline worker devices.
• Integration with Workspace One UEM for unified device management and remediation.
• Comprehensive reporting and analytics to identify trends and areas for improvement.

Best for:

• Companies already utilizing the Workspace One UEM platform and looking to tightly integrate their DEM solution (although not required).
• IT-heavy organizations in industries like manufacturing, logistics or energy where any disruption to employee productivity can have a significant business impact.
• Organizations with a large mobile workforce that need visibility into remote device performance.
• Organizations looking to reduce vendor sprawl and gain value with a streamlined approach of managing both devices and DEX from a single platform.

Riverbed Aternity Digital Experience Management

Riverbed Aternity Digital Experience Management integrates multiple monitoring capabilities, including Aternity EUEM (end-user experience monitoring), network performance monitoring (NPM) and application performance monitoring (APM). It aims to be a "one-stop shop" for IT teams who want a unified view of end-user experience by consolidating data from various siloed tools. Recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Employee Experience Tools, Riverbed Aternity focuses on delivering real-time analytics and insights to help organizations quickly identify and resolve issues impacting employee productivity. 

Notable features: 

• Ability to monitor performance and experience on remote/mobile devices.
• Includes Riverbed IQ, an AI-powered engine that provides automated root-cause analysis and remediation suggestions.
• Can also monitor customer-facing experiences across digital channels.

Best for:

• Large, complex organizations with multiple locations, business units and device types, as well as remote and distributed workforces, that need centralized visibility and analytics into network conditions and user experience.
• Highly regulated industries, like financial services, that require close monitoring of compliance and performance metrics.
• Organizations wanting to rationalize and consolidate their monitoring and experience toolsets into a single integrated platform.

ThousandEyes Digital Experience Assurance

ThousandEyes Digital Experience Assurance platform provides visibility into an organization's digital ecosystem, including cloud, Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, the internet and Cisco devices. By deploying agents in strategic network locations, the platform can monitor latency, packet loss and jitter — even outside of an organization's own network — to help organizations troubleshoot connectivity issues and understand the quality of digital experiences for employees and customers. ThousandEyes received TrustRadius' 2024 Buyer's Choice, Top Rated and Tech Cares awards.

Notable features: 

• Ability to monitor real-time media, including voice and video, for quality and performance.
• Offers synthetic transaction testing to monitor DNS response times, website performance and other key metrics.
• Tightly integrated with Cisco devices and Webex Control Hub and supports automatic agent deployment.
• Collects detailed data for customized reporting, dashboards and data visualizations.

Best for:

• Organizations struggling with slow internet, poor WAN performance, insufficient internal wireless coverage and weak signal strength impacting employees' experiences with SaaS applications.
• Healthcare clinics, satellite offices, contact centers and organizations with large remote workforces that rely on high-quality, real-time voice and video for telehealth appointments, customer service support and remote collaboration.
• Organizations already using Cisco devices, as ThousandEyes' tight integration allows for firsthand visibility into device connectivity and the ability to view basic path analysis within Webex Control Hub or seamlessly cross-launch into ThousandEyes for deeper analysis.

IR 

IR, formerly known as IR Prognosis, provides visibility into both on-premises and cloud-based collaboration and communication platforms. In addition to network monitoring, IR Collaborate — the company's flagship DEM product — delivers granular insights into usage, quality and performance metrics for tools like Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex and Zoom. The company also offers IR Transact, which monitors and manages payment data and customers' transaction experiences.

Notable features: 

• Monitors and maintains the quality of unified communications.
• Integrates with on-premises infrastructure like call managers and voice systems.
• Offers reporting on meeting minutes, call volumes and other collaboration metrics, as well as pre-built dashboards and reports for common IT use cases, providing more detailed insights than what's typically provided by meeting platform vendors.

Best for:

• Organizations struggling with low-quality video conferencing meetings and frequent call drops in their company's VoIP systems.
• Organizations with significant on-premises collaboration and communication investments.
• IT teams that need to report on employee productivity and usage of collaboration tools.

Zscaler Digital Experience 

Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX) focuses on monitoring the network-based user experience. The tool is primarily designed to provide visibility and insights for remote or distributed users who access applications and services through Zscaler's secure access platform, Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). 

Notable features: 

• Network-based digital experience monitoring for remote and distributed users.
• Integration with ZPA for visibility into user connectivity.
• Only available to existing Zscaler customers as an add-on option (not available as a standalone product).

Best for:

• Organizations already using Zscaler who want to add basic user experience insights.
• Organizations that need to ensure the productivity of remote, distributed or contracted workers who rely on Zscaler's secure access solutions for connectivity.
• Organizations needing to protect sensitive data while ensuring fast and reliable access to cloud applications.
• Organizations facing challenges with network performance affecting overall digital experiences, such as frequent network slowdowns.

Splunk Observability 

Splunk provides digital experience monitoring through its Splunk Observability platform. Acquired by Cisco in May 2024, Splunk AppDynamics was added to the solution set to extend application performance monitoring (APM) for hybrid and on-prem environments. Together with the functionality of Splunk application performance monitoring (APM) for cloud-native deployments, Infrastructure Monitoring (IM), real user monitoring (RUM) and synthetic transaction testing, Splunk Observability gives organizations deep visibility into the performance and availability of their critical applications and digital services. Gartner named Splunk as a Leader in its 2024 Magic Quadrant™ for Observability Platforms and a Challenger in its Digital Experience Monitoring Quadrant. 

Notable features: 

• Ability to track actual end-user experiences with applications through RUM.
• Synthetic transaction testing for proactive monitoring of application and service availability and performance.
• Code-level insights to identify application performance bottlenecks.
• Ability to integrate with Splunk's infrastructure monitoring and security solutions for correlated insights across customer and employee experience.
• Customizable reporting, analytics, dashboards and data visuals to identify trends and patterns in application performance.

Best for:

• Organizations with well-established digital experience monitoring programs that have dedicated staff to manage the Splunk platform and handle tasks such as managing integrations, creating custom dashboards and reports, and ensuring proper maintenance.
• Organizations that create many custom applications and have development teams that need detailed insights to promptly identify and address performance issues.
• Financial services, retail and other industries with complex, customer-facing digital services that require 24/7 availability and performance.
• Organizations invested in the broader Splunk ecosystem, as they can greatly benefit from enabling integration across the platform.

Get started with digital experience monitoring solutions 

With employees working in hybrid, remote, and on-site settings, and seamless digital experiences becoming standard, IT teams must use digital experience monitoring (DEM) solutions to proactively manage the digital employee experience. By doing so, they can enhance employee productivity and contribute to overall organizational success by ensuring that technology supports efficient workflows and meets or exceeds expectations.

As partners of WWT, the vendors detailed in this article have undergone thorough evaluation, testing and implementation in our Advanced Technology Center, allowing us to provide you with comprehensive insights into their strengths and capabilities. Whether you are considering integrating a specific solution, a collection of tools or developing your DEM strategy from the ground up, our experts can help you make the right technology decisions faster.

Reach out to our digital experience monitoring experts today and start gaining actionable insights that drive positive changes in your organization's EX.