Busy times

Introduction

The Busy times report provides a clear, hour-by-hour graphical representation of your call volumes for each day. Drill down into any hour to see a detailed breakdown of calls by type for that hour.

This report is ideal for identifying call traffic trends and very quickly highlights your busy days and times, allowing you to more effectively plan your staffing requirements.

Running the report

On the Reports screen, click on Busy times in the reports list and then press the Select this report button.

The following report selection criteria window appears:

Reporting period

Every report requires a period to run over. This is generally defined as the "Reporting period".

There are several pre-defined periods that can be selected from a simple drop-down list as shown above.

The built-in periods are based on a standard Gregorian calendar and are defined as follows:

If you want to be more specific, you can choose the Custom period from the bottom of the drop-down list. This option will allow you to define the start date and end date yourself, as shown below. When you need to be even more specific, you can also choose a start time and end time.

When the report is executed, if the user has selected an in-built period, the reporting engine simply substitutes the start and end dates based on the current date and the period the user selected.

Once you have set the report's period, click on the Next button to set more of the report's features or select the Finish button to run the report.

What do you want to report on?

In addition to the reporting period, each report offers you the opportunity to define exactly what you want to report on. This is generally a site, group or user.

Site

TIM Plus will allow you to log information from up to five sites. If you want to report on a specific site, select that site from the drop-down list or to select all sites' data, leave it at the default All sites as shown above.

NOTE: The username and password you have been allocated may mean you are restricted to specific sites or groups. If you have any difficulty accessing other sites or group, please contact your system administrator and check that access has been enabled.

Group

There is no limit to the number of groups available on each site. Groups, like sites are available as a drop-down list. You can choose to select a specific group or leave at the default All groups. Please note that the drop-down list for each group can only appear if a site has already been selected.

User

Once a site and group has been selected, you can decide whether you would like to report on all users or select a particular user from the drop-down list as shown above.

Once you have set the report's entities, click on the Next button to set more of the report's features or select the Finish button to run the report.

Filter call information

You have the option of filtering the information, based on a number of call filters. These filters allow you to be very specific, when deciding the call information you would like in the final report.

If you do not want to select any filters, simply press the Next button to skip.

Please find a brief description of all filters below:

Filter	Description	Example
Account code	If you want to produce a bill consisting of all chargeable calls made using a particular account code, enter the account code in this filed. To report on more than one account code, simply comma separate.
Call type	This filter allows you to define the type of call you would like to report on. If you would like to report on all calls, leave at the default All calls.
Carrier	If you use more than one carrier, you can choose which carriers calls you would like to report on. To report on all calls from all carriers, leave at default. If you only use one carrier, there will be no drop-down list available and no option to choose a different carrier.
CLI	The Caller Line Identification (CLI) is the number associated with the incoming call. This is sometimes withheld by the person making the call. You may choose to report on calls from a particular CLI or from numbers beginning with a particular CLI by entering the number in here. For example, for calls from Tri-Line you would enter in "02072652600". This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and *, e.g. to exclude calls from Tri-Line use "!020726526*". To report on more than one CLI, simply comma separate.
Cost	If you want to add a filter for call costs, simply type in the cost you wish to define as shown nearby and add the appropriate above, below and between symbol . This filter accepts range (-) and comparison operators (>, <, ! and *).
Destination	If you want to filter calls to a specific destination and that destination has been added to your locations field, simply type the destination in here. This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and *, e.g. to exclude all calls to France use "!France*"
Dialled number	To filter calls to a specific number, type the number in the dialled number field. To filter calls to a specific area, a partial number may be entered here e.g. "0033" for calls to France. This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and *, e.g. to exclude calls to 0207 265, enter "!0207265*"
Duration	To filter call above or below a particular duration, simply enter the number of seconds and the relevant symbol. This filter accepts range (-) and comparison operators (>, <, ! and *). In the example nearby, the filter will look for calls above 1800 seconds (30 minutes). Alternatively you may want to exclude calls below a certain threshold e.g. below 3 seconds.
LCR code	If you are using Least Cost Routing (LCR), you may want to filter by LCR code in order to check a bill from your LCR provider. To do this simply enter the LCR code in the LCR field. This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and *, e.g. to exclude a specific LCR code, simply add as follows "!162*"
Response	This filter allows you to filter based on the response times to calls. You have the option of filtering for calls above or below a threshold. You can define this threshold in the box alongside. The figure relates to seconds. e.g. the example nearby shows 10 seconds. By selecting from the drop-down list, you will be able to filter calls that took more than 10 seconds to answer or see calls answered in less than 3 seconds.
Start time	This filter allows you to filter calls based on the start time. This is the time of day when the call started in the format hh:mm:ss, e.g. if you want calls after 8 a.m. only, then enter the start time in as "08:00:00" as shown nearby.
Trunk access code	If you want to filter by Trunk access code, simply enter the Trunk access code in this field. This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and *. The * is not needed if it's an exact match, so the 9 for TAC should just be "!9", e.g. to exclude all calls with access code 9, add "!9" to the TAC field.

Specific Options

This section allows you to add more specific filters to your report. The filters are fairly self-explanatory. If you would like to exclude weekend and transfer calls from the report, simply select the two tickboxes. If you would like to ignore missed calls shorter than a specific duration, simply enter the duration in the box. In the example above, a filter has been added to exclude weekends and any calls shorter than 3 seconds.

Exclude weekends

This option gives you the option of excluding weekend calls from any results shown. If you would like to exclude weekend calls, simply select the tickbox to exclude weekend calls.

Exclude transfers

Select this option if you would like to exclude transfers when running a report. For example if you were running an incoming call analysis report and wanted to see only how well calls were answered when first presented, you would choose the option on excluding transfers.

Ignore missed calls shorter than

If you would like to exclude short calls from your report, enter the duration below which you'd like to ignore calls. If you would like to exclude very short calls, e.g. calls below 3 seconds, simply enter the number '3' in the box, as shown here.

Creating the report

When you have chosen a reporting period, and are happy with your selections, you have two options:

• Run the report now
• Schedule for future delivery

To choose your preferred option, select the appropriate button.

If you choose to run the report now, click the Run now button. The results will appear immediately in your chosen format.

To schedule the report for delivery at a later date, follow the instruction given on the Schedule a report section.

Busy times - The results

When selecting Web as the output format, this report will appear as below.

The Web format allows for complete flexibility when viewing any report. To view details of any filters or selection parameters used in creating this report, simply click on About this report at the top right of the page.

As with all reports, the header of the report includes the report title, any name you may have given to it, and the date and time it was run.

The larger darker red dots represent your busier periods and the smaller greener dots, the quieter periods. This report is truly interactive. To see how many calls for any period, simply float over it to see more details.

All headers are clickable allowing you re-arrange the report layout in seconds, to sort the calls in ascending or decending order based on the header clicked. The headers of this report are as follows:

To see more details for any time slot, simply click and details of all calls contained within this period are shown as follows:

All calls are shown on the front page and clear colour coded tabs allow you to easily sort by call type e.g. Inbound, outbound etc.

If you would like to go back and view any report for a larger section of the organisation, simply click on the appropriate link in the breadcrumb as shown below: