The Busy Channels report

Introduction
Running the report
Creating the report
The report's results

Introduction

The Busy Channels report allows you to break down each business day into half-hour periods, showing the maximum and average number of telephone lines in use in any particular half-hour period. This report is ideal for determining whether or not you have enough lines or if you have too many.

Running the report

On the Reports screen, select the Busy channels report from the left-hand pane and click theSelect this reportbutton.

A new window will appear, where you can set the parameters of your report.

Selecting the reporting period

For each report, you must specify a time span that covers the calls you want the report to include. This is known as the "reporting period".

There are several preset reporting periods available for selection, based on the standard Gregorian calendar. The following table describes how the start and end times are defined for each preset period:

In addition to the presets described above, it is possible to specify a custom reporting period by choosing Custom period from the Period drop-down list and specifying your own  Start date, Start time, End date and End time of the period you want to report on.

Once you have set the reporting period, click on the Next button to set additional report parameters and options, or select the Finish button to run the report immediately.

NOTE: Running this report over longer periods of time increases the reliability of its results.

Selecting the reporting entity

The Reporting entity parameter allows you to select the part of your organisation whose calls the report should include, e.g. a site, a group or an individual user.

Site

To report on a particular site, select it from the drop-down list or select All sites .

Site

All sites

Group

If a site has been selected, you are able to further limit the report's results by selecting a group from the drop-down list.

Group

All groups

User

If both a site and group have been selected, you can further limit the report's results to include calls by a particular user by selecting it from the drop-down list.

User

All users

If your web account is restricted to a specific site or group, only those entities to which you have access will be available in the drop-down lists.

Once you have selected the scope of your report, click on the Next button to set additional report parameters and options. To run the report immediately without doing so, click the Finish button.

Selecting the report filters

You can limit the results of your report by choosing one or more of the following filters:

Account code

If you want to produce a bill consisting of only chargeable calls that were made using a particular account code, enter the account code in the field provided. 

Account code

0140

To report on more than one account code, separate each code using a comma.

Call type

This filter allows you to define the type of call you want to report on, in terms of where the call originated and where it was delivered, e.g. incoming, outgoing, internal, etc.  To report on all types of call, set this to All calls.

Call type

All calls

Carrier

If you use more than one carrier, you can limit the results to include only calls that were made using a specific carrier.

Carrier

All carriers

If you use only one carrier, there will be no drop-down list available and no option to choose a carrier.

CLI

Calling Line Identification (CLI) is the telephone number of the remote caller in an incoming call scenario.

You can report on calls that originate from a specific CLI or those whose CLI matches a particular pattern of digits. For example, to report on all incoming calls from Tri-Line, you could enter 02072652600.

CLI

02072652600

You can use the ! symbol to explicitly exclude a CLI from the report's results, and/or the * symbol as a wildcard in digit pattern matching.  For example, to exclude calls from Tri-Line, but include all others, you could use !020726526*. To report on more than one CLI, use a comma to separate each entry.

Cost

You can define a cost filter to include calls above or below specific values by entering your criteria, as shown below:

Cost

<2.00

You can specify a cost range by using the - symbol; to specify limits, use the comparison operators, >, <, and ! .

Duration

If you want to filter calls to a specific, known destination, type the name of the destination in the text box provided. This filter accepts the ! and * symbols for excluding values and specifying partial matches, respectively.

For example, if you wanted to exclude all calls to France, you could enter !France*, as shown below:

Destination

!France*

Dialled number

To filter calls to a specific dialled number, type it in the text box provided. The dialled number is defined as the number that is dialled (in the case of an outbound call), or the DDI number that the remote party dialled to reach a particular extension or group (in the case of an inbound call).

To filter calls to a specific area, a partial number can be entered (e.g. 0033 for calls to France).

Dialled number

0033

You can use the ! symbol to explicitly exclude a dialled number from the report's results, and/or the * symbol as a wildcard in digit pattern matching.  For example, to exclude calls to Tri-Line, but include all others, you could use !020726526*). To report on more than one dialled number, use a comma to separate each entry.

Duration

To filter calls above or below a particular duration, enter the desired duration in seconds.

Duration

>1800

You can specify a duration range by using the - symbol; to specify limits, use the comparison operators, >, <, and ! .

In the above example, the report will return only calls longer than 1800 seconds (30 minutes).

LCR code

To filter your results to include only calls that used a Least Cost Routing (LCR) code, enter it in the text box provided.

LCR code

162

You can use the ! symbol to explicitly exclude a LCR code from the report's results, and/or the * symbol as a wildcard in digit pattern matching.  For example, to exclude calls made using all LCR codes beginning 162, you could enter !162*. To report on more than one LCR code, use a comma to separate each entry.

Response

This option allows you to filter calls based on their response time, measured in seconds. Specify the desired response time threshold in the text box provided.

Response time

>10

In the above example, the search results will display calls that have a response time greater than 10 seconds. 

You can specify a response time range by using the - symbol and; to specify limits, use the comparison operators, >, <, and ! .

Start time

This option allows you to filter calls based on the time the call started. Specify the start time in the text box provided using the hh:mm:ss format.

For example, to include only calls that began after 10 am, you could enter 10:00:00 in the Start time field, as shown below:

Start time

10:00:00

Trunk access code

If your telephone system uses trunk access codes to connect calls using specific channels, you can limit your report's results to include only calls made using those codes. Specify the trunk access code in the text box provided.

Trunk access code

9

You can use the ! symbol to explicitly exclude a trunk access code from the report's results, and/or the * symbol as a wildcard in digit pattern matching. For example, to exclude calls made using the 9 trunk access code, you could enter !9. To report on more than one trunk access code, use a comma to separate each entry.

Selecting the report options

This section enables you to further narrow down your report results, by excluding certain types of calls. It also allows you to sort the report's results in a particular manner.

Exclude weekends

To exclude weekend calls from your report's results, select the Exclude weekends option.

Exclude weekends

Exclude transfers

To exclude transferred calls from your report's results, select the Exclude transfers option.

Exclude transfers

Sort order

Choose from the Sort order drop-down list whether you want the results of the report to appear in ascending or descending order.

Sort order

Ascending

Sort results by

To sort your report's results by a particular column, select it from the Sort results by drop-down list.

Sort results by

Carrier

Ignore short missed calls

Missed calls below a certain duration can sometimes pollute the meaning of a report's results. To exclude such short calls from your report, enter a duration threshold in the text box provided, e.g. to ignore calls below 3 seconds, enter 3 .

Selecting the report format

This section allows you to choose the media format of your completed report. The formats available are Web, PDF, Excel, CSV and XML.

More details about each report format are available in the Setting the report format section above.

Creating the report

When you have selected a reporting period and have chosen any filters and options, you can either run the report immediately by clicking on the Run now button, or schedule it for future delivery.

The report's results

Web format

Below is an example of this report's output in Web format:

The Web format is the most interactive of all formats: all column headers are click-sortable and most graphical and tabular elements can be drilled down into, allowing deeper analysis of your results. By clicking on the About this report link at the top-right corner of the page, you can review any filters and options that have been applied to the report.

As is the case with all reports produced by TIM Plus, each page of the report includes the following information:

• the report's title, e.g. Busy Channels
• the date and time that the report was generated
• the name of the report, if applicable

The body of the report consists of a graph and a table.

The graph is a quick and easy indication of your line usage, broken down into half-hour time slots. The percentage on the Y-axis shows the number of lines utilised, and the X-axis shows the start point of each hour of the day. The bars on the graph coloured light-purple show the maximum number of busy trunks at each particular half-hour, and the overlaid dark-purple ones show the average number of busy trunks in the same time period.

The table displays the actual data organised in columns for maximum and average busy lines and the total duration for each half-hour time slot. Each column is described below:

NOTE: All headers are clickable, allowing you to reorder the report as required.

You can easily re-run your report to cover a larger organisational scope by clicking an element of the breadcrumb as shown below:

PDF format

If you chose to run the report in a  PDF format, the report will consist of three pages.

The first page shows the login name of the person who has prepared/scheduled the report, the entity you are reporting on, the period covered and any filters used in the report. 

The second page has a graph depicting the average and maximum number of channels used, as shown below:

The third page breaks down the graph into detail, showing the time slots with the maximum and average number of busy channels and the total duration of time spent on calls.

XML format

If you choose to run the report in  XML format, the output might be difficult to read; however, this might be very userful when you need to provide a call logging feed to other applications.

CSV format

If you select the CSV option, this will output the report's results to a CSV file. This can be either opened immediately or saved for future use.