<a id="Introduction"></a> |
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.
<a id="Running the report"></a> |
On the Reports screen, click on Busy channels in the reports list and then press thebutton.
A new window will appear, where you can select the reporting criteria for your report.
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:
| Period | Description |
|---|---|
| Today | The start and end dates are set to the current date. The start time is set to 00:00:00 and the end time to 23:59:59. |
| Yesterday | The start and end dates are set to the current date minus one day. The start time is set to 00:00:00 and the end time to 23:59:59. |
| This week | The start date is set to the first day (normally Monday) of the current week. The end date is set to the current day. The start time is set to 00:00:00 and the end time to the current time. |
| Last week | The start date is set to the date of the last Monday, and the end date is set to the start date plus seven days. The start time is set to 00:00:00 and the end time to 23:59:59. |
| This month | The start date is set to the first day of the current month. The end date is set to the current day. The start time is set to 00:00:00 and the end time to the current time. |
| Last month | The start date for this period is set in three stages: The day is set to the first day of the month. The month is set to the previous month. The year is set to the current year, unless it is currently January, in which case, the previous year is used. The start and end times are set to 00:00:00 and 23:59:59 respectively. |
| This year | The start date is set to the first day of the first month of the current year, whilst the end date is set to today's date. The start and end times are set to 00:00:00 and 23:59:59 respectively. |
| All calls | The start and end dates and times are set to the dates and times of the first and last call in the entire call database, respectively. |
In addition to the presets described above, it is possible to specify a custom reporting period by choosing Custom period from the drop-down list and specifying your own
,
,
and
of the period you want to report on.
Once you have set the reporting period, click on the button to set additional report parameters and options, or select the button to run the report immediately.
NOTE: Running this report over longer periods of time increases the reliability of its results. |
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.
To report on a particular site, select it from the drop-down list or select All sites .
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.
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.
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 button to set additional report parameters and options. To run the report immediately without doing so, press the button.s
You can limit the results of your report by choosing one or more of the following filters:
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.
To report on more than one account code, separate each code using a comma.
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.
If you use more than one carrier, you can limit the results to include only calls that were made using a specific carrier.
If you use only one carrier, there will be no drop-down list available and no option to choose a carrier. |
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.
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.
You can define a cost filter to include calls above or below specific values by entering your criteria, as shown below:
You can specify a cost range by using the symbol and, to specify limits, use the comparison operators, >, <, and
.
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 , as shown below:
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).
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.
To filter calls above or below a particular duration, enter the desired duration in seconds.
You can specify a duration range by using the symbol and, to specify limits, use the comparison operators, >, <, and
.
In the above example, the report will return only calls longer than 1800 seconds (30 minutes).
To filter your results to include only calls that used a Least Cost Routing (LCR) code, enter it in the text box provided.
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
, you could enter
. To report on more than one LCR code, use a comma to separate each entry.
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.
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
.
This option allows you to filter calls based on the time that 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:
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.
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
trunk access code, you could enter
. To report on more than one trunk access code, use a comma to separate each entry.
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.
To exclude weekend calls from your report's results, select the option.
To exclude transferred calls from your report's results, select the option.
Choose from the drop-down list whether you want the results of the report to appear in ascending or descending order.
To sort your report's results by a particular column, select it from the drop-down list.
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 .
This section allows you to choose the output format of your report. To select the desired format, click on the drop-down list and choose from the available options: Web, PDF, Excel, CSV and XML. More details about each report format are available in the Setting the report format section above.
<a id="Creating the report"></a> |
When you have chosen a reporting period, and are happy with your selections, you have two options:
If you click on the button, the report will run instantly in your chosen format.
If you want to schedule the report to run at a later time, follow the instruction given in the Schedule a report section.
<a id="The report's results"></a> |
When selecting WEB as the output format, this report will appear as below:-
As with all reports, the header of the report includes:
The format allows for complete flexibility when viewing any report. All headers are clickable, allowing you to re-arrange the report layout in seconds, to sort the calls in ascending or decending order based on the header clicked. To view details of any filters or selection parameters used in creating this report, simply click on
on the top-right corner of the page.
The main report body consists of a graph and a table.
The graph is a quick and easy indication of your line usage, broken down into half hour timeslots. The percentage on the y-axis shows the number of lines utilised. The x-axis shows the start point of each hour of the day. The bars on the graph are coloured to show the maximum number of busy trunks at each particular half hour (light purple), overlaid by a bar showing the average number of trunks busy in the same period (dark purple).
The table shows the actual data for each half hour of the day. It also splits the data into maximum lines busy and average lines busy as well as providing a total for all types of calls. The table holds the following information for each half hour period:
| Header | Description |
|---|---|
| Time slot | The time of day in half-hour periods. |
| Total duration | The total time when trunks were busy, both incoming and outgoing combined. |
| Max busy | Shows the maximum number of trunks in use during the time slot shown. |
| Average busy | Shows the average number of trunks in use during the time slot shown. |
NOTE: All headers are clickable, allowing you to reorder the report as required. |
The at the beginning of the report is fairly self-explanatory, as you can see from the example below:
If you would like to go back and view this report for a larger section of the organisation, click on the appropriate link in the breadcrumb, as shown below:-
If you chose to run the report in a 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 this graph down into detail, showing the time slots with the maximum and average number of busy channels and the total duration of time spent on calls, for each time slot depicted.
If you choose to run the report in XML format, the output might be difficult to read, however, this output is ideal when you need to provide a call logging feed to other applications.
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.