<a id="Introduction"></a> |
The Phone Bill report is used to produce a telephone bill for clients or company cost centres. The report can be customised to your own look and feel, including adding your company logo. The bill can also include fixed charges for items other than telephone calls.
The markup of the calls is added at Directory level. To add a markup charge to a specific group, select the group you are interested in and click
, as shown below:A new window will appear, where you can add the desired markup. In the example below, a 50% charge is automatically added to all calls in the selected group.
<a id="Running the report"></a> |
On the Reports screen, click on Phone Bill in the reports list and then press the button.
A new window will appear, where you can select the criteria for your report.
Every report requires a period to run over. This is generally defined as the "Reporting period".
There are several preset periods that can be selected from a drop-down list. The predefined periods are based on a standard Gregorian calendar and are defined as follows:
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 01, the month is set to the current month minus one, or in the case of January, it is set to 12. The year is set to the current year, unless it is a new year, in which case the year is reduced by one. 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 date and time of the first and last call in the entire call database, respectively. |
Custom period | Enter the start and end dates and times into the boxes below. The start and end times are linked to their respective dates. |
If you want to be more specific, you can choose the Custom period from the drop-down list. This option will allow you to define the Start date and End date yourself, as well as the Start time and End time of the calls you want to report on.
When the report is executed, the reporting engine will substitute the start and end dates based on the current date or the relevant selection made by the user.
Once you have set the report's period, click on the
button to set more of the report's parameters or select the button to run the report.The reporting entity paramater allows you to select which part of your organisation you want to run the report for (site, extension group, channels or individual extensions).
TIM Plus will allow you to log information from up to five sites. If you want to report on a particular site, select your preferred site from the drop-down list, alternatively leave the default settings as All sites.
The username and password you have been allocated might be restricted to a specific site or group. If you need additional permissions, please contact your system administrator. |
There is no limit to the number of groups you can create on one site. Groups, like sites are available as a drop-down list. You can choose to report on a specific group or leave the default setting as All groups.
Please note that the drop-down list for each group will appear only if a site has already been selected.
Once a site and group has been selected, you can also choose to report on a particular user from the drop-down list, or you can leave the default setting as All users.
Once you have set the report's entities, click on the
button to set more of the report's features or select the button to run the report.This option allows you to filter out certain calls from your results, by selecting the values of the parameters.
These filters allow you to be very specific, when deciding the call information you would like to display in the final report.If you do not want to select any filters, simply press the
button to skip.Please find a brief description of all filters below:
If you want to produce a bill consisting of all chargeable calls made using a particular account code, enter this code in the field provided.
To report on more than one account code, you can use a comma to separate the entries.
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 the default setting as All calls.
If you want to report on one call type in particular, expand the drop-down list and select from the available options.
If you use more than one carrier, you can choose which carrier's calls to report on. To report on all calls from all carriers, leave the default setting as All carriers.
If you only use one carrier, there will be no drop-down list available and no option to choose a different carrier.
The Caller Line Identification (CLI) is a phone number that calls your organisation. 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. For example, for calls from Tri-Line you would enter 02072652600.
This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and * (e.g. to exclude calls from Tri-Line, you would use !020726526*). To report on more than one CLI, user a comma to separate the entries.
If you want to add a filter for call costs, type in the cost you wish to define, as shown below.
This filter allows you to specify a range (-) or use comparison operators (>, <, ! and *).
If you want to filter calls to a specific, known destination, you can type the destination in the field provided. This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and *.
For example, if you want to exclude all calls to France, enter , as shown below:
To filter calls to a specific number, type the number that was dialled in the box provided. The dialled number can be a number that you dial out, or a DDI number within your organisation that someone dials in to get to a particular extension.
To filter calls to a specific area, a partial number may be entered (e.g. 0033, for calls to France).
This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and * (e.g. to exclude calls to 0207 265, enter !0207265* ).
To filter calls above or below a particular duration, enter the number of seconds and the relevant symbol in the box provided. This filter allows you to specify a range (-) or use comparison operators (>, <, ! and *).
In the above example, the filter will look for calls longer than 1800 seconds (30 minutes). Alternatively, you may want to exclude calls below a certain threshold (e.g. below 3 seconds).
If you are using Least Cost Routing (LCR), you may want to filter your results the by LCR code, in order to check a bill from your LCR provider. To do this, enter the LCR code in the box provided.
This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and * (e.g. to exclude a specific LCR code, add the code with the required operators !162*)
This option allows you to filter calls based on their response time.The results will be filtered according to the response time threshold that you define in the provided field. The threshold you specify will be measured in seconds.
In the above example, the search results will display calls that have a response time above 10 seconds.
This option allows you to filter calls based on the start time of the call, which is basically the time of day the call started. Enter your preferred start time in the field provided, using the following format hh:mm:ss.
For example, if you want your results to include calls logged after 10 a.m. only, you need to enter 10:00:00 in the Start time field, as shown below:
If you want to filter your results by a trunk access code, enter this in the field provided. For example, to exclude all calls with access code 9, add !9 in the filed provided.
This filter accepts the comparison operators ! and *.
This section allows you to further narrow down your report results, by excluding certain types of calls or sorting the results in a particular manner. The filters are fairly self-explanatory. For example, if you would like to exclude weekend calls from the report, simply tick the option to exclude weekend calls. If you would like to ignore missed calls shorter than a specific duration, simply enter the duration in the box.
This option allows you to exclude weekend calls from any results shown. If you would like to exclude weekend calls, simply select the tickbox to exclude weekend calls.
Select this option if you would like to exclude transfers when running a report.
When running a report, you may not want to display in the results every call lost. If you want to only show a summary of lost calls - instead of listing all calls - tick the box as shown below:
Tick this option if you do not want to replace dialled numbers, CLIs and account codes with their equivalent names, as defined in your web user's contacts list(s).
This option allows you to exclude unused extensions from the results shown.
If you wish to hide the charges applied to this report, tick the box provided.
Choose whether you would like the results of the report to appear in ascending or descending order, by selecting from the drop-down list provided.
You may choose the order in which results are sorted by selecting the appropriate option from the list provided:
Choose from the list provided the criteria you want to group your results by.
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. To view details of any filters or selection parameters used in creating this report, simply click on About this report on the top-right corner of the page.
As with all reports, the header of the report includes:
The WEB 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.
The headers of this report are as follows:
Header | Description |
---|---|
Date & Time | This column shows the date and time when the call was made. |
Dialled number | The telephone number that was dialled. |
Destination | This is the location name associated with the number dialled. Please note that any number can be customised with its own specific duration in the locations field of the Directory. |
Duration | The duration field shows the total time spent on the call in hh:mm:ss format. |
Cost | This is the total cost of the call. Please note that on multi-national sites the cost would normally be set to appear in local currency. |
Subtotal | The subtotal cost of all outgoing calls for each user, made during the period covered by this bill excluding any local taxes. |
Bill total | The total cost of all outgoing calls made during the period covered by this bill excluding any local taxes. |
Tax (20.0%) | The amount of any local tax that applies to the bill. The tax rate is settable. |
Total payable | The total amount payable, including any taxes. |
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:-