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Focom Ltd - Telephone Call Logging User Group
   
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Snippets

Equal vs Matches: What's the difference?

When you want to look for something very specific use 'Equals'. It takes you literally. When you want something in the ball park use Matches, is has allowances.

Example 1: If you are running a report to look for a dialled number and you know what you are looking for use:
Dialled Number = 01702525130

If you know the call was to Southend but you are not sure what the full number was use:
Dialled Number matches 01702*

In this example, if you had used Dialled Number = 01702* the system would assume that you were looking for a dialled number of precisely that.

Example 2: When creating a Filter to look for, say, Party 2 = 3446, it is better to use 'Matches'. This will track the extension even if it is Reassigned.

Free Space Check

Use the Free Space Check to warn you if the system is running out of space.

Click the right mouse button on the Remote Notification Program. (That's the little icon on the bottom right of your Windows Task Bar i.e. the bit next to the clock).

Select the Drive that stores LUMBERJACK and set the free space to, at least, the maximum size of a monthly backup. If you have bags of space, set the limit higher. This will ensure that you are notified if disk space is low.

Power Down at Weekend?

Shutdown LUMBERJACK properly to avoid problems later.

Weekend power down are notorious for powering up... powering down... up...down... This is not good for databases. The system will recover very well if turned off and given enought time to recover. Where time is not given before the next power off this can be problematic. Much safer to power off on Friday night.

Most systems have been set up to log the call records via Fo-Net so you will not lose any data. When you restart the system on Monday morning, the stored logs will be processed automatically.

If your data does not go through a Fo-Net, the decision is all yours! Leave the system up and hope that the power downs are clean or face the potential of a dead database on Monday. Obviously this is recoverable after a call to the Help Desk, but you will lose data until this is reset.

Populating your Database

We can interface with most directory packages, such as the Ericsson MD110's DNA, or the Meridian recommended Dirigent, etc.

If you are updating your LUMBERJACK database manually, and yet you have a directory system within the company that is also being updated, get in touch with our HELP DESK. We should be able to set up an interface to your directory file and then import all the relevant data into LUMBERJACK.

There are a few points to note here:

  1. The directory file must be saved to the same place in the same format so the the import file knows where to find it and what to do.
  2. The Department names must be exact and follow convention all through the file, e.g. if you type Admin for some extensions, and Administration for others, you will be creating two separate departments - which is probably not what you want!
  3. This is not strictly an update to LUMBERJACK so is over and above standard maintenance but we will try to get any requests set-up as quickly as possible.

Summary vs Turbo: Differences explained

On the surface Turbo Reports run much faster than Summary Reports. But there is more to it than that.

The main difference is in the way they work. When you run a Summary Report, you can use any number of filters, e.g. a sub-filter set to incoming call types; a main filter looking for calls to the Operator Group; and filters applied to columns in the report looking at various answer delay parameters such as 0 - 10 secs, 10 - 30 secs, 30 secs and over. The call records are then filtered and sorted and the report produced. If you need to apply your own filters, this is the report to run.

Turbo reports are created from data that are collated as part of the logging process. If you look under Reports>Turbo Fields. The list on the left hand side will show all the information that is collated every time a record is logged. Choose any of these columns to create the report you want. It is possible to set up filters to use with Turbo Reports but these have to be set in advance so that the filtered records are collated at the time of logging. Filters cannot be applied after the event. They are set up under Reports>Turbo Filters and work the same way as the Restrictions for the Real Time screens.

All that explains why the Turbo reports run faster butthe other key difference is in the way they handle call costs.

Many people comment that the costs on the Summary and Turbo reports do not balance. Quite correct! They are calculated differently.

Turbo reports will allocate costs to each part of the call, i.e. where a call is transferred to another department, the relevant part of that call will be allocated to each department. summary reports work with the Detailed report and cost each call on its own merit. This means that any calls transferred to other Departments will appear in both reports, just as the Detailed record would show in both.

Other Tips available:

Bill Reconcilliation - Steps you can take to check where the differences lie if a report and the bill seems to have too great a disparity.

Licence Exceeded - Here's what to do.

Is there a Help File you would like to see? Let us know: Email or Form

Back to Previous Page

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As you will all know by now, there are major improvements in the web interface but LUMBERJACK's client interface has had a few changes as well so we'll talk about those first:

Client Side

The first thing you will notice is the new background screen. Beautifully designed by The Magic Box who do all our artwork. All the windows have been toned to match. We hope you enjoy it.

Call Costs : The costs have been changed from a 32bit floating point number to a 64bit fixed width number. Yup, thought you'd be riveted by that. What it means in practice is that we now store all the costs to 3 decimal places instead of five, the majority of carriers only supply to three digits these days. The good news is that costs will no longer suffer from rounding errors if a large number of call costs are being totalled.

Please note, though, that if you have any filters set up to look at calls greater or less than 0.00001 these will have been effected. However, to make cost filtering easier, we are been able to add 'costequal to 0.00' which was not possible with five decimal place costs.

Filters: These have been extended to allow a filter of a Group of Groups. Until now you only had the option of 'Extensions in Group', now you will also have 'Extensions in Group of Groups'.

Fixed costs: We have added an import facility. Those with information in external sources will be pleased to hear this.

Remote Notification (Spawner): Part of the work of the Spawner is to let you know if you are running out of hard disk space. Once this alert was sent, the notification needed to be reset. This meant you could miss the alert and run into trouble when the disk filled up. It will now send the alert every hour - until you do something about it :>)

Emailing Report Sections: Much awaited this one. With the help of a control file (instruction will be given) you are able to run a single report against the company structure and then Email the relevant part to each department. This can also be used if you want to send the whole report to a lot of Email addresses.

Tariff Imports: User Defined numbers had to be added manually. This was a bit tedious so we have changed this to allow import of user defined numbers. By the way, there are two ways of entering User Defined numbers: globally, i.e. applying to all tariffs, or only against a specific tariff.

Unused Item: We have modified the terminology in this report. If it is being run again 'last month' it will now include coming up to date as well. Since the purpose of running the report is to find something that is not in use, this is a safer option.

Turbo Fields : We have added a couple more turbo fields: Account Codes and PIN numbers are now available.

The more observant amongst you will notice that there are some Turbo reporting options under Defaults. In practice, these should be left Enabled as per the default. They only benefit larger companies with high volumes of data. Change to these settings should only be made after consultation with Help Desk!

BUGS : There were a few ...

Printing Reports : We had an odd problem here when trying to print a multiple columned report that contained histograms. If the report was too wide for the page, some of the columns overlapped. In fixing this problem, we have set a report to automatically scale down where it is too wide for a page. Rather neat that one :>)

Fixed Costs: There was a problem when trying to allocate a fixed cost to a block of extensions, it was not showing Not Consistent where other costs were included in the block.

Unused Item : This was showing deleted extensions in the list - very confusing.

Web Side

We are very pleased with the Web interface improvements. You will have access to all Report running facilities in this version. There are two main menus at the moment: Generated Report (i.e. Reports Saved renamed) and Create Report (i.e Report Set-up renamed).

More than Reports Saved

The list of generated reports can be sorted by Report Name, User, or Date. If you are looking for a specific report you can search for those you generated or for a specific title. Much easier than ploughing through the whole list.

The list shows: the report title, the user that created the report, the modified date, report type, report period, and status. You can print or E-mail reports from this list.

Once you've found the report, a click opens it in a new window. From here you can Print; Email the report; Protect it; or Delete it. All the things you wanted to do in Report Viewer but couldn't! The Sections can be opened and closed with minus/plus buttons and what you open is what you send to printer.

Alternatively, click in the report Type column and you can go to the Create area of the report to make any modifications.

Create Reports

Clicking on Create Report brings up a list of all the reports that have been set-up on the system, sorted in their various sub-directories. This list is more comprehensive than on the client and shows: Report Name; Report creator; Report Type; PBX; Scheduled status. Clicking in the Schedule column allows you to create or modify the scheduled event for that report.

The report set up screen is shown with Tabs for: Date/Time PBX/Group; Filtering; Columns; Report Name and Folder; Confirm.

The Confirm tab shows all the details of the report and the option to Run; Add; Update; Protect; and Delete the report.

Filtering gives access to the full list of filters created within LUMBERJACK and access to the quick filtering boxes.

The exciting bit here is that you can sort on the Filter in order to find out which reports are using it, something we have wanted in LUMBERJACK for a long time. You can also sort on User, Report Type; and Report Sub-directory.

QA

Most of the QA has been completed with a few glitches to iron out, so the new version will be with you very soon.

Happy logging!

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We are currently working on creating the web based manual which will be available to all users via these pages. There will also be an integrated link in the new LUMBERJACK web interface.

In the mean time, we are still offering the How To Sheets as .PDF files and other snippets

A full printed manual is supplied with each training day. Further copies are available from support@focom.com. Price:£50.

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MAINTENANCE CONTRACT - updated March 2006

New Maintenance Contract .pdf

We have made a few amendments to the maintenance contract and need to bring this to your attention. The first thing you will notice is the name changes. These are now more descriptive of the service provided.

Tariff Maintenance

We have revised the tariff charges. Some will find this advantageous but a few will find their maintenance costs increased. The gist is that we will now be charging per tariff that we maintain.

The old 'Kernel', a copy of BT standard published tariff, will become Tariff and the cost has been reduced from £350 p.a. to £250 p.a.

Thereafter, they become Tariff 1, Tariff 2, etc., which means the Standard BT tariff plus one other, two other, etc., bespoke tariff. These are also charged at £250 per tariff.

Cancellation or Delay of Works

Mobile tariffs are not usually as complex and, for this reason, will only be charged at £100 p.a.

We have added a paragraph to cover late cancellation of paid site visits and training days asking that a minimum of three working days be given. Cancellation after this time will be chargeable.

Remote Diagnostics

As many of you will know, we are able to keep maintenance costs low by using remote diagnostic methods to solve 99.9% of customer queries. To date, there has never been a security breech as a result of this access and we work with all our customers to make sure security is give the highest priority.

Many people are now using VNC with an internet connection. This gives a direct IP link and avoids the PSTN charges. For more information on this and how to set it up, please call the Help Desk.

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