Tariscope and Active Directory
This article is primarily intended for users of the Tariscope Enterprise software (hereafter referred to as Tariscope).
The Tariscope system is used to process call information. Determining who made a specific phone call, as well as its cost, is performed only if the directory number is linked to a specific subscriber in Tariscope. Therefore, there is a need for the correct setting of subscriber parameters and constant support in the current state of such information. Tariscope allows you to do this in three ways:
- Manually adjust subscriber data.
- Import subscriber data from external files.
- Receive such data from the Active Directory.
If you have an Active Directory in your company, then using it will probably be the most optimal option for maintaining information about subscribers in an up-to-date state.
The basic information required for Tariscope Enterprise is:
- the subscriber's name,
- the unit where he works,
- his directory numbers (DNs),
- the date from which the employee (subscriber) works in the company and from which he owns DNs,
- release date, that is, the date when the DNs phone numbers no longer belong to this subscriber.
To get data into Tariscope from the Active Directory, a profile is created in Tariscope that specifies which Active Directory attributes are linked to Tariscope database fields. The name of the employee, his department and directory numbers are specified in the main attributes of the Active Directory. As a rule, additional attributes are created for the dates of employment and dismissal. If necessary, you can import other attributes into Tariscope, which are required for generating reports on the use of telecommunication systems (PBXs).
In order for Tariscope to work with additional attributes, you need to add their list separated by commas on the System Variables page to the AdditionalADAttributes parameter. For a detailed description of how to create a Tariscope synchronization profile with Active Directory, see the page.
Data import from AD can be performed either at the initiative of the Tariscope administrator from the Active Directory or Subscribers pages, or automatically according to the schedule by the Tariscope Tasks when creating the corresponding task.
The last option, i.e. the use of the Tariscope Tasks allows you to completely automate the process of obtaining data from the Active Directory, even if some of this data needs to be refined. An example of updating data can be a change of directory number. For example, directory numbers are stored in AD together with access codes to various PBXs, and access codes are not displayed in CDR data. In this case, in order to correctly identify the subscriber who made the call, the access code must be removed from the imported phone number. To finalize the data, you can use the RDL report, which will be launched after data synchronization with the Active Directory and perform the necessary actions with the Tariscope database data. This report may not display any data, but only perform actions with the database.
Thus, if you are a user of the Tariscope Enterprise software and your company uses the Active Directory, its data can be synchronized with the Tariscope database daily in automatic mode, thereby providing Tariscope with up-to-date subscriber data.
Changing the rate plan in Tariscope
This article is more relevant for the Tariscope Provider edition, designed for telecom operators.
Rate plans exist in both editions: Tariscope Provider and Tariscope Enterprise. But, as a rule, Tariscope Enterprise users do not need more than one rate plan.
The situation is different for telecom operators.
The use of different rate plans with different costs of calls and with a different set of services allows you to meet the needs of a wider segment of telecommunication services users, providing them with exactly what they need. That is, by doing this you can attract new subscribers and increase the loyalty of existing subscribers to your company, as well as reduce the churn of subscribers.
The Tariscope system allows you to create any number of rate plans, include any periodic services in them, assign a rate plan both for a specific subscriber and for individual phone numbers or IP addresses.
In Tariscope version 4.5.4, it became possible to store the history of changes in the subscriber's rate plans or rate plans of his phone numbers or IP addresses. In addition, the ability has been added to allow the subscriber to independently change the rate plan using the Tariscope Personal Area.
As a reminder, it is possible to create, edit or delete a rate plan if you select the Rate plans item in the menu. An example of the page is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
Only a user with Tariscope administrator rights has access to the Rate plans page.
It is possible to delete a rate plan only if it is not assigned to any of the subscribers.
You can assign a specific rate plan to a subscriber on the Subscriber page, an example of which is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
To set or change a rate plan for a subscriber, click on the button next to the Rate plan box. A page appears, an example of which is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
To set a new rate plan, click on the Add icon on the toolbar. The New rate plan window appears, where you need to enter the name of the rate plan and the date from which it is valid. To save the settings, click the Save button.
In order to give the opportunity for subscriber to independently change the rate plan, the Tariscope administrator must load the Webconfig page in the Tariscope Personal Area, where select the Rate plan settings tab. An example of this tab is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4
Turn on the Allow users to change their rate plan.
In the Plan activation date list, select the desired item from the following items:
- From the next day.
- From the next week.
- From the next month.
In the How often can users change their rate plan list, select the required option:
- Not limited.
- Once a day.
- Once a week.
- Once a month.
If you want to charge for a subscriber's transition from one rate plan to another, create a corresponding one-time service in the Tariscope system, and then select the name of this service in the Charged one-time service for plan change list.
To save the settings, click the Confirm button. The page appears with information about the modified Web.config file. You need to download this file and write it instead of the existing one. By default, this file is located in the folder: C:\inetpub\tsweb\www .
To change the rate plan, the subscriber must enter into the Tariscope Personal Area and select the Personal data menu item. The Personal Data page appears, an example of a part of which is shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5
If the subscriber is allowed to change the rate plan, the Change rate plan button will be displayed. If the subscriber clicks on this button, the Change rate plan page appears. The subscriber must select a new rate plan in the New rate plan list and click on the Send button. The page will display information that the rate plan has been changed and the date from which it will be active is indicated.
Mutual settlements
Tariscope version 4.5 has a new view, which, first of all, may be interesting for telecom operators who use the Tariscope Provider edition. This is a providers summary view. It allows telecom operators to receive the information necessary for mutual settlements. At the same time, this view can be useful for users of the Tariscope Enterprise edition, because it allows you to obtain generalized information about telephone traffic in all directions that connect the telephone system to the public switched telephone network.
Remind that in the previous Tariscope versions it was possible to receive such information using reports, and it remains now. But the new view, perhaps, will be more attractive to some users due to its flexibility.
This view is created in the same way as the others. From the Views menu, select Views list. The Views page will appear, where you need to click on the Add icon on the toolbar (Figure 1).
Figure 1
As a result, the View page appears (Figure 2).
Figure 2
In the View name box, add some name, for example, Mutual settlements.
In the Period list, select the period for which the view will contain data. You can choose any period:
- Today.
- Yesterday.
- This week.
- Previous week.
- This month.
- Previous month.
- This year.
- Previous year.
- Selected month.
- Selected year.
- Custom period.
To select a unit of measurement for the call duration in the view, choose one of the values in the Duration display type list:
- Seconds.
- Minutes.
- Thousand minutes.
To select a unit of measure for the call cost in the view, choose one of the values from the Money display type list:
- Units.
- Thousands.
You can choose the call directions: incoming or outgoing. To do this, turn on the Incoming direction and Outgoing direction switches. That is, you can create a view that will contain either incoming calls or outgoing calls, or both. Both directions are enabled by default.
In order to the view to include summary rows, you must turn on the Show summary line switch.
Finally, you must select the telecom providers (operators) for which the information will be displayed in the view. You can select only one provider, a group of providers, or all that are. To do this, click on the Add icon next to the Providers label. Additional information will appear on the page, an example of which is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
In the Providers list, select the desired provider.
In the Call type list, select the required call types which you want to see in the view.
If you need to have a summary row by operator, turn on the Show summary line switch.
To add another provider to the view, click on the Add icon next to the Providers label again. A new block will appear, where repeat the above steps.
If you want to remove any provider from the view, click on the Delete icon next to Providers label of a specific provider block.
Click Apply to generate the view. The view will be created. An example of such a view is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4
If necessary, you can always create a new view with different settings or change a previously created one.
Check it out for yourself
The test version of Tariscope is available on the SoftPI website.
Links
The trace of the call charging process in Tariscope
Tariscope system, which is a call accounting system and a billing system for telecom operators, has a powerful system of call billing. This charging system allows you to flexibly configure the processing of almost any call charging algorithm. You can use a different cost for different tariff plans; per second or per minute billing; the cost of a call may depend on the duration of this call or the duration of all previous calls for the current month, on the day of the week, on the time of day. The tariff can be set in any currency, and the cost of the call is calculated in the base currency with conversion at the current or other exchange rate. Call billing can be calculated simultaneously at the rates of two telecom operators. There are other possibilities as well.
All this flexibility requires some settings from the Tariscope administrator. When setting up Tariscope administrators do not always refer to the documentation, and they sometimes have problems with the correct calculation of the cost of calls. To make it easier to determine the reason for the incorrect setting of the billing system, the Tariscope 4.5.4 system has added a function for tracing the billing process, which reflects the results of each billing stage, and if it does not find the necessary data or the results do not correspond to what was expected, information about the parameter that requires settings is displayed.
This function is accessed from the views for calls. It has added the Recharge with tracing icon, which is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
The user must select the call that he considers having been charged with an error and click on the Recharge with tracing icon. Information on all stages of the charging process with information on each of the stages appears on a new browser tab. An example of a trace is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
If any of the tariffication stages was performed with an error, it is indicated in red. An example of this is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
The description for the failed step provides information on the possible cause of the error and links to the appropriate configuration page.
The user must follow this link, make the appropriate settings, and repeat the recharging with trace by clicking on the Refresh icon on the toolbar (Figure 2).
In addition to the tree, the results of tracing the tariffication of a call can be presented in the form of a table. To display such a table, click on the Raw Data icon on the toolbar. The Tariffication of a call with tracing page will look as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4
If you still did not manage to correctly configure the Tariscope system, and you have technical support from SoftPI, send the data of this table to the SoftPI Support Team. To save the table in the file, on the toolbar, click on the Export of the table icon and select any file format for storing data from the following: Excel, HTML, CSV, PDF.
Processing unanswered incoming calls
Modern business is impossible without telephone communications. And despite the ever-increasing growth of Internet communications, many buyers prefer a phone call. Large companies use Call Centers to receive (or make) calls from (to) clients. These centers have the tools to analyze all information about calls, but only if a call does not go beyond the Call Center. In practice, this is far from always the case. There are frequent cases when a Call Center operator redirects a call to company managers. Statistics from the Call Center cannot provide what happens next with such calls. Most companies may not need a detailed analysis of successfully completed incoming calls, but there are also unanswered incoming calls that leads to a lost customer.
Unanswered incoming calls leads to lost customers.
How to quickly detect such calls and is it possible to reduce their number? Yes, it is possible. The Tariscope Enterprise call accounting system (hereinafter Tariscope) from SoftPI allows you to do this.
Selection and review of unanswered calls
The Tariscope system uses views to look through and analyze completed calls. Each view is a table with call records. The view supports many different functions, including various data filtering options. Using filtering, it is easy to select not answered incoming calls. This can be done already at the time of creating the view by setting the appropriate call attributes (Figure 1).
Figure 1
You can also select not answered incoming calls from a view that contains all calls. To do this, find the value 'Not answered' in the Record column and click on the Filter by selection icon on the toolbar (Figure 2). Then repeat this operation for the Call Type column to select incoming calls. Thus, in two clicks, you can select unanswered incoming calls.
Figure 2
A view for calls allows you to sort data, for example, by the subscriber to whom the calls were made, or group calls by those subscribers, that allows you to get the total number of missed incoming calls by each subscriber. Considering that it is possible to filter data for any period in the view, for example, for month, week, day, hour or any other, you can get a picture of missed calls at these time periods. And having such information, you can understand the reasons why the company’s employees could not answer these calls. Maybe they were answering other calls at that time or were absent, or something else.
Report generation on a schedule
Considering that there is not always time to select the necessary data in the Tariscope views, you can use another feature of this system. In the Tariscope Tasks, you can create a task that will periodically generate the required report. In our case, this is one or a group of various reports on unanswered incoming calls. Such reports can be saved in the specified folder, sent by e-mail to the specified employee, or be available to the desired employee through the Tariscope Personal Area. An example of a report on unanswered calls is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
Thus, when receiving reports on such calls, you will always know how many, when, and by whom no calls were received.
Data on the dashboard
Another option that the Tariscope system provides is the display of data on unanswered calls in the dashboard. For this purpose, you should use the Missed call statistics widget, which allows you to select a period to find out unanswered calls, specific managers, or groups of employees for which calls were made and others. The widget displays data both graphically and textually.
Quick actions on unanswered calls
Above we considered the capabilities of the Tariscope system to find out and analyze unanswered incoming calls. But can these calls be answered? And Tariscope gives a positive answer to this question if your telephone system has an API that allows a software application to make calls.
Tariscope uses the Tariscope Observer services to receive data on calls made. Among its settings, it is possible to execute a given script when certain events occur. There is the New call event. The event occurs after processing information about each new call. The script that will be triggered in this case must check whether the call is incoming and unanswered. In the case of a positive response, it must, using the PBX API, make a call from the employee to whom the call was made, if he is in place, to a client who did not wait for a response. You can come up with more complex algorithms for making such a call.
As a simpler version of the script, it can send an e-mail to the subscriber who missed the call and his manager that contains information about such a call. If the subscriber is present at the workplace, then oblige him to call back.
SoftPI Support Team is ready to provide advice on creating such a script.
If the Tariscope user cannot or does not want to develop such a script on his own, then our company can develop it for a fee.
But the main thing that should be understood, the use of this opportunity will minimize customer losses due to the fact that for some reason it was not possible to answer their call!
Subscriber access to information on calls
To all of the above features of the Tariscope system, which can be applied to detect and minimize unanswered incoming calls, it should add the Tariscope ability for company employees to independently view information about calls that they made or were made to them through the Tariscope Personal Area. The subscriber can access to all his calls data at any time from any device (computer, tablet, smartphone) that has network access to the server where Tariscope was installed. Using filtering, a subscriber can select the calls of interest. For example, unanswered incoming ones. That is, at any time the subscriber can see that there were unanswered calls and telephone numbers from which called to him and, accordingly, call back on them.
In addition to information about his calls, the head of the employee group can view the calls of his employees, and thus monitor the presence of unanswered incoming calls.
Check it out for yourself!
The test version of Tariscope is available on the SoftPI website. Anyone who wants to be convinced of its ability to detect and minimize incoming unanswered calls can download and test it.
Good luck to everyone and do not lose customers!