Call logging

Your telephone system (or PBX) produces a packet of data (a call record) after every phone call your organisation makes through it.  These call records contain important information about each call, including whether it was an incoming call, and outgoing call, or another type, such as an internal (extension to extension) call.

The practice of call logging involves capturing these call records, sorting and storing them in a central database, and their subsequent retrieval by way of a reporting interface.

This information provides invaluable business management information. You can see whether you have to many lines or not enough lines. You can identify busy times and ensure you are open at the times when customers are most likely to call. You can see which members of staff are performing and who’s letting others take all the calls.
 

TIM Plus Overview
Advanced call logging across multiple PBXs through a simple, intuitive, cross-browser compatible web interface.
TIM Plus is the only call logger which specifically caters for mid-range SMEs wanting a single, unified management interface for logging calls from more than one telephone system (PBX).

It sits comfortably between our entry-level, single-site TIM Professional product, and our award-winning TIM Enterprise product, which provides comprehensive management information for larger organisations whose telecommunications infrastructures employ large-scale, interconnected voice networks.

The deceptively simple user interface of TIM Plus shields the user from its powerful call processing engine and its multitude of modern features.

TIM Plus runs as a Windows Service and all of its functions, configuration, and call reports are accessible through a standard web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple's Safari.

Out of the box, the standard configuration allows you to log up to five PBXs, and has an initial capacity of up to 100 users which be spread in any configuration across these five PBXs.

It's easy to upgrade, too.  Simply purchase additional capacity in blocks of 100 users.

We use the term 'user' in a conceptual way - a user of communications services in your business - not just a physical device such as a telephone or fax machine.  Thus, if an employee (a user) has more than one device, such as a desk phone, a mobile phone, and even a separate DECT handset, then that counts as just one user, not three!

TIM Plus can take mobile billing feeds from your provider, and reporting on these is easy... just select them as a specific call type in any of the reports!

Create Team Leader boards

TIM Plus included an unlimited number of customizable Leader boards as standard. You can encourage team competitiveness by displaying live leader boards on a plasma monitor for sites or groups of users.

Display boards

Show any combination of up-to-the-minute call statistics, leader boards, news headlines or CRM information to encourage team competitiveness. Summary panels can also be added to show summary information for any specific area of interest.

Everything in one place

Running as a Windows Service, all of the administration of TIM Plus is performed through a standard web browser from any machine on your network. Whether it’s a PC, a Mac, or a Linux box... as long as it’s got a web browser, you’ll be able to administer all of your sites’ phone call data in one, simple, easily bookmarkable place!

We’ve combined the magic of modern web techniques with a clean, crisp look and feel, to make every single aspect of administering your call logger a breeze.

And it’s easy to delegate, too. By simply adding a new web user to the system, the administrator gives individuals the secure access they need - to just the parts of the business they want, all controlled by a standard web login.

Delegated web users can run ad-hoc and scheduled reports, their scope being limited to their group membership.

Quick call search
Gone are the days of having to run an entire report just to locate a single phone call. So now, from the front screen of TIM Plus, alongside the live call view, you can quickly locate the calls you want.

TIM Plus is fully administered using nothing more than a standard web browser.

We’ve worked hard to ensure that no separate client software is needed!

Fully customisable web content

The whole web interface is made up of open standards HTML, Javascript and images, served directly from inside standard folders, so you can customise exactly what your users see and do.

Dig a little deeper, and the behaviour of any of the internal AJAX functionality can be altered, meaning
you can integrate your company intranet right inside your call logger... or the other way round!

Flexible Reporting

Every report in TIM Plus satisfies a business need. By filtering and setting options in any report, you have the power to drill-down and find exactly the call information you need.

Using dynamic, XML-derived data, every report in TIM Plus becomes dynamic. Click on a column header and watch the table re-sort without even leaving the web page. And if you want a different column header, you have the power to modify the output using our open-standards XSLT templates.

Here’s a brief overview of just some of the reports that TIM PLUS offers...

Busy Channels
Ideal for determining whether or not you have enough lines, or if you have too many! Also allows you to break down each business day into half-hour periods, showing the maximum and average number of channels in use during each one.

Call Analysis
Gives you a crisp, clear graphical representation of your inbound, outbound and missed call traffic over each business day. The accompanying tabular data is clickable, allowing you to drill-down into each period, allowing you to more effectively plan your staffing requirements throughout each day.

Top Calls
Quickly identify your top calls in term of cost or duration. Useful for identifying telephone abuse; you can instantly see who’s making the most expensive types of calls, such as those to premium-rate services. It’s also useful to identify who’s spending the longest time on the phone.

Daily Activity
Provides a summary showing the total volume of all inbound, outbound and missed calls for each day. Ideal for identifying call volume trends and great for showing your busiest days.

Call Geography
Graphical pie charts by call volume and total cost, along with a sortable table containing complete information about where, geographically, you’re making your calls to. Calls are classified by tariff band, e.g. local, national, mobile, international, showing you exactly which calls are costing you the most, and which are taking up most of your time.

Frequent Numbers
Shows a top-ranking list of the most frequent calls you make and receive. You can use this information in your decision-making about how to call common destinations, for example, by installing private links between branch offices. The information can also assist you when negotiating call rates with your network provider(s).

Enterprise overview
An interactive, clickable report showing call summaries for each call type, inbound, outbound and missed calls. This report allows you to easily identify the areas of your business you want to inspect, and simply 'drill-down' into them.
Totals, maximums and averages are displayed at the foot of each column.

Phone bill
For use in situations where you need to produce a telephone bill for clients or company cost centres.
Examples include business centres, serviced offices, hospitality, or any organisation that needs to bill back calls made by clients.
The bill can include fixed charges for items other than telephone calls.

Target reponse
Allows you to quickly assess how well calls to your company as a whole (or individual departments or sites) are answered compared to user-defined targets.
It provides a line-by-line summary of each day along with a visual indicator showing what percentage of calls were answered inside and outside your set target.

User activity
Identifies the volume of calls your users are making and taking from both inside and outside your company.
The report is fully drillable, enabling you to explore calling patterns as you see them, from site level, all the way down to individual user.

Custom Report
This is the most flexible report, allowing you to select any number of criteria on which to filter your results. The layout is one of an itemised call list, split into sections showing each call type: ‘answered’, ‘outbound’, ‘missed’, ‘internal’.

Delivery
All reports can be run on an ad-hoc basis, or scheduled to run at regular intervals and delivered by email to one or many users.

How can I report on my calls?
Reporting on your call data couldn’t be easier. Since each call is intrinsically linked to your company’s central directory, you have full control over who sees what, when, and in what format.

Reports can be extensively filtered, and these filters can be saved for later reuse on a per-user basis, so you spend less time defining them.

Reporting with TIM Plus is simple yet powerful. From the built-in pre-defined types, you can apply any amount of filtering to create rich, modern documents that are relevant to you and your
business needs.

Either on an ad-hoc basis, or as part of a regular schedule, every report can be produced in all of the following formats, each one guaranteed to satisfy your reporting requirements:-

Web (HTML)
Universally-accessible, this format provides clickable column headers for dynamic sorting of table data, with clean graphical charts in the popular Flash format, so you can zoom into them for more detail. Each report is fully customisable - right down to the individual table fields. To view these reports, all that’s needed is your favourite web browser – with no need for obscure add-ons!

PDF
TIM Plus can produce its clean, crisp, multi- page reports in Adobe’s popular format, ideal for distributing your reports to colleagues inside and outside of your organisation - and guaranteeing they’ll look identical across all operating systems when viewed on the screen or printed out.

XML
Since all reports are derived from this native format, we pack each one with all the data you’d
ever need, so you’ll always be able to extract the report data into your favourite reporting packages, such as Business Objects, Crystal Reports, or even your favourite Office spreadsheet.

CSV - Comma-Separated
Provided for interacting with your own back office systems, all CSV data is fully customisable using XSLT from the report’s original XML format.

Microsoft Excel / Office XP
Open your reports directly in Microsoft’s popular spreadsheet package or compatible. All reports in all formats can be scheduled to run on a regular basis either by fixed periods (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc.), or by more flexible denominations such as last 7 days’, ‘last 24 hours’, ‘last three months’, etc. So you’ll always get the data that’s relevant to your way of doing business.

And TIM Plus doesn’t limit where you can store your reports. It understands that different organizations have different requirements. Therefore all reports can be delivered using the following methods:

To a file
The filename can include dynamic variables such as date and time, and can be on a local disk, or a network share.

By email
Multiple recipients can be defined, and the report can be included in the body of the email or attached to it.

HTTP POST
Send reports to a web server using an HTTP POST for publishing on your company intranet.

FTP
Transfer your report files to an off-site file server or billing system.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does TIM Plus run as an application or a service?

• TIM Plus runs as a Windows Service, and is administered completely by a standard web browser. It comes with an in-built web server ‘out-of-the-box’, and uses cutting-edge AJAX techniques to appear like a normal application.

Can scheduled reports be sent automatically by email?

• Of course. Simply setup your reports parameters and tell it which email address(es) you want it to be delivered to. TIM Plus is also compatible with SMTP servers that use authentication.

Is there a limit to the number of reports I can schedule?

• There’s no practical limit, no. And what’s more, each user can have their own set of scheduled reports, accessible only by that user.

Can alarms be triggered when certain call parameters are met?

• Yes, alarms can be emailed as soon as they occur. They can be set on many different call properties, including duration, cost, dialed number(s), type of call, etc.

I want several people to have access to the system. Are there additional license fees to pay for this?

• No there aren’t. You can have as many web users as you like. Only ‘users’ of your phone system(s) need a license, e.g. extensions, faxes, etc.

What do I need to install to access all the advanced web functionality on TIM Plus?

• You don’t need to install anything. TIM Plus has its own web-server already built in.

Can I restrict web users to specific areas of my business?

• Yes, absolutely. An initial ‘super’ user can access everything additional web users can be restricted to a specific site or group.

Are there any restrictions on the number of web users who can access TIM Plus?

• No, none at all! You do not need to install client software on the PC you are accessing from either. You simply need to be an authorised user with a valid username and password.

How do I perform system maintenance and other low-level functions?

• Every single part of the system can be fully administrated through a standard web browser, given the appropriate access rights.

I have several sites, each with their own telephone system. How can I access this information in one place?
TIM is built around a multi-site database - it wasn't an after-thought. So, whether you have a single PABX or more, all your reports can focus on any of your sites - or all of them! Sites can be connected to the TIM server directly by serial cable, or over a TCP/IP network using the integrated NetPBX tool. We recommend TIM Plus for 1-5 sites and TIM Enterprise if your organization consists of more than 5 sites.

How your call data is collected

Here are just a few of the popular methods TIM Enterprise can use to source the data from your PBX:

Raw TCP Sockets Both inbound (daemon) and outbound (client) socket connection methods.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Batch transfers from billing providers, or large PBXs, can sink or send data to TIM.

For non-standard interfaces, a completely open scripting facility can instantiate third-party objects to retrieve data in a fully customisable way.

System Requirements

The following is a recommended specification that will comfortably run a single copy of TIM Plus:

Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Server/Vista
x86 Processor - 2.0GHz
1 Gb RAM
10 Gb hard disk space required
Ethernet Network Interface Card with TCP/IP
Web browser (IE6+, Mozilla Firefox 2+ and variants,
Opera, Safari) with a Flash plug-in/add-on.
Javascript needs to be enabled for the local zone.
Any modern PDF viewer (reader only)

Remember, TIM Plus comes with its own native web server, so you don’t need a server edition of windows, or have to tinker around with IIS or Apache.

The internal database is SQL-compatible, but is not an RDBMS. For this, we would recommend our TIM Enterprise product.

Integrated call recording

And by adding the optional TIM Talk voice recording option, you’ll be able to hear the actual audio of each phone call, too.

In fact, across the entire TIM Plus system, anywhere you see an itemised call, including the quick call search, you’ll see an audio icon wherever there’s audio available.

By clicking on the audio icon next to any call, you’ll get to play the recording or add notes about it - all without ever leaving your web browser!

No other call recording system is as integrated as this, so now you get the combined logic of the call logging reports, with the power of voice recording.

Imagine the possibilities! Now you can hear exactly what the content of that premium rate call was, or listen to why a specific call took longer than the group’s average...