Call consolidation

Steve Williams ( (no email) )
Mon, 2 Mar 1998 11:02:20 +1000

We have been running Emerald for about six or seven months now, without
having ever done a call consolidation. This is due to a few reasons,
being...

- We need to keep track of the amount of data downloaded by the customer
(volume charging bites, but we gotta do it) and need to present this
information to the customer in a web-based format. As in, "Oh! I've
downloaded 450Mb for this month so far. Gonna have to pay excess download
fees on that one." We have a basic one working via ASP, but it's crude
(simply adds together all AcctOutputOctets for that user for the month prior
to the maExpiryDate).

- The bosses want to see customer histories, ie. how much they downloaded
each month over a certain period, eg. the last six months.

- I am scared to actually do the call consolidation due to what information
we may lose (and hearing of bad experiences happening to other people on
this list).

If I am right, call consolidation loses the download information . And up
to what point in time does the call consolidation go to? Right up to the
current call? Or only up to each customer's expiry date? The manual
doesn't give much information, except the impression that we should "Do it!
And ye shall be grateful."

Emerald 2.5 (when oh when it appears) has a vastly different (on-the-fly)
call tracking process if I am right, in that call consolidation has been
assigned to that great SQL server in the sky. Will it do volume charging?

Steve Williams
OZNetCom Pty Ltd
"A lot of things about Emerald scare me. Particularly that Times Roman font
for the tabs..."