StoneHouse
StoneHouse Technology (Plano, TX - 972-543-2100, www.stonehouse.com), in software suite, ASP, and managed service options, spans the range of call accounting and telemanagement services, all the way to invoice verification and reconciliation against inventory and CDRs. They output the reconciled bill to their clients' A/P and general ledger, in Oracle, OneWorld, SAP or other major accounting systems. They update their CCMI rate database monthly.
Gayle Wix, VP Client Relations, says their average client has been with them over 10 years, and they still serve some of them from their CPE, mainframe-based MONIES (Management of Network Income, Expense, Services), while presenting billing data via web.
One of them manages 60 million CDRs/month; on the data side, banking customers may have over 20,000 locations, counting ATMs.
Stonehouse's new modular MONIESWeb system, written in Java, runs off the Weblogic application server, Unix or NT. The system has a particular emphasis on order and asset management. In consultation with clients, Stonehouse sets up a detailed catalog of possible assets, approved vendors, plans, options, features, contracted rates and work orders. They also set up a web-served workflow, to approve and process all requests for new assets and services.
Their asset tracking holds both physical and logical circuit configuration; this view of circuit interdependencies prevents someone from disconnecting a service that supports a WAN downstream; if all parts can be disconnected, it sees to it that all parts that have been rendered useless are dropped from the bill as well. "Physical configuration connects an asset to its parent parts; it keeps track of the channels in a T1, the T1s in a T3, the T3s of a DS3 and OC3, and so on. It assigns logical circuits to an order, so you know what customers are impacted if one goes down." Says Wix.
MONIESWeb also automatically emails service requests to vendors.
While MONIESWeb doesn't draw histograms and pie charts for you, you can import its reports to Excel and draw your own. It's GUI is good, and puts as much information as possible on one screen through the use of tabs. Tabs are of course service-specific, so 14 tabs might come up to fully characterize a Frame T1 order; far fewer for something less complicated.
Strategic Data and Telecom
Strategic Data and Telecom (Naperville, IL, - 630-355-7331, www.sdtinc.com) makes Apogee call accounting software in Desktop and Enterprise versions. Desktop comes with a royalty-free version of MS SQL Server, supports up to 2 million call records, and includes 5 concurrent network licenses. Apogee Enterprise(r) utilizes the full version of SQL Server and supports an unlimited number of call records and concurrent network users.
Here's real-time monitoring and alarming via pager, email. Monitor; 30 canned reports in 20 export formats, including HTML, Crystal, Excel, Word, Lotus. Scheduled reports with automated email delivery; browser-based, or Windows client-based anytime views. Traffic analysis and simulation prescribes trunk requirements. Shared-tenant billing. Apogee's Directory supports up to five organizational levels, shared extensions, floating authorization codes, and line item charges.
Telecost
Telecost, from Resource Software International (Oshawa, Ontario - 905-576-4575, www.telecost.com) collects CDRS from any commercial hardware buffers (e.g., Omnitronix, DataLink) or their own PC buffer (with Winlink IP and Serial Data Storage Software, they have special versions for Cisco Call Manager, Nortel BCM and 3Com NBX). They claim to work with an unlimited number of sites. Pool all these inputs to compare carriers, calling plans, least-cost routing rules. Analyze actual telephone data or hypothetical calling patterns. Canned reports include: Carrier Comparison, Corporate Summary (Multi-Carrier), Profit Summary (for resale) and Multi-Site Summary Report.
RSI also offers Revolution software for SMB, one-site call accounting, running on an on-site PC with SMDR port interface or on an outsourced, web-accessible basis. RSI also sells a hospitality version of its call accounting products.
Matsch Systems
Matsch Systems (Grand Rapids, MI - 800-776-2367, www.matsch.com) is a long-standing player in call accounting that's recently put its straightforward canned and ad-hoc reporting system into an ASP offering. NET-PHACS does all the extension, department, date, route, call type, and cost center drill-downs, the trunk utilization reports, for one or multiple polling "Matschboxes."
Trunk utilization reports use Erlang algorithms to statistically extrapolate blocked incoming calls, and to estimate how many additional trunks or lines would keep blocking percentages within specified limits. It's not fancy - looks like a simple Visual Basic app - but does a nice job of answering telecom managers' commonest queries, and offers extensive and self-evident ad-hoc searches. Reverse-directory lookup is linked in, as is email in a choice of pdf or html or text views.
NET-PHACs is geared towards SMBs as small as 50 extensions, and is priced at a very competitive $600 for setup, including polling device. Call accounting for those 50 stations runs $50 per month; 500 phones is $200. NET-PHACS-Plus puts the tool within the hands of all end-users, each seeing only the data that falls within his or her assigned privileges.
Traq-Wireless
Traq-Wireless (Austin, TX - 866-292-6732, www.traq.com) has carved out its cost-savings niche in the mobile realm; they take as input carrier CDs presented to clients or data from web-based client bills; they output a web-presented report of all mobile usage, including voice, calling card, data, SMS, RAS, and pager. Lots of drill-downs and drill-across. Set the pain threshold at which you want to jump plans; savings of 20 percent? 30 percent? Traq-Wireless' "optimize" feature suggests the better plan within the same carrier (to avoid contract penalties and handset-switching) and lets you switch with one click; their customer service takes care of the actual transfer. James Offerdahl, president, says that an average 15 percent of employees are recommended plan switches per month.
Traq-Wireless also asks you to set a "variability hurdle," which determines how much of a spike to allow in usage while still recommending a rate plan switch.
Traq-Wireless does not offer an auditing service, except on a limited, case-by-case professional services basis. But it does pick out such billing anomalies as double-charging, and does keep track of 14,000 constantly changing mobile rate plans, scraping carrier screens biweekly to extract the fine print.
Their GUI is excellent. They keep 12 months of data viewable. Traq-Wireless' smallest customer might have 500 cell phone accounts; their average is more like 1100, and one of their biggest is Fedex Freight. The service costs about $5 to $7 per cellular line per month, less if bundled with other wireless services. Their online reports can be exported to Excel spreadsheets or to Adobe PDF, they've also inserted the mailto click to immediately email employees the facts and perhaps recommended behavior changes. ("Memo to Charlie: Stop using your cell phone to call our 800 number!")
In-skin Call Accounting
Many convergent business phone systems from big to surprisingly small scale now come with basic (or not-so-basic) call accounting software built-in or available as a software option from the manufacturer, often in tandem with other telemanagement functions. We know of Alcatel's OmniVista 4760, a web-based application which runs with the OmniPCX. Call accounting is just one of its functions, which also include QoS monitoring and alarming, LDAP directory, and configuration. According to Lyhn Haller, Avaya Diamond Dealer Unified TelData in San Francisco, Veramark's eCAS system is the one most closely associated with Definity installs. A version of eCAS for Avaya IP Office software has been packaged and priced to suit its small-business customer. Nortel has Optivity Telephony Manager, which comes with Call Tracking, Costing, Trending features and LDAP synchronization. 3COM's NBX has fairly robust call accounting built-in, as well. Toshiba's Strata CS has a Call Center Reporter option that tracks extension and trunk usage. And NEC has AimWorks - a multisite telemanagement and provisioning package for NEAX PBXs (and now Elite key systems, too) with comprehensive call accounting, bill reconciliation and other functions built in.
Omnitronix Buffers IP Logfiles
Omnitronix (Seattle, WA - 206-624-4985, www.omnitronix.com), maker of the popular CDR data buffer box, has come out with a counterpart for IP PBXes, the Data-Link DL150 Pollable Remote Access Unit. The DL150 is programmed to log into and communicate in the proprietary protocols of specific IP-based PBX models, so it can query the PBX for CDR data over an IP connection. An optional internal 33.6 modem lets a network manager dial in to collect CDR even if the network goes down. The new buffer box can collect CDR data via traditional RS-232 port as well, so it serves TDM PBXes, too. And it captures SNMP traps and coverts them into text messages, which can be forwarded out over a modem to out-of-band management systems.
Telemanagement Case Study: Vertiflex Products and ISI
With network telecom contracts due for renewal and business restructuring plans on the horizon, Vertiflex, a maker of office workstations, was looking to trim costs substantially without draining staff time. An opportunity assessment from ISI, together with defined deliverables and deadlines, convinced Vertiflex to engage them for consulting and outsourced telemanagement services.
A four-month Telecom Profit Optimizer project, using data collected from two WTI Pollcat devices attached at two PBX sites, achieved savings of:
- $50,000/year for circuits billed in error
- $30,000/year for data network reconfiguration
- $20,000/year for long distance voice tariff changes
- $20,000/year for wireless plan adjustments and vendor consolidation - plus additional savings related to usage policy recommendations
- $15,000/year for equipment leasing and maintenance changes
- $15,000/year for unnecessary or unused trunks
- $1,000/year for wire maintenance and other bill "cramming"
- Administrative cost savings associated with vendor and account consolidation
- Cost control processes established to avoid thousands of dollars in wasteful expense due to late payment fees, line PIC changes, and shortfall penalties
A year of ongoing ISI Select Advantage Telemanagement services, which involved CDR collection and processing, monthly and ad-hoc reporting, management and user training, and value-added consultation and support, saved an additional:
- $125,000 by revealing overstaffing in telesales and enterprise-wide, and the elimination of abuse, waste and misuse
WIRELESS TELEMANAGEMENT
Wireless telemanagement is included in most accounting packages as another third-party billing input, and some service companies make it their business to keep their clients on the best plan. "Branches often contract separately for wireless. We throw expert resources and looking at the whole enterprise and find 15- 20% reductions," says Charles Ruykhaver, VP sales and marketing, of ISI (Schaumburg, IL - 847-706-5024, www.isimanagementsolutions.com).
Traq-Wireless' (Austin, TX - 866-292-6732, www.traq.com) Zero-Use Report, like many others, "picks the lowest-hanging fruit," in VP Clay Rayborn's words, by singling out handsets that have lain in desk drawers for months but still accrue charges. Extensions no longer used, perhaps because of layoffs, will also turn up on such reports, showing opportunities for reassignment.
