New version of Tariscope 3.5.22

SoftPI has released a new version of the Tariscope billing system. Tariscope 3.5.22 has a number of fixes and innovations.

Main innovations

1. Now Tariscope can collect and process information about calls from Asterisk in real time using Asterisk Management Interface (AMI). It allows getting information about any call leg: dialing, the beginning of the connection, call transfer, etc. For this purpose a new data source was added in the Data collection/Observer configuration page: Asterisk AMI (Figure 1).

Figure 1

The choice of the data source allows you to monitor calls made through Asterisk in real time. To do this you must choose in the settings tree: Data collection/Observer → profile name → Active calls. The program window looks like that shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

On the right pane a table is displayed with information about calls that are executed at the current time, or that have been completed not more than one minute ago.

Each call is presented in the table in the form of two lines: the Outgoing and Incoming call legs. The table contains the following fields:

• Call ID. Displays a call identifier. 
• ID. Displays an identifier of a call leg. 
• Start time. Displays the date and time of the call leg. 
• Direction. Displays a direction of the call leg. There are two types of directions: Outgoing and Incoming. The Outgoing direction is displayed in a call leg, where the NumberA field shows a telephone number of a caller. The Incoming direction is displayed in a call leg, where the NumberA field shows a telephone number of a called subscriber. 
• Status. Displays the current status of a call. 
• Number А. For internal calls, the phone number of calling subscriber is displayed in the Outgoing call leg, and the phone number of called subscriber is displayed in the Incoming call leg. For external outgoing calls the extension number of calling subscriber is displayed in the Outgoing call leg and the number corresponding to the gateway is displayed for the Incoming leg. 
• Number B. For internal calls the phone number of called subscriber is displayed in the Outgoing leg and the phone number of calling subscriber is displayed in the Incoming leg. For external outgoing calls the dialed number is displayed for both call legs. 
• Connect time. Displays the date and time of the beginning of connection.
• Disconnect time. Displays the date and time of the connection completion. 
• Duration. Displays the duration of the call in the call leg. 
• Cost. Displays the current cost of a call.
• Subscriber. Displays a subscriber name from the Tariscope database. 
• To place. Displays a city name, mobile operator or owner of a specific external telephone number, such as partner, customer, where an outgoing call is executed. 
• Duration left. If a limit is set on the subscriber balance in Tariscope, this field displays how long the current call can be made.

The Tariscope administrator can customize a list of the required fields to display.

The data of the Active calls table can be sorted by any field, for example, duration, cost, or area. If necessary, the data can be grouped on any field.

For the convenience of quick perception of the current status of a call, a specific font color is used for a particular status of the call:

• blue color is used for a call when a dialing operation is executed;
• green color is used for a call when a connection is established;
• gray color is used for a call when it was finished.

The red background is used for calls that lasted less then 10 seconds before the automatic disconnection by Tariscope because the customer's balance was used up. Remind that automatic disconnection is possible, if a Tariscope license was purchased with the restriction feature and you made the appropriate settings in Tariscope.

2. If Tariscope is used with AMI, this allows to use the restriction feature in automatic mode. More information about the restriction feature, see in the article.

There are the following possibilities:

• A call is disconnected, if the customer's balance exceeds a predetermined credit limit. This feature is applicable only for the Tariscope Provider edition. It allows telecommunications service providers to deal with accounts receivable and it can also be used to combat fraud.
• A call is disconnected, if the cost of the call exceeds a predetermined value. This feature can be used to combat fraud, as well as for customers of the Tariscope Enterprise edition, as one element of control over the implementation of the budget for telephone calls.
• A call is disconnected, if a subscriber, who is an originator of the call, is absent in the Tariscope database. This feature can also be used to combat fraud.

3. The Group head column was added in the subscriber table as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

This allows the Tariscope administrator to quickly define a head of a group. We remind that a head of a group can view, filter all calls of subscribers of the group.

4. In Tariscope 3.5.22 the Import subscribers wizard allows to import limits on calls that are set for subscribers. It provides a fast input or change of limit values.