Monitoring and alerting manual

The CDR, CDRbill and Calls Modules provide an alternative way to retrieve, view, sort, filter, and export CDRs or calls from the VoIP switch.

CDR viewing is useless without a flexible filtering and sorting system to retrieve the CDRs initially, and further filter and sort the fetched results if needed. Please refer to Filtering for a full description of filtering patterns and techniques.

The menu on top of the CDR, CDRbill, DC, and Calls modules. Consists of:

• Filter sign with red X - remove all filters. Will clear all Filter fields over column names.
• E - Export table data.
• Scroll bars - toggle horizontal scroll bar position up or down.
• C - opens Column selection window where one can choose which columns (CDR or Calls fields) to have in the table. Columns can be added/hidden or rearranged by dragging them up or down in the Column selection window.
• Save - save column filters. In contrast to most stats modules (Chart, Table, Report, Alerts) where entered filters are saved on the fly, some tables, like CDRs require you to save your filters manually if you want to keep them after page refresh. This is done because a filter may cause a heavy query to a DB, and may not even be needed next time you work with this table. If it were auto-saved, one might have to wait for unwanted data with the old filter applied.
• Refresh - refresh table data.
• CDR, DC, Flow,GO buttons, depending on the module. If DC button is pressed in the CDR module, the Floating block with the disconnect code report will open, see DC. If the Flow button is pressed, the System will open a Call flow window with packets of the call recorded as this CDR.

• Share - clicking this button will create a shared link to the information displayed on the current screen to send to your partners, see Shared links.

In addition to just showing number of table rows by means of Row count indicator, like in other modules, the Row count strip in the CDR and some other modules will also show the total number of records under applied filter conditions, as well as the Next button to fetch the next row set, and the editable field of row numbers that you may request manually. Only the first figure before the dash will matter, the number of rows will still be determined by the Row limit strip. So, if you see rows 0-300 in the editable field and need rows 5000-8000, you need to enter 5000 in the field, and change the Row limit option to 3000.

To export CDRs for a period of time to a file, set the period in the CDR menu, choose File on the Row limit strip and click CDR. The System will open a new window where you can set up the parameters of export.

• Add headers - select the checkbox if you want to add column headers to the exported file.
• Separator - choose the separator for the values from a comma, a semicolon or a tab.
• Preserve data in Excel - select the checkbox to export dates and long values as formulas to preserve them in Excel.
• Export file name base - enter the main part of the file name.
• Add date to file name - select the checkbox if you want to add the date and time to the file name when exporting it.
• Add filters to file name - select the checkbox if you want to add active filter values to the file name.

When done, click OK and the System will export the CDRs into a file using the provided settings.

The pop-up menu invoked in the CDR module has some useful features available to you.

• Click on a cell in the CDR table and select View in CDRs to open a floating CDR window filtered by the value in the selected cell.
• Click on a row in the CDR table and select View in CDRs, all legs to open a CDR table with all legs of a call filtered out, including all hunt attempts. This feature only works for the switches that have a field like "Conference ID" to tie different legs of one call together.
• Click on a cell in the CDR table and select View in CDRbill to open a floating CDRbill window filtered by the value in the selected cell.
• Click on a row in the CDR table and select View in Traffic logs to open a floating Signaling logs window filtered by the Call ID of the CDR (see Signaling logs collector).
• Click on a row in the CDR table and select View in Call flow to open a floating Call flow window displaying the call to which the CDR belongs.
• Click on a row in the CDR table and select View in Call flow, all legs to open a floating Call flow window will open packets flow for all legs in a call to which the chosen CDR belongs. Up to 20 legs can be shown on the same Call flow. This feature only works for the switches that have a field like "Conference ID" to tie different legs of one call together.

The CDRbill module accesses a separate "light" CDR table that keeps only records of connected calls, and only limited number of columns with basic information usually enough to create invoices. Other than that, the CDRbill module is very similar to the CDR module.

Fetching information from the CDRbill table is much quicker, and monthly CDR tables take over 10 times less space, which is convenient for long CDR storage. Full CDR records contain a lot of records on rejected calls and call rerouting attempts, as well as lots of debugging information, like Call IDs, protocol settings, etc. that is not needed in the long run. Full CDR records may only be kept for a couple of months to save on HDD space.

The CDRbill module is only available if CDR replication to 5gVision own DB is set up.

The Disconnect codes Module provides a report on CDR codes in the given period under the given filter. There are two ways to use the module:

• When the module is opened directly in the main block by clicking on the DC option in Module selection window (if it is hidden - please press the More... button) - it is only possible to choose the Interval for which to bring the report, but there is no way to apply any filters, all CDRs will be processed.
• When the module is called by the DC button in the CDR menu, it will inherit all the filters of the calling the CDR module, and thus will provide a report based on the limited number of pre-filtered CDRs.

The Calls Module shows active calls on the switch in a fast and convenient way. The Calls module is similar to the CDR module with respect to filtering and sorting, please refer to the main description of the CDR module features for more information.

The system allows to detect looped calls and setup alerts for them in usual way. If the number of calls with same SCR and DST numbers (numbers for routing) reaches the configured call count (default is 3) value within the check interval (default is 5) seconds, the system detects a loop. The loop settings can be changed in the System config.

There are 2 statistical parameters available that can be used for setting up of call loop alerting as well (see Config-Alerts):

• In/Out Hr Loops - Incoming/Outgoing number of looped attempts per hour
• In/Out Hr Loop % - Incoming/Outgoing percentage of looped attempts to total attempts per hour

Each loop is counted once, even if there are 15 calls in it.

You may view loops in CDRs, if you add a new field Loop ID using Column selection. Each loop is assigned an ID, and it is easy to view all loops if you filter this field by != (not equal nothing). The system mark all legs of a call as belonging to a loop, including hunt attempts, etc, although technically hunts are not part of the loop. But it is much easier this way to see all the calls with all their legs.