Calls Log addition - Total Call Time / Plan Usage

Moderators: dwp, devin

Post Reply
AlCan
Posts: 150
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 10:00 pm
Location: New Zealand

Calls Log addition - Total Call Time / Plan Usage

Post by AlCan »

Hi Dwp,

Today my employers advised me that they have changed my mobile calling plan.

On the plus side (I think many people would agree), I now have 1.5GB of Mobile Data per month! (Up from 50 MB...)

On the challenging side, I am now restricted to 400 "minutes" of outgoing calls per month. Accordingly, I have been advised that I now need to keep track of my outgoing call times, because if I exceed 400 minutes, the company will be charged an exorbitant (i.e. excessively expensive) penalty rate, and that I may be liable for excess charges.

I know that DWP already records (or at least, has access to, and displays) details of every individual outgoing call, including time of call and duration of call. This data is already totaled in the Individual Contact Call History data, as in: View Contact, Slide Left for call history... with totals displayed in the top bar, e.g.: "Displaying 49 calls / duration 02:27:44".

This is exactly the kind of information I want, but not for individual Contacts. I want the totals for all selected type calls, for a particular calling period. E.g. Total of all successful Outgoing calls from 25/06/12 to 25/07/12.

I have searched the forum and found this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=409 but it suggests doing what I want is difficult. However, given what is already part of DWP, I don't see why it would be.

For now, all I need is a way to view totals for Outgoing calls. Incoming calls are not charged, so I don't need those details, but for completeness and consistency, they would be good to add later.

What I would like to be able to view is:

The total Number of successful outgoing calls (not including unanswered calls). E.g. 4 calls

The "rounded up minutes" total outgoing call talk time. By that, I mean the total number of "rounded up minutes" for each call, as follows: If a call lasts 1 second, call time rounds up to 1 minute; if a call lasts N minutes and 1-59 seconds, call time rounds up to N+1 minutes. The total of all those "minutes" for the month: 1:08 -> 2.0 + 2:15 -> 3.0 + 0:47 -> 1.0 + 4:39 -> 5.0 = 11.0 minutes. (This the way the chosen Mobile Telco rips off its Customers in this country.)

The simple numerical total number of minutes of outgoing call talk time: 1:08 + 2:15 + 0:47 + 4:39 = 8:49 would also be nice.


Also, I need to be able to set the month start/end date (rollover date), as the billing period does not coincide with the calendar month.

To me it seems simple enough. Could it be added, please? In my case, the time of day, or day or the week doesn't matter, it's all at the same rate (but I know other people will want Peak and Off-Peak, and/or Weekdays and Weekends and Public Holidays.) But could you add the very simple flat-rate version to start with, please?

My suggestion is that it be added to the existing Phone Tab, Call History Filter bar. Instead of a Tap to filter, use a Long Tap to Filter and generate Totals. All five existing buttons could be active, with the Missed calls and Blocked calls displaying only the number of calls for the period. The period could be defined by a start date (or end date) and a period that could be selected by Radio Button or Dropdown List, maybe including Day / Mon-Fri / Week / Fortnight / 4-weeks / Month / All. (I only need month...) The start date and rollover settings could be a separate Settings item, or included as part of the "Results" screen.

As the purpose is to be able to monitor usage, an additional display bar at the top of the Calls History List would be great. If that could display the summary data from the Results page, e.g. as "135calls, 132Min, Plan 33%, Time 47%" that would be awesome. To explain, Calls is obvious, Time also, (with "min" being actual time and Min being "Big M" minutes meaning Rounded Up time). "Plan 33%" would mean that I have used 132/400 mins (=33%) in 47% of the time (= say 14/30 days). Thus, I would be able to see at a glance that I had used 33% of my allocation in 47% of the allocated time, in other words, I'm within my allocation.

Alternatively, to make the Summary Display very simple and graphical, you could just use a single, 3-coloured progress bar - using three of four or five colours to denote Plan usage. E.g. Green 33% | Blue 14% | Violet 53% could mean "Cool", spare allocation available, 33% used, 14% spare at present with 43% of the time remaining. However, if using too much, colours might be, for example: Orange 50% | Red 5% | Violet 45% which might mean "Hot" - Data Usage Exceeded. 55% of data already used in only 50% of the time, so need to slow down to avoid overrun.

To minimise screen wastage, this Summary Bar would need to scroll up with the list (like the Day/Date bars do now).

Maybe that's a big ask, but anything to enable me to monitor my usage would be much appreciated. And, I suspect, it would be valuable to a lot of other DWP users, as I guess most people are on some kind of pay per call contract.

Can it be done, please?

Best regards,
Alan
Currently (i.e Now, not necessarily the date of this post)
using DW Contacts & Dialer version 2.5.3.0-pro
On Motorola Defy with Android 2.2.2 (Work Phone)
dwp
Site Admin
Posts: 713
Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:46 pm

Re: Calls Log addition - Total Call Time / Plan Usage

Post by dwp »

Hi Alan
Thank you for your suggestion.
I will add in future versions.
Post Reply