Usage Page

[VOIPoTim]

Check out the new Usage Tab. Still wrapping it up, but what do you guys think of the new layout?

You can click on the $ amount to go to the calls that make it up.

[usa2k]

Call History filter typo: "Outoing PSTN Domestic"

The rest looks interesting Tim.
Not sure I see good tools yet to export and summarize usage.
The filters for call types are nice.

Phone companies have a nice way of producing billing statements with organized calling records and totals.

I have totals for my seven test accounts including my included Reseller number. Plus a blank account with 2 minutes for $0.00. There is no eighth account on my Reseller list.

The Usage Column titles have clickable heading for sorting, but they don't do anything.
(Like show high to low usage.)

Unless usage is all on the same cycle, the totals are very relative on an arbitrary cycle. It would be more useful based on a billing cycle that is clearly listed. Perhaps it could say 100/30%, 400/90% to show how much of the billing cycle has been used?

It would be exceptionally useful to view previous billing cycle totals in the same kind of view.

Even more useful to see totals of a onsecutive billing cycle usage of an account.

[VOIPoTim]

You can select whatever date range you want at the top so it's for any billing cycle.

Right now the goal is for you guys being able to produce reports about the usage and your costs, but it's not really designed to produce something for your end users so it doesn't have anything about billing cycles, etc. Later we will add some account management tools for you to use to generate things for customers. It's kind of like back in the day when cPanel was released, it literally only had create, remove, etc with no stats or account management and it evolved over time.

It just gets very complex if we start determining billing cycles (since everyone will want to do something different for their clients, end user pricing, and the end user billing functionality). This could add months to development whereas focusing just on our billing first makes the most sense since it's consistent and we set the cycles/policies/amounts vs the resellers all having different approaches to how they want to bill.

We're focusing on the basic core stuff (adding/removing/limts/basic account management tools) for the soft launch (in a few weeks) and then will add more detailed things over the next few months. This way we can launch in phases and continue to add functionality as time goes on vs spreading the development out over such a long period before launching anything like we did when launching VOIPo initially.

Over time, we plan to have some more tools which will let you take the wholesale pricing and put in your pricing beside it and it'll generate reports and bills based on your input.

Like for international calls, right now we only show what you're being charged for. Eventually we want to add something that will let you set the intl rates or put in a % markup for automatically setting them and then it'll generate the charges you're going to bill your customer in addition to the charges we're billing you. Collecting all the additional information (what you want to charge, etc) will take some time to put together.

[usa2k]

Sounds good Tim. Just throwing out thoughts as they come to me. What might seem an observation to me, could be something you wish you had noticed. By airing what I see, I offer another perspective

I am hoping that the ideas voiced get some consideration, even if they don't fit the short term plan. Some things done short term will adversely affect what can be done long term if they are completely ignored.

We all want the same thing; to make lots of money, by giving the people what they need. And hopefully by doing it better than the competition.

[VOIPoTim]

Yeah definitely. Keep posting ideas...I'm just explaining what we're doing now so you know some of the reasoning of why certain things are there or not.

[usa2k]

If a column for Billing Date could be added. It would be a handy reference to manually adjust the date range on the Usage Page. Otherwise, its more back-and-forth to other pages. The one column would make this page more powerful.

Also, the date fields would be more friendly if they had a pop-up calendar. It helps give context to the days selected.

See: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examp...container.html

[VOIPoTim]

If a column for Billing Date could be added. It would be a handy reference to manually adjust the date range on the Usage Page. Otherwise, its more back-and-forth to other pages. The one column would make this page more powerful.

What would the billing date be though usage wise? The one for the phone number?

[usa2k]

Yes. It would get a fast total for one Billing Period of one Account.
It is tedious to actually count up the transactions in a range,
and now that is unnecessary due to the filter tools.

Still, I see the possible need to see actual billing period totals.
If its there, then I just plug the range in and get my specific view.
Just thinking ...

I also added a date range tool suggestion to my previous post.

[VOIPoTim]

You should be able to set the date range and the "Usage" page displays the number of minutes and total cost.

We may be able to add in the renewal dates for the numbers there on that page, but it seems like that will get confusing since you have to select a date range for the page itself.

[usa2k]

Confusing, perhaps. Plus different plans might mean different things ...
You have a point. Who knows if someone would sell a bi-weekly plan
The low price tag might attract traffic to see what its about.

Maybe its best to keep it simple.

The calendar widgets are still more friendly though.