Administering the server for traffic reports

Activating the collection of traffic data

You must activate the Traffic Collection feature in the messaging server so that the server knows to start collecting traffic data before the server can format that data into a report. Reports can be produced for the current day or hour. Therefore, you can start running traffic reports almost as soon as Traffic Collection feature is activated. However, data for the full range of reporting periods (such as 192 hours, 8 days, or 13 months, depending on the report) is not available until that many hours', days', or months' worth of traffic data has been collected.

To activate traffic collection for the system and to define the prime time hours for collection:

Start at the Messaging Administration main menu and select:

Global Administration
Messaging Administration

The system displays the SSH User Authentication dialog box. Enter your login, for example, sa or vm, in the User name field and your password in the Password field. Click Login. The system then displays the Messaging command prompt screen.

At the enter command prompt, enter change system-parameters features .

The system displays the System-Parameters Features screen. See Field definitions: System-Parameters Features screen for a complete description of this screen.

Enter values in the System Prime Time, Start, and End fields to indicate the starting and ending time that will be used by the system to analyze and report prime-time traffic data. These values normally correspond to your company's business hours but can be set to any values you want. (Traffic data is also collected at other times, but for reporting purposes, these values designate the prime-time hours.)

Caution!
The values you enter into these fields affect other system features, such as determining when out-of-hours personal greetings are played, and routing out-of-hours calls to automated attendants. Be sure any changes you make here do not adversely affect other feature functionality.

Press F3 (Enter) to save the information in the system database.

Enter exit or another administrative command at the enter command prompt.

Data retention requirements

When traffic collection is activated, the messaging system stores the present collection record. It also stores the records of previous consecutive collection periods. How long each record is retained depends on the type of report, as follows:

Traffic records that contain daily information for the feature, load, community, net load, and special features reports are stored for 32 consecutive days.

For example, if today is January 1, the present record contains the traffic data collected today, along with the previous 31 daily records, starting with December 31 (yesterday) and going back to December 1.

Traffic records that contain daily information for the remote messages and subscriber reports are stored for 8 consecutive days.

For example, if today is Monday, the present record contains the traffic collected today, along with the previous 7 daily records, starting with Sunday (yesterday) and going back to the previous Monday.

Traffic records that contain hourly information for the community, feature, load, and special features reports are stored for 192 consecutive hours, which equals 8 days of hourly information.

For example, if it is 8:15 AM, the present record contains the traffic records collected since 8:00 AM, along with the previous 191 hourly records, starting with 7:00 AM and going backwards.

Traffic records that contain monthly information for the remote messages and subscriber reports are stored for 13 consecutive months.

For example, if today is January 15, the present record contains the traffic collected so far this month, along with the previous 12 monthly records, starting with December (last month) and going back to the previous January.

As each new traffic record is collected, the oldest record is deleted. This means that you must produce traffic reports on a regular and timely basis, or you will lose the information that the reports make available to you. This is especially true if you retain the reports for historical purposes, such as a performance audit or for comparative analysis.