Usage Monitor

Usage Monitor (UM) is Ascertain’s usage assurance solution, it can:

• derive and analyse volumetric information (including number, duration and value of events)
• monitor volumetric trends and identify changes outside acceptable thresholds
• examine throughput of event transaction files, identifying missing files, loss of records, excessive suspense or filtered records, files out of sequence and backlogs in processing
• generate data for Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• raise alerts both externally and for reporting through the front end dashboards

An additional module, the Ascertain Event Processing Subsystem (EPS), provides the capability to analyse large volumes of data at the event level.  EPS can filter, categorise and aggregate these records in a variety of ways to provide rich granular metrics that can be analysed and trended.  This component is specifically designed to handle call records in their raw format and in volumes measured in billions per day.

Features and Benefits

UM simplifies one of the key Revenue Assurance tasks – to ensure that all usage charges are processed completely, accurately and on time, at all points in the revenue chain.  UM provides Revenue Assurance with:

• at-a-glance trend lines that are continuously updated, showing a variety of metrics, such as switch call volumes, adjustments, bill run values, etc.
• exception reporting: threshold checks allow specific tolerances to be configured and alarms to be generated when they are exceeded.  Tolerances can be set on any data item, such as percentage of records going into suspense, or total duration of traffic per day.  Users can set the thresholds flexibly to accommodate the different variations that operators have across their systems, and at different times
• traffic forecasting: allowing actuals to be automatically compared to predictions to reveal network or system problems
• simplified reporting: performance indicators can be computed from the data collected and monitored through the dashboard
• visible proof of controls and monitoring day-in, day-out: this also meets the auditors’ needs.  Checks confirm the completeness of file processing and that all records are successfully passed from one system to the next in the switch to bill chain.  These checks are configured for each particular operator.  The results are monitored automatically with issues logged for subsequent review
• a facility to monitor the follow-up of issues and alarms: any audit check failures or trends outside of the set thresholds can generate issues, which can be logged, grouped together and tracked until resolved.  Issues can be filtered by type and severity, routed flexibly, and reported over time and by value

All of this is brought together in a dashboard which delivers a rich combination of graphs, reports, control indicators, KPIs, issues and alerts.

Screenshots

All UM configuration such as business rules, reconciliation logic, data definitions, thresholds and issues severities can be easily defined, set up and managed by users.

An array of reconciliation reports are generated which provide the users with key information to understand and analyse anomalies in event record throughput.