To understand why information might seem to be inconsistent between reports, let's first take a better look at the information provided in each report.
The Call Log Report provides a list of calls that have been affected in the time period specified. On the other hand, the Extension Statistics Report is a summary report showing how many inbound and outbound calls have been made by each extension.
Thus, even for a simple call, the total number of calls in the reports will differ – the Call Log Report will only report one call, whereas the Extension Statistics report will report two calls – an outbound call for the caller and an incoming call for the called party.
Let's check how transferred calls are recorded in both reports. The details of our call are the following:
- Part 1: EXT A calls EXT B and talk for 60 seconds.
- Part 2: EXT B performs and attended transfer of the call to EXT C. In the process the two extensions talk for 30 seconds before the transfer is affected.
- Part 3: EXT A is connected to EXT C and talk for 90 seconds.
The above call is recorded as follows:
Call Logs Report
Call Time | Caller ID | Destination | Status | Ringing | Talking |
26/10/2012 10:18:45 | EXT A | EXT B > EXT C | Answered | 00:00:04 | 00:03:00 |
In this case, the report will show the total duration of the call i.e. Part 1 (60 seconds) + Part 2 (30 seconds) + Part 3 (90 seconds), for a total of 180 seconds or 3 minutes. Note also that only one call is recorded for all the parts.
Extension Statistics Report
Agent Extension | Inbound | Outbound | Total | Total Talk Time |
EXT A | 1 | 0 | 1 | 00:03:00 |
EXT B | 0 | 1 | 1 | 00:01:30 |
EXT C | 1 | 0 | 1 | 00:02:00 |
Totals | 2 | 1 | 3 | 00:06:30 |
Ext A
Talking time = Part 1 (60 seconds) + Part 2 (30 seconds) + Part 3 (90 seconds) = 180 seconds or 3 minutes
Ext B
Talking time = Part 1 (60 seconds) + Part 2 (30 seconds) = 90 seconds or 1 minute 30 seconds
Ext C
Talking time = Part 2 (30 seconds) + Part 3 (90 seconds) = 120 seconds or 2 minutes
To conclude, the reports are designed to show the same data from a different perspective, and thus the amount of calls recorded in each report is expected to differ. Similar variances can be noted in other reports too.