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.