Customer Center: Business Communication Services Audit

This article explains the processes to conduct an audit of your services.

Business phones and communication services are essential tools for employees, but many departments are unaware of how many active services they have or where they are located. Therefore, there are three parts of a thorough Business Communications Services Audit:

1. Active Department Coordinators - Managing who has access to the management of your department's telecom services is vital.
2. Service Costs - Understanding the cost of your services will assist you in viewing your bill and checking your call details. Refer to the ComTech Services Rates table. 
3. Service Location - Accurate records of phone locations are critical to maintaining the E911 database.  E911 is a service that automatically displays the telephone number and physical location of the 911 caller on the emergency operator's screen. Unlike Basic 911 service, the distressed caller has to tell the operator where they are calling.

• For example - a person in distress and unable to speak dials 911 from their office VoIP phone. The Public Safety Answering Point receives the E911 location information as 123 Main Street, HR Department, port 16. Once the emergency team arrives on-site, they find that nothing is wrong at that location. However, since the phone's location was never updated, where is the distressed caller?
• Please see the FCC website for more information about VoIP and E911.

Active Department Coordinators

The best way to determine who is an Active Department Coordinator for your department is to use the ComTech Coordinator Search Tool. The list is populated in real-time so that changes made to PCR are reflected immediately.

• ComTech Coordinator Search Tool 
  
  • Enter a Department OUC to identify all of the active coordinators in that specific department.
    OR
  • Enter a user's Unity ID to identify all active coordinators in that user's assigned department.

Note: If you are working remotely (off-campus), you'll need to be connected to the VPN for this tool to work.

 Export to CSV 

1. On the Home page of Customer Center, in the Active Services & Equipment section, make sure the Search field is blank.
2. Click Export to CSV and choose All Data.
   
3. The list will download, and you should see it in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen.
   

4. Click to download and open the list in Excel.
5. You can sort and filter the list like any other spreadsheet. In the next section, we'll explore some options.
   

Conduct an Audit

• Filter Column A (Type) to show only Equipment and then hide or delete those rows. 
• Sort the list to show the Services in A to Z order on Column C (Catalog).
• If you have more than one department, choose Customer Sort and choose to Sort by Column D (Owner) and then Add Level > Sort by Column C (Catalog).
• Freeze Row 1.
• Verify all phone lines (VoIP) are associated with the correct person in Column F (Reference). For example, conference rooms, reception areas, etc., may be noted as 'com.'
• Verify all phone lines (VoIP) have the correct information in Column G (Location). Remember that phones are supposed to be tied to phone numbers. Moving phones without updating the record in the E911 database is irresponsible. Always put in a Change Request!
• Check to see if you have Long Distance Authorization Codes. 
  
  • If so, make sure they are associated with a person. 
  • The Location column might be empty if the Code isn't restricted to a specific number.
  • If you don't know who the Code(s) belong to, send an email to your department with a screenshot (as shown above) listing the last 3 digits of the codes. Let everyone know they should claim any codes that belong to them by a specific date. I'd suggest a week or so. After that, all unclaimed codes should be removed from your active services. There is no charge to remove them and no charge to order new ones - the only charge for an Auth Code is the long-distance charges when the codes are used to make long-distance calls. 
• Make notes in Column H for any change request work that needs to be done. 
• Use the current bill to verify your services are being charged correctly.

If you need assistance, email Alice Thurman - akthurm2@ncsu.edu.