CAR Overview

The Cisco CallManager Serviceability CAR tool, formerly known as Administrative Reporting Tool (ART), generates reports of information for quality of service (QoS), traffic, user call volume, billing, and gateways. The CAR tool generates reports in either Portable Document Format (PDF) or Comma-Separated Values (CSV) format. The PDF format limits the number of records in the CAR reports to 5000, and CSV format limits the number of records to 20,000. If the number of records exceeds these limits, a message warns that the results are truncated. To avoid truncating reports, reduce the date range and regenerate the reports.

Note

CAR is not installed during the standard Cisco CallManager installation and must be added separately.

If CAR is running on your system before you upgrade to a new version of Cisco CallManager, the upgrade process automatically upgrades CAR. If Cisco CallManager is being installed for the first time, CAR has to be installed manually from the Cisco CallManager Administration. You can install CAR from the standard plug-ins web page (Application > Install Plugins). You must install CAR on the Cisco CallManager publisher that hosts the CDR database. CAR uses the Cisco Tomcat service.

CDRs and CMRs

Call detail records (CDRs) and Call Management Records (CMRs) are both stored in the CDR database, accessible with the Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Manager. Choose Start > Programs > Microsoft SQL Server > Enterprise Manager to open the Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Manager on the Cisco CallManager publisher. Both types of records store information about a call. The CDR table stores details about the call itself, whereas the CMR table stores information about QoS parameters for the same call. The SQL database refers to the CDR and CMR tables as CallDetailRecord (for CDRs) and CallDetailRecordDiagnostic (for CMRs), as shown in Figure 33-1. For every CDR entry, CallManager also generates a CMR entry.

Figure 33-1. CDR and CMR Tables in the SQL 2000 Database

Note

When you purge a record in the CDR database, CallManager deletes the related entries for a call in both the CallDetailRecord and CallDetailRecordDiagnostic tables.

The CallDetailRecord table stores extensive information about a call. Each record has a unique identifier called the pkid that enables you to find and identify a single record. The CallDetailRecord table also contains information about the calling party, called party, duration of or information about call forwarding, CMC, and FAC, to name the most important fields of a record. In total, the CallDetailRecord table contains 68 information fields.

The number of columns for the CallDetailRecordDiagnostic table, in contrast to the CallDetailRecord table, is very small. It has only 18 information fields. A unique identifier (pkid) for every call is included in the CallDetailRecordDiagnostic table as well. The pkid for a call in the CallDetailRecordDiagnostic table is not the same as the pkid for the same call in the CallDetailRecord table. To reference a call in the tables, use the oriLegCallIdentifier and destLegIdentifier field information. Among other things, information about the packets sent and received, jitter, and latency are stored for QoS reports.

CAR Users

CAR has a distinct management interface from the Cisco CallManager Administration and Serviceability web pages, as shown in Figure 33-2. The available menus in CAR depend on the level of the user authenticating to the system. CAR provides reporting capabilities for three levels of users:

• Administrators can generate system reports for load balancing, system performance, and troubleshooting. The administrator can also grant administrator access to other users, configure the dial plan and gateway, and set the system preferences.
• Managers can generate reports for users, departments, and QoS. The reports provide information for budgeting or security purposes and for determining the voice quality of the calls in their department.
• Individual users can generate a billing report for their own calls.

Figure 33-2. CDR Analysis and Reporting Administrative Interface

CAR Report Types and User Levels

There are three report types available in CAR:

• User Reports Allows you to generate reports for bills, Top N users, Cisco IP Manager Assistant (IPMA), computer telephony integration (CTI), and phone services. Bills can be generated for individual users, groups of users, or all users. With the Top N report, it is easy to find, for example, the top five users with the highest cost, highest call duration, or highest number of calls.
• System Reports Allows you to generate reports for QoS, traffic, and malicious calls. With these reports, it is possible to find part of the network where QoS does not work properly or where there is more traffic than planned in the design phase. Reports for Multilevel Precedence and Preemption (MLPP), CMC, and FAC are also available for information about the cost of projects or controlled long-distance calls with authorization codes.
• Device Reports Generates information about the gateway, route plans, conferences, and voice messaging. These kinds of reports are useful for the administrator in optimizing the network.

The administrator can generate all types of reports: user reports, system reports, and device reports. Managers can generate only parts of the user and system reports, such as billing, Top N, and QoS reports, and only for employees who report directly or indirectly to the manager. Users can check only their own bills in general or in detail, and send the report by e-mail. Table 33-1 summarizes these rights.