By Chris Lowe
Have you ever had the opportunity to go hang out and learn something from a friend? I had that cool opportunity this February. I LOVE baseball and was able to play all the way through college. So, it was like a dream to take an afternoon off from work and go hit batting practice with my friend who plays for the Baltimore Orioles. It was about a week before he was leaving for spring training, and I met him at a local college to hang out and see what his off-season training/hitting was like. We went to the batting cage and started hitting balls. I was watching him swing and asking lots of questions. It was now my turn. I am 31 and haven't swung a baseball bat in 10 years...but swinging is kind of like riding a bike. It came back quickly, and I thought I was hitting pretty good! After hitting for just 5 minutes, he started asking me some questions on how/why I did a few things. He blew my mind with a few small changes that really helped my swing. I wish a coach would have told me these things 15 years ago, but it was fun to hang out and learn something new about baseball. In just 5 minutes, I learned something new about a game I have played since I was 5.
So, I invite you to take 5 minutes and read tips the Equinox Support team has to share about TeleLink—maybe this information will help you use TeleLink better, even if you've used TeleLink for 15 years!
Keep Equinox Informed:
- Please take a minute to call or email Equinox Support to let us know when data formats are changing. (switch data, carrier data, rate decks, mediations, imports, etc.).
- When you are requesting a change or enhancement, provide us a written description of the issue and the business case for the change. This will help us see the big picture and come up with a solution.
- Look for Mediation issues before they become emergencies the day of a bill run and let us know. We can help figure out the issue and get it resolved, but sometimes this takes a little time.
- Let us know if you are having any issues with the application. If you get any error messages, send us a screenshot. Don't ignore it.
Keep Yourself Informed:
- Read the release notes! They are very informative on TeleLink changes in general, as well as items specific to your company.
- Use our wealth of documentation. Our documentation is very robust and can answer lots of your questions.
- Request ongoing training. Christi is a great resource and would like to help you learn TeleLink better.
- Ask to have new users trained. When a new user comes on board, let us know and we'd be happy to catch them up with training.
- Log in to Equinox Online Library. If you don't know how, let us know and we will help you.
TeleLink Tips:
- Name report templates appropriately. This helps us to know how/why a report template is used (e.g., Trunk Traffic Statistics by Hour).
- Use appropriately named folders, and place report templates in them. Create a Trunk Traffic Folder to house all your report templates for trunks.
- Delete report templates that are no longer used. Don't clutter up your report templates.
- Turn off report schedules if the data is no longer being used. If a scheduled report is no longer used, free up TeleLink's resources by turning it off.
- For reporting, enriched fields are generally preferable rather than mapped fields. The enriched fields will provide faster reports.
- Understand your data retention periods to ensure data is available and not to waste storage.
- Use the rate deck validation tool to import rate decks. This allows you to catch problems with a rate deck before we import it into TeleLink.
- Trunk group maintenance is critical for rating. Calls on unknown trunks can't be rated. Rates are associated to carriers. Carriers are associated to trunks. If there is any disconnect, TeleLink can't rate the call.
Equinox Support is here to help. We like to share our knowledge about TeleLink so all system users can know how to best use the system. Hopefully something in this list will help you use TeleLink better. If you have any questions or need some help, call Equinox Support at 615-612-1225 or email us at support@equinoxis.com. We'd be happy to help!
About the Author
As a Software Quality Assurance Tester for TeleLink, Chris Lowe has helped improve Equinox's testing and installation procedures. His primary responsibilities include testing TeleLink, automation testing, and supporting TeleLink. Chris and his wife Jessica have 2 young boys and 2 dogs, and they enjoy traveling, playing games, and hiking together. A former college baseball standout, Chris loves sports and continues to play them as often as possible.