 All of us at CPDI would like to take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful holiday season and happiness in the New Year.  CPDI Support Continues Through the Holidays
The CPDI business offices will be closed the two weeks of December 19 and December 26, 2005. Technical support will be available according to our normal schedule during the upcoming holiday season. However, emergency-only support will be available on December 25 and 26, 2005 and January 1 and 2, 2006. CPDI's business offices will reopen at 0800 Pacific standard time on Tuesday, January 3, 2006. Back to top Featured Product: Questionnaires
CPDI's Questionnaire feature provides market research capabilities within the Call Control system. You can customize questionnaires to collect survey or demographic data from calling card account holders, including random samples. Best of all, it's a standard component with your Call Control platform—no special equipment needed! You can reward calling card account holders with free calling time when they complete a questionnaire, or you can deduct time from the calling card account for using this service. (This is useful, for example, when you distribute free or promotional products and want to subtract a specific amount of time from the overall total after taking the questionnaire.) Questionnaires can be targeted to a specific group of callers. You can also have questionnaires play randomly; for example, every seventh caller. The questionnaires themselves are simply custom-recorded voice files that log answers based on the callers' touch-tone responses. For example: "How many times in the past month have you used our product?" "Who do you think will win the World Cup? Press 1 for team A, press 2 for team B, press 3 if you think it will be a tie." "What is your postal ZIP code?" 'How many minutes did it take until your order was delivered?" "Vote now for your favorite musical group! Press 1 for [name 1], press 2 for [name 2], press 3 for [name 3]." "Which do you prefer? Press 8 for product X, press 9 for product Y, or press 0 to speak to our customer service representative about our products." Marketing capabilities are limited only to your imagination. For example, some CPDI customers have used this feature to partner with other companies wanting demographic information, to obtain voting or polling results, or to offer games that speculate on the outcome of sporting events. One CPDI customer designed an innovative "lottery" approach to the Questionnaires' gaming capabilities: Callers were asked a series of questions. With each correct answer, the questionnaire proceeded to the next question. If all questions were correct, callers were prompted to record their name and phone number. These "finalists" were then eligible for the grand prize; the winner's name was selected randomly, and the company then contacted the winner to announce the prize and generate additional publicity and excitement about their products! For more information about setting up the Questionnaires feature, please review the Call Control documentation, or contact your CPDI technical engineer. Back to top Get on Board the Crystal Enterprise Express
When your Call Control platform was installed, it included Crystal Reports, a powerful reporting tool. The original Crystal Reports is now available in an upgraded version as Crystal Enterprise Express. Its enhanced functionality offers practical ways to organize your Call Control data into useful reports, spreadsheets, comma-delimited files, graphs, tables, or other reporting vehicles. Having controlled access to your Call Control reports helps you make critical business decisions based on timely, accurate information. Why upgrade now? Secured web access: Your company or group of authorized users can share web-enabled access to run Crystal Reports on a local server. The web-based reporting feature requires password-protected access. Flexible reporting parameters: You can input variables (such as date ranges, balances greater than zero, usage periods less than 15 days, etc.) directly into the report request on the web. Scheduled report runs: You can prioritize your work load to focus on immediate reporting requirements during the day, and run larger or recurring reports during off-hours. Single server storage: Your report results remain on your Enterprise server until you purge them. You can also establish retention policies for automatic purges. Use Crystal Reports version 10 to create the report formats, and then use Crystal Enterprise Express to run and view the reports. The generated reports are securely stored on your Enterprise server, a single, logical location where authorized users may access them. Crystal Reports and Crystal Enterprise are proprietary products of Business Objects SA. For more information, visit the Business Objects website www.businessobjects.com or contact your CPDI sales representative about upgrading to Crystal Enterprise Express. Back to top  |
Effective January 1, 2006, CPDI's new address will be: 1201 SE Tech Center Drive Suite 170 Vancouver, WA 98683 USA Telephone +1.360.694.2977 Facsimile +1.360.694.2553 Please update your records to reflect the new street number to ensure accurate routing of mail deliveries. |
With the end of the year approaching, it's time to verify that you have implemented and continued regular system maintenance procedures. For detailed procedures on the following tips, contact your CPDI technical engineer. System Backup: Your regular system backup will save your most critical files automatically. However, you also need to backup some files manually, including SIU configuration files, Startup Controller switches, and the global.dic and system.dic files. (If you do a full data volume backup, the global.dic and system.dic files will be saved in the backup.) Platform Cleanup: Be sure to clean up the hard drives on all your CPDI platform components. This includes the Database File Server, System Support Station, Call Processors, Web Access Processor, SMS Processor, and any other CPDI hardware. You can safely archive or purge outdated files such as expired calling card accounts, obsolete voice messages and voice mailboxes, log files from batch programs, temporary files used for reports, system error logs, badcard files, audit records, and debug files. Proper Startup/Shutdown: Do you know the proper way to take down and bring back up your Novell, Windows or Linux-based platform? If not, contact your CPDI technical engineer for procedures. Proper startup and shutdown procedures are essential to avoid data issues. | |
Where is CPDI located, exactly? The address is listed for Vancouver. Isn't that somewhere in Canada? There's a common saying in the area: "This is Vancouver (not BC), Washington (not DC)." If you look on a map of the northwestern United States, you will notice that the Columbia River separates Washington and Oregon. If you zero in on the metropolis of Portland, Oregon, you may notice that Vancouver is located directly across the Columbia River in Washington State. From this small point on the map, CPDI has established a global presence for telecommunications solutions! | |
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You are invited... to the PTC/CPDI user's group Mark your calendar for the Pacific Telecommunications Council at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu, Hawaii, January 15-18, 2006. Existing CPDI customers are invited to a user's group meeting that will be held in the Hibiscus 1 room on Sunday, January 15, from 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Enjoy afternoon tea, network with other CPDI product users, share your ideas and success stories, and learn about the new products and services being offered by CPDI. No registration is required -we look forward to seeing you there! For more information about the CPDI Pacific user's group, contact Linda Wattie at lindaw@cpdi.com or +61 (0) 418 150.147. For more information about the Pacific Telecommunications Council, visit their website (http://www.ptc06.org). |