A group of designers and programmers make up the Mobi development team and in this section the team will provide updates and upgrade details about the Mobi software as a service (SaaS) tool. The development team will share their insights into wireless mobility management, software programming and more.

MOBI’s End-User Portal

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Ever wonder what a MOBI end-user sees in the MOBI portal? Wonder no more. In this month’s 3T video, IT Director Joshua Garrett walks you through the end-user portal.

We explain how MOBI allows for custom user roles based on business rules, and how those user roles are used to determine what devices or plans a user should have access to. We show you first-hand how simple it is to add a new device, or to even change your carrier from our web-based one-stop platform.

We even show you how MOBI helps prevent users from ordering the wrong plans for their device, and how the portal helps guide users to the form they need to fill out to place the order most efficiently.

Don’t take our word for it, you can either watch the 30-second preview, or register and watch the whole 10-minute demonstration. What are you waiting for? Your end-users will thank you, and you’ll never have to answer the question “What should I do if I lost my phone?” again.

This month’s Third Thursday features a video demo of the MOBI end-user portal with IT Director Joshua Garrett.

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[VIDEO] Learn how MOBI’s Report Builder makes analyzing wireless data a whole lot easier.

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Third Thursday: February 2012

In less than 5 minutes, watch Steve Hodges, Product Manager at MOBI, introduce MOBI’s new Report Builder. He explains why we created it and how generating wireless reports can be more efficient and effective.

“With MOBI’s innovative wireless report filtering you can generate any report you can imagine and a few you would’ve never thought of to give you not only cross-carrier but cross-dicipline insight into the current state of your wireless program. What we mean by this is that the visibility into Wireless Carriers, H.R., Support, and Finance are all in one place.”

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Carrier IQ and the Spyphone Scandal

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The drama behind Carrier IQ and the investigative findings of Trevor Eckhart have all of the elements of a Hollywood blockbuster.  When the story first broke, Carrier IQ was very aggressively going after Mr. Eckhart to remove his blog or face legal consequences.  In a few short days, Carrier IQ has back peddled since Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped up to represent Eckhart.  A flood of inquiry has also landed on Carrier IQ’s doorstep from governments throughout the world and consumer watchdog groups.

Is this pressure unwarranted?   Quite a few experts have shared their thoughts claiming the capabilities of Carrier IQ are grossly overstated by Eckhart.  Is Carrier IQ legitimately working with wireless carriers and device manufacturers to improve network performance and device functionality?  If this is the case, there certainly is a lack of ownership on who is requesting Carrier IQ be loaded, who is using what information, and what personal information is being sold to third party vendors.

Carrier IQ claims to have over 141 million devices utilizing their software.  Discovering this potential privacy issue and what it can or cannot do, further points to how complicated the wireless space has become and will continue to be.  The importance of having the right people in the right place to handle issues within your wireless program cannot be overstated as issues are bound to pop up and effect your program.

Policy Schmolicy: Learn Why it’s Important

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With all of the moving pieces within a wireless program, policy is one puzzle piece that often goes overlooked by most telecom managers. It’s not that the policy doesn’t exist but how it is managed is what’s overlooked.

The challenge for telecom managers is identifying which end-users have accepted the policy,  how updates are made to the policy, how it is communicated to end-users, and how appropriate usage is enforced.

MOBI allows companies to configure its policy on several different levels to best meet the needs of their specific wireless program. For example, MOBI’s Portal presents end-users logging in for the first time with the wireless policy which must accepted before they are allowed to continue.

policy options

This scenario is great; however, end-users are not always ordering or submitting activities for themselves on MOBI’s Portal.  To ensure better policy compliance, end-users that have never logged into MOBI, must now accept the wireless policy before an activity can be completed on their behalf. Pretty cool. huh?

For instance: Stacy Employee is ordering a new phone for John Manager. John has never logged into the MOBI Portal, and thus hasn’t accepted the wireless policy.  Now, John will be sent an e-mail with the subject line “You must agree to your company’s wireless policy”, which includes the policy and an “Accept” button. Once John clicks “Accept”, he will be taken to the portal, the policy will be accepted, and the new phone order or activity will proceed.

MOBI’s configurability allows administrators the option of skipping this step on an individual activity – via a checkbox labeled “Skip policy agreement process”.  If you want to know more about MOBI’s configurability let us know at email@mobiwirelessmanagement.com.

[MOBI's Three Buckets of Billing] Part 3: Reporting

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Big Picture Reporting

Most telecom managers are challenged with compiling and making sense of the vast amounts of billing information within their program.  Typically, delivering a 40,000 foot view of their program for budgeting, program health indicators and in some cases the administrator performance is not a problem. Where telecom managers fall short is understanding the story behind the numbers and the power of getting the right data in front of the right people.

Big Picture Reporting

Numbers are like an ever-changing foreign language that needs to be translated in order to understand the full story. For example, historical analysis like total cost, line count, cost per device will vary greatly after completing large projects within the program.

Here are a couple of examples of projects that effect costs in different ways.

  1. Transitioning your user base from “dumb or feature phones” to “smartphones”.  Your line count will remain relatively the same however your costs per device will rise with the additional data plans required for these devices.
  2. Eliminating zero use by canceling 10% of your lines, will reduce the total cost of your program where as cost per device will likely rise.

Right Data Right People

There are two additional savings opportunities that MOBI’s reporting capabilities provide our customers on an ongoing basis.

The first is the end-user and manager level reporting to drive behavior that reduce costs and identify new saving opportunities. Behavior enforcement centers around a company’s ability to show end-users and their departments what their usage is costing the company. For example, there might be business rules or policies for acceptable usage within the program. Opportunities exist to enforce these rules or policy on habitual offenders when this information is turned over to cost center owners and department managers. MOBI and program administrators may optimize a line thoroughly by matching plans and features to usage. For example, a device may not need 1000 minutes for calls or send 2000 text messages a month because the phone is a backup device for a department.

The second saving opportunity MOBI provides is based directly on the goals and the complexities of the wireless program.  For example, if Wireless User Contact Information is readily available, kickouts (lines not properly assigned to specific end-users) can be easily tracked and reconciled saving the program money. Another example of goal-based saving involves the profiling of the companies user base. A better understanding of job function and responsibilities sheds light on appropriate usage for specific groups of end-users saving money.  Dependent upon how aggressive companies cost saving goals are, MOBI can even charge end-users back for personal usage within our Blended Payment options.

This series of posts provided take-a-way projects that you can put into action today. If you’re interested in using MOBI’s billing solution to generate maximum savings, contact us at email@mobiwirelessmanagement.com.