iOS Telecom Expense Management

The Telecom Expense Management alert rule allows MobiControl administrators to monitor the usage of phone data and voice minutes for a device or group of devices, allowing you to better track data usage within your organization. Administrators can set a threshold (soft, hard, or both), that when breached, activates specified actions regarding the device(s).

Creating a Telecom Expense Management Rule

  1. On the iOS tab, go to the Rules tab.
  2. Right-click Telecom Expense Managment to open the Create Telecom Expense Management Rule dialog.
  3. Enter a name for your Telecom Expense Management rule and click Next.
  4. Select the devices or device groups that you want to target with this rule and click Next.
  5. Select a telecommunications plan to associate with this rule from the dropdown.

    If you have not already created a telecommunications plan, select Add New Plan from the dropdown and fill in the fields.

  6. You can set a soft threshold or a hard threshold or both. See below for more information on the threshold settings.
  7. Once all the fields are filled in, click Next.
  8. [Optional] Enable Collect TEM data in the background. This feature requires the use of an app enabled with the MobiControl iOS SDK.

    If you do not enable this setting, data usage information is only updated and collected from devices when the MobiControl agent is in the foreground of the device.

  9. [Optional] To limit how much data devices retain for each collected item, you can truncate items when they reach a certain size and age.
  10. Review your settings. Click Advanced to set a Rule Activation / Deactivation Schedule.
  11. Click Finish to save your Telecom Expense Management Rule.

Note

The MobiControl agent must have been installed on the device and opened at least once before MobiControl can track data usage.

Adding a Telecom Plan

Select Add New Plan from the Telecom Plan dropdown to open the Telecom Plan Policy dialog. You can create multiple telecom plan profiles to match any plans available within your organization.

You can also update or delete Telecom plans from the same dialog window.

Telecom Plan Information

Setting Description
Select the telecom plan type Select either Corporate Group Plan or Individual Plan
Name Enter a name for the telecom plan
Total Voice (Minutes) Enter the total number of minutes allotted for the plan. Unlimited is automatically entered if you do not specify a value.
Total Data (GB) Enter the total data amount, in gigabytes, allotted for the plan. Unlimited is automatically entered if you do not specify a value.
Start Date Enter the start date of the billing cycle for the plan
Billing Cycle Choose the period that a billing cycle for this plan covers from the dropdown
Description Enter a description for the telecom plan

Thresholds

Soft and hard thresholds use the same settings. Think of the soft threshold as a warning and the hard threshold as critical. If data usage exceeds a threshold, the action that you specify is triggered.

Voice and Data Limits

Setting Description
If Voice Usage on Device Exceeds Enter a limit for the number of voice minutes that can be used before triggering an associated action.

Note: This option is not available on iOS devices.
If Data Usage on Device Exceeds Enter a limit for the amount of data usage (in GB) that can be used before triggering an associated action.

Triggered Action

You can set multiple actions to apply when a threshold is crossed.

Setting Description
Relocate Device(s) to Choose a new device group to relocate your devices to when they exceed a threshold. Use this option for organizational purposes or to apply new (and remove old) device settings.
Send Message to Device User Send a message to the device users notifying them that they have crossed a threshold.
Send Email Notification Generate an automatic email notification whenever a threshold is crossed.

Refer to SMTP Email Profiles for more information on setting up an Email profile.

Collection Method

Statistics about data usage is collected when the MobiControl agent is in the foreground of the device. Voice usage data is not collected on iOS devices. MobiControl can also collect statistics in background when Location Services is enabled on the device and the device is using a MobiControl SDK-enabled app, and not just the Apple App Store device agent.

Data Truncation

You can set data truncation settings to limit the amount of storage space that the data usage information occupies on a device. Devices truncate items that exceed this amount to prevent accumulating an excessive amount of information if they are out of contact for an extended period.

Truncate items based on total size and age.

Usage Tracking Considerations

Usage information collected by MobiControl may not match data usage reports from your telecommunications provider. MobiControl Telecom Expense Management rules are intended only as a supplementary tool to help you track your devices' data usage.

In addition to general abnormalities, the following situations may cause differences between data usage statistics collected from MobiControl and those from your telecommunications provider.

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