Exetel Dashboard Widget

[Tamar]

Is this something that is solid enough to be added to the User facilities for anyone to download?

Sure I guess, it will be stable at least until the next bug gets reported

[SBOB]

Hi,
any chance this widget will be updated to deal with
1) plans such as the OCV200 plan where there is no peak/offpeak but a single total for downloads?
2)Changes in billing month start dates with the new billing date changes?


Its a great widget but with these recent changes (especially 2), its not showing the right info...

[Tamar]

I don't have one of those plans, so hard for me to make changes to accommodate them. Can't make any promises, but you could try sending me your usage data from the following page and I can see if it's possible or not.
https://www.exetel.com.au/members/usage ... m,password
EDIT: wrong link, try this one: https://www.exetel.com.au/members/usage ... m,password

[Dazzled]

Hi Tamar. The format may change, but at present the relevant OCV parts look like this, the same as before:

Code: Select all

    
<PlanDetails>
      <PlanName>OCV10</PlanName>
      <LineSpeed>10000</LineSpeed>
      <PeakTimeDownloadInMB>10000</PeakTimeDownloadInMB>
      <OffpeakTimeDownloadInMB>0</OffpeakTimeDownloadInMB>
      <PeakShaping>NO</PeakShaping>
      <OffpeakShaping>NO</OffpeakShaping>
      <PlanPrice>$50.00</PlanPrice>
      <ExtraDownloadPerGB>$1.00</ExtraDownloadPerGB>
</PlanDetails>

and

Code: Select all

    
<CurrentMonthUsage>
      <PeakDownload>1534.34</PeakDownload>
      <PeakUpload>97.04</PeakUpload>
      <OffpeakDownload>52.31</OffpeakDownload>
      <OffpeakUpload>4.86</OffpeakUpload>
      <UpdateDatetime>2011-03-28 11:21:20 AEDST</UpdateDatetime>
</CurrentMonthUsage>

You will have to add peak and off-peak usage (floating point) to get the total usage. The only indicator that this is required is *CV* as the PlanName, which isn't ideal.

The billing date problem is more complex, and there is pressure to handle it better in the XML. My present method is to convert all dates to epoch form and compute the month fraction (seconds/seconds) from that. A minor problem in the shell, but unsatisfactory really.

[SBOB]

Here are the details for the OCV200 plan... the summing of peak and offpeak should be simple enough...
going by the above explanation on the billing date perhaps thats in the too hard basket, though it means the totals at the start and end of the months is wrong

Code: Select all

<PlanDetails>
      <PlanName>OCV200</PlanName>
      <LineSpeed>200000</LineSpeed>
      <PeakTimeDownloadInMB>200000</PeakTimeDownloadInMB>
      <OffpeakTimeDownloadInMB>0</OffpeakTimeDownloadInMB>
      <PeakShaping>NO</PeakShaping>
      <OffpeakShaping>NO</OffpeakShaping>
      <PlanPrice>$60.00</PlanPrice>
      <ExtraDownloadPerGB>$1.00</ExtraDownloadPerGB>
    </PlanDetails>

Code: Select all

    <CurrentMonthUsage>
      <PeakDownload>70007.31</PeakDownload>
      <PeakUpload>58745.61</PeakUpload>
      <OffpeakDownload>122122.41</OffpeakDownload>
      <OffpeakUpload>55740.87</OffpeakUpload>
      <UpdateDatetime>2011-03-30 07:05:51 AEDST</UpdateDatetime>
    </CurrentMonthUsage>

[simon2e]

Hello Tamar,

First - many thanks for your excellent widget, I'm a longish term user and have been very impressed with your commitment to tracking changes over time.

Having said that, I've just found that with the recent plan changes I'm now getting incorrect results in terms of usage. I learned this when my offspring pushed us over the limit and into shaping recently, but the widget only showed about 50% utilisation at the time.

Following your advice to another poster above, I've attached the exetel data response. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to assist, and if you ever do get sick of maintaining the widget I have no doubt there are others like myself who would be willing to share the load.

Thanks again, Simon.

[Tamar]

Test version attached, which adds together peak and off-peak usage. If this seems satisfactory I will push it out as a broader update.

Can't do much about billing month start dates, as the day of month doesn't seem to be provided in the usage xml (yes this could be input by the user, but this seems inelegant when Exetel just needs to add it to the xml).

[Tamar]

Can't do much about billing month start dates, as the day of month doesn't seem to be provided in the usage xml (yes this could be input by the user, but this seems inelegant when Exetel just needs to add it to the xml).

New test version, now using the first day reported under daily usage as the billing month start date. This is not strictly the same as the true billing date, but is hopefully reasonably accurate.

[danehc]

Hi, thanks for the test version - seems to work well and is a great help.