Timing Overview for PhoneSweep
Many problems with the operation of PhoneSweep are attributed to a
misunderstanding of its many timing options. These include various
types of scheduling, setting time of day, and setting time periods
within PhoneSweep.
Timing problems manifest themselves in varied ways. For instance, if
you start a scan and the modems fail to start dialing, there may be a
timing problem if you have set up PhoneSweep to not dial during the
current time period. Users may think they have a physical problem
with the modem, or the phone line, and it might be a problem with your
computer's system clock being set to the wrong time of day.
This document will address questions about common timing problems
encountered by PhoneSweep users.
Topics in this document:
Background on PhoneSweep's time-related icons
Time Period icons are found in two locations:
- On the bottom status bar in the lower right-hand corner of all
tabs throughout PhoneSweep, indicating what the current Time Period is
(according to the system clock).
- Next to each number in the Phone Numbers Tab. If the phone number
is expanded undialed phone numbers will have a
 icon next to it at this level. Here, the presence
of an icon means this number is available to be dialed in the Time
Period noted. If multiple icons are present, the user has indicated
that the phone number can be dialed in multiple time periods.
The sun icon denotes the "business" Time Period.
The moon icon denotes the "after business" Time Period.
The sailing ship icon denotes the "weekend" Time Period.
PhoneSweep also denotes if there are any numbers available to
dial in the current Time Period. The location of the following
icons is on the bottom status bar of all tabs throughout PhoneSweep.
 There are numbers available to dial in the current Time Period.
There are no numbers available to dial in the
current Time Period. It will occur:
- if no numbers have the current Time Period set
- if all the numbers that had the current Time Period set have
been dialed already and have a final call result.
Scheduling icons are also located on the bottom status bar of all tabs
throughout PhoneSweep. Each icon is followed by the time PhoneSweep
is set to start or stop.
 A scheduled start time has been set.
 No scheduled start time has been set
 A scheduled stop time has been set.
 No scheduled stop time has been set.
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System Clock
PhoneSweep refers to your system's internal clock for all time-related
events, so it is important to keep your system clock set correctly.
Sometimes, a computer's system clock (time and/or date) is set to the
wrong day, wrong time, wrong time zone, or wrong time correction (i.e.
Standard time or Daylight Savings time). System clocks can change
because of a power outage if a computer's internal clock battery isn't
fresh. Often the user doesn't even realize that the clock has an
incorrect value.
PhoneSweep customers occasionally change their system clock to test
various scheduling options. This is fine for testing, but remember
to reset your clock before launching your large scan!
The system clock can be reset via your computer's Control Panels.
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Setting Up PhoneSweep Time Periods
Time Periods are set up via PhoneSweep's Time tab.
The Business Hours Time Period and the Outside Business Hours Time Period
are both set simultaneously via the
"Business Hours" field on the Time tab. All times are in 24-hour
format (0:00 (midnight) to 23:59 (11:50 pm)). The Business Hours Time
Period must have the start time set to less than the end time. If your
company's regular business hours cross midnight, then simply use your
non-business hours to denote PhoneSweep's Business Hours Time Period,
and change your time periods for phone numbers (see next item in this
document) appropriately.
On the example above, the Business Hours Time Period is 9:00 am
to 4:59 pm. The Outside Business Hours Time Period is 00:00 am
(midnight) until 8:59 am, AND 5:00 pm until 11:59 pm.
Blackout Hours are times of day, for all days of the week,
when no PhoneSweep dialing activity is set to occur. These also
appear in 24-hour format. If the values are all zero (as in the above
example) it denotes that no blackout hours are present for the current
scan.
The days checked in the Weekends section define which days are
defined to be those for the Weekend Time Period . By extension, all days left unchecked are Business
Days. The Business Hours Time Period and Outside Business Hours
Time Period are active for all unchecked days. The Weekend Time
Period starts at 00:00 (midnight) until 23:59 of each day that
has a checkmark next to it. In the example above, the Weekend Time
Period will run from 00:00 until 23:59 on Saturday and Sunday.
One note about weekends: many people consider their "weekend" to
include Friday night and Monday morning. PhoneSweep does not make
that distinction. Therefore, if you set the dial time for phone
numbers (see the next section) for weekends only, dialing activity
will begin at midnight on Saturday morning, and end at 23:59 on Sunday
night.
Import Time Periods provides a default time period
for all phone numbers that are imported into PhoneSweep. If you add
phone numbers to your profile manually via the Phonenumbers tab (see next
section) then these time periods are not used. If you import a list of
phone numbers from outside the user interface via PhoneSweep's import
button, each new phone number will be given dialing Time Periods
per this setting.
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Setting Time Periods for Phone Numbers
Once you have defined each Time Period, you must designate when you
want each phone number to be dialed. This is done by supplying each phone
number with zero or more Time Periods. (Note: If you designate a
phone number to have zero Time Periods, that number can never be
dialed, and your scan will never finish at 100% complete.)
There are three different events that can cause a Time Period for a
Phone Number to be set.
- adding phone numbers
- importing phone numbers
- editing ("altering") phone numbers
- When you add a number or numbers:
This dialog menu appears when you press the Add button on the
Phonenumbers tab. Set time periods by checking the appropriate boxes
in the "Dial Times" area. The time periods will be set only for those
numbers added when the "+" button is pressed.
- When you import a number or numbers via the import button:
As you can see, the import dialog does not note what the Time Periods
will be for the imported numbers. Default Time Periods are defined in the
"Import Time Periods" section from the "Setup -> Time" tab (see screen
earlier in this FAQ).
- When you alter a number or numbers:
Select one phone number (or multiple numbers) and right click. The
menu shown above appears. If you select "Alter All Phone Numbers" or
"Alter Phone Number" the Alter Phone Number dialog (below) appears,
allowing you to modify the Time Periods and notes for all selected
phone numbers.
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PhoneSweep Scheduled Scans
PhoneSweep's Schedule functionality allows you to automatically start
(or stop) PhoneSweep at some set point in the future. This feature
basically "presses the Start button" (or Stop button) to perform a
scan when the preset time arrives.
The schedule menu can be accessed in one of two ways. The first way
is by clicking and holding the mouse button down on PhoneSweep's
start button. After a short pause, the menu shown below will
appear. The second method is to click on PhoneSweep's File -> Start.
When you select "Schedule Start..." or "Schedule Stop..." you will be
presented with the Schedule Start (or Stop) dialog displayed below.
Note that scheduled starts and stops are comparable to pressing the
start or stop button. If, when the scheduled start time
occurs, there are no available numbers to dial in that Time Period,
then no dialing will occur. PhoneSweep will then keep polling the
system clock until the current Time Period changes and the new current
time period has some numbers available to dial. Please keep this in
mind when using this scheduling functionality.
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Other PhoneSweep Timing Issues
Busy Redial After Calls
Sandstorm gets the occasional support call inquiring why PhoneSweep
appears to be repeatedly dialing the same number many times. This can
happen if PhoneSweep finds that the called line is busy. When this
occurs, PhoneSweep notes the fact, then releases the number into the
general "to be dialed" list. The PhoneSweep parameter that indicates
how many times a busy line is redialed can be found on the Setup
-> Dialing tab, and is titled "Busy Redial After Calls". By default
it is set to 5, which means that if PhoneSweep dials the number five
times and gets a busy answer each time, it will stop dialing the
number and give it a final call result of "BUSY".
Single Call Voice Timeout
When using PhoneSweep's Single Call Detect mode, this parameter (set
on the Setup -> Dialing tab displayed above) sets the amount of time
PhoneSweep allows the modem to "listen" to the incoming connection and
decide what the final call result is for each phone call. The time
starts from when the connection is "picked up" on the other end. Once
this number of seconds has passed PhoneSweep's Single Call Detect will
give a "VOICE" call result to the call. If you are experiencing
unexpected "VOICE" answers when you believe a TONE or CARRIER or other
result should be present, you may want to experiment by raising this
value to allow the modem more time to discern what is on the other end
of the call.
Due to variances in your company's voice mail system or PBX you may
need to vary this value from its default of 5 seconds. We recommend
that the value not be set to less than 5 seconds, because many modems
may not be able to determine a result (such as second dial tone) in
less time.
Emergency Number (911) Screening
On PhoneSweep's Setup -> Dialing tab is a section titled "Emergency
Number (911) Screening". This is the place for all numbers that you
never want dialed, under any circumstances. Should a number
from this list also appear in the Phone Numbers tab as a valid
number to dial, the call result of that number will be listed as
"SCREENED" and the number will not be dialed.
There is a character limit on how much information can be placed in
the Emergency Number (911) Screening field. If the limit is exceeded,
some emergency numbers may be deleted from the end of the list.
Note: If an emergency number is in the list and is also listed
in the Phone Numbers tab as a number to dial, but no Time
Periods are defined for this number, the number will not obtain
the "SCREENED" call result and thus your profile will never complete
at 100% scanned.
Dialing the same number multiple times
Occasionally, you may wish to set up PhoneSweep to dial the same
number multiple times in a scan. This could be a result of a modem
pool or your own unique circumstance.
There are a few methods of accomplishing this.
- Enter the number via the Phone Numbers tab multiple times.
Each entry will be separate, have its own Time Periods, and in
every way appear to PhoneSweep to be a "different" number.
- If you want to dial the number during each dialing period, set up
Dial Times for all three Time Periods (see Setting Time Periods for Phone Numbers) and
select "Dial During: Each Time Period" when you create the numbers.
- Use a dialing feature inherent in PBX systems: When you dial "enough"
digits, the PBX "knows" that you are finished dialing, and instantly
connects the call through. If you dial more digits than are needed,
the extraneous digits are ignored by your PBX. You can use this to
your advantage and merely add extra numbers to be dialed. For
instance, if you need to dial the number "555-1234" one hundred times,
you can enter the numbers into PhoneSweep's "Add Phone Numbers"
dialog as:
Dial From: 555-1234-00
Dial To: 555-1234-99
This will produce numbers ranging from "555-1234-00", "555-1234-01", ...
"555-1234-98", "555-1234-99".
Estimating time left to dial
The Status Tab (below) allows you to see how many numbers
have been dialed, and also estimates how many more need to be
dialed before the scan is complete.
PhoneSweep conservatively gives a worst-case scenario for estimating
the number of calls and amount of time left in the scan. In the above
example, there are a total of 17084 calls in the profile. If this is a
Connect or Identify scan (and scanning for both fax machines and
modems) simply divide that by two, and you can compute that this
profile has 8542 numbers in it. The worst-case scenario for
estimating calls in Penetrate mode is to multiply the number of
username/password combinations plus 1 (for the fax call) by the number
of phone numbers (which assumes that every number will be a carrier
and only one username/password can be guessed per call).
Likewise, the Time Until Finish also is calculated on a worst-case
basis. This time changes constantly during a scan, and is calculated from
the average amount of time each call is actually taking and the
worst-case number of calls remaining.
Neither estimate assumes any BUSY answers, so if you had many phone
calls come up as BUSY the total number of calls may be greater than
the original estimate. Both estimates also assume that dialing will
be continuous, thus if a new Time Period occurs during the scan, and
no numbers are available to dial during that Time Period, then the
estimates will remain unchanged. Often, this is an event that leads
customers to believe their modem(s), or PhoneSweep itself, has a
problem.
What does a Timeout call result mean?
There are multiple ways of producing a "Timeout" call result.
Ring Timeout (rings) value reached.
This happens when the phone being called rings with no
pickup. When the value listed in the Setup ->
Time tab reaches the number of detected rings, a Ring
Timeout will be recorded as that call's result.
Ring Timeout only occurs with modems that report rings on the
other end. No PhoneSweep recommended modems have this capability,
therefore customers are rarely expected to see Ring Timeout.
Ring Timeout (seconds) value reached.
This happens when the phone being called rings with no pickup. When
the value listed in the Setup -> Time tab
reaches the user defined number of seconds, a Timeout will be recorded
as that call's result.
Pickup and no response.
If the phone number being called results in a line pickup of any kind,
one of the following results will occur:
- If the modem was in data mode (i.e. looking for a carrier) and a
pickup occurs but nothing is identifiable as a carrier, PhoneSweep
records the result as a TIMEOUT.
- If the modem was in Single Call Detect mode and a pickup was
detected, but nothing identifiable has been reported to the modem, a
VOICE response will be recorded after the value for "Single Call Voice
Timeout" is reached. However, if the Ring Timeout (seconds) value is
reached BEFORE the "Single Call Voice Timeout" is reached, a TIMEOUT
will be the result.
In "Modem only" or "Fax only" mode.
The Setup -> Effort tab presents a variable to scan for: "Both Modems
and Fax Machines", "Modems Only", or "Fax Machines Only". If you have
chosen to scan for Modems Only or Fax Machines Only, and the call
result is anything other than the designated item (i.e. if you call a
VOICE number but are set for Modems Only) the response will be
TIMEOUT. However, if you have also set
the modem to "Always use Single Call Detect," you may get a VOICE
response if a voice is detected (per the rule above discussing Single
Call Detect mode).
In "Never use Single Call Detect" mode.
If you have set "Never use Single Call Detect" mode from the
Setup -> Dialing tab, then you will never
receive any VOICE or TONE answers. The result will be TIMEOUT
instead.
Using a modem incapable of interpreting VOICE or TONE
responses.
If you are using a modem incapable of interpreting VOICE or TONE
responses, then any such results will be TIMEOUT.
If you are still having problems, or have other questions relating to
Timing and PhoneSweep, feel free to contact Sandstorm Enterprises.
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