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Pool Utilization Report (New Portal)

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Leslie Johnson

The Pool Utilization page helps you monitor the use of your Rate Plan Pools and the devices assigned to them. A Rate Plan Pool enables you to pool devices that are provisioned and billed under the same rate plan, so you can share the benefits across all included devices. When a rate plan is pooled, you can set all devices with the same rate plan to share usage. This means you can distribute any overages from individual devices in the pool among all devices in the same rate plan.

In this article:

Basics

The Pool Utilization page is available in the Aerport Portal under the Analytics menu. The Pool Utilization table displays each pool in your account and provides details on the devices and usage in each one. To view the report as an interactive line chart, switch the table to chart view.

What is a Pool?

Rate Plan Pools (Pools) are defined at the time your account is set up. When you create pools, each one is assigned a rate plan. The pool is then given a name, a start and end date, and rules about how to handle overages (optional).

For example, if your company has a rate plan named Acme_FG_10MB (shorthand notation for Acme company, Fusion Global product, and 10 MB of data monthly), it can create a Rate Plan Pool named ACME_FG_10MB_POOL (shorthand notation for Acme company, Fusion Global product, 10 MB of data per device in the pool).

Your company can then place devices into the pool and configure them using the Device Details page in AerPort.

Note: Only devices that are in a Billed state contribute to the pool.

In the Acme Fusion Global example, each Billed device contributes 10 MB to the amount of data included in the pool per month. The total data included in the pool is the number of devices multipled by the rate plan data size. If there are three devices in the pool, then the pool includes 30 MB of data in total. If one device in the pool uses 20 MB of data in one month and the other two devices each use 2 MB, the total data usage is 24 MB, which is still below the 30 MB of data included in the pool.

Note: A pool does not have a maximum size. Any data use above the Total Included Data in your pool results in overage charges. Check your pool use regularly to avoid unnecessary overage fees.

Navigating the Pool Utilization Report Page

The Pool Utilization Report page displays a range of information about the pools, devices, and data usage for the configured time period.

The following components comprise the Pool Utilization Report screen:

  • Product: Filters the list of pools based on product name.
  • Pool Name: Filters the list of pools based on the selected pool name(s).
  • Time Period: Filters the list of pools based on a time period in the last 6-7 months. The Month-to-date option is selected by default.
  • Status bar: Displays the following information within the selected Product, Pool Name, and Time Period filters:
    • Device count: Total number of devices in all pools listed.
    • Total pools: Total number of pools listed.
    • Underutilized pools: Number of pools that are underutilized within the selected Product, Pool Name, and Time Period filters. An underutilized pool is one in which actual data usage per month is 70% or less of the total included data usage per month. In this case, you may want to consider adding more devices to the pool or reducing the pool size.
    • Overutilized pools: Number of pools that are overutilized within the selected Product, Pool Name, and Time Period filters. An overutilized pool is one in which actual data usage per month is 110% or more of the total included data usage per month.
    • Optimized pools: Number of pools that have optimal use within the selected Product, Pool Name, and Time Period filters. An optimized pool is one in which actual data usage per month is between 70% and 110% of the total included data usage per month.
  • Export: Downloads a .csv file containing a copy of the list you see on the dashboard.
  • List: Displays Pool Utilization data as a table.
  • Chart: Displays Pool Utilization data as a chart.
  • Pool Listing Table: Displays the list of pools within the selected Product, Pool Name, and Time Period filters.

Working with the Pool Utilization Report Table

Based on the Product, Pool Name, and Time Period filters you select, the Pool Utilization Report table updates with a list of appropriate pools. See the following sections to learn more about the report table:

Column Definitions

The Pool Utilization Report table includes the following columns:

  • Product: Product associated with the pool.
  • Pool Name: Name of the pool.
  • Rate Plan: Rate plan associated with the pool. The rate plan indicates the amount of data included per device and the product name. For questions about your rate plans, contact Aeris Support.
  • Device Count: Number of devices assigned to this pool.
  • Pool Size: Amount of data in this pool. This size is calculated by the number of devices in a pool multiplied by the amount of data included in the rate plan.
  • Usage: Amount of data used during the configured time period.
  • Usage (%): Percentage of pool data used during the configured time period.
  • Proj. Usage: Amount of data your pool is projected to consume by the end of the time period.
  • Proj. Usage (%): Percentage of data your pool is projected to consumed by the end of the time period.

Note: The displayed data is based on your usage information from midnight of the previous night.

In the following screenshot, you can see a configured Pool Utilization Report page from May 31, 2022 (one day before the end of this user's selected time period).

Note: Pool names and rate plans are censored to protect the user's privacy.

Compare usage data from pools in the red box to see how different pools may be over- or underutilized.

Column Selections

To change which columns appear in the Pool Utilization Report table:

  1. Click the settings wheel on the far right.
  2. Select/deselect the names of columns you want to show/hide.

Pagination

The Pool Utilization Report table shows ten pools per page by default. To adjust the pagination:

  1. Click Show to open the pagination drop-down menu.
  2. Select the number of pools you want displayed per page.

Working with the Device Table

To view more details about a pool, select a Pool Name from the Pool Utilization Report table to open the Device table. This table displays all devices in the pool and how much data each device used during the configured time period.

To use the Device table to help regulate activity in your pool:

  1. Click the Pool Name in the Pool Utilization Report table.
  2. Look at each device in the Device table.
  3. Identify devices that cause your pool utilization to exceed or fall short of its target size.
  4. Change the pool assignment for devices as needed.

In the screenshot below, the Total data usage and Projected usage are similar, but only a few devices are using the data included in the pool. Using this information, the owner of the pool may decide to suspend or cancel devices in the pool that are not actively used.

The Device table includes the following columns by default:

  • Product: Product associated with the device.
  • Pool Name: Name of the pool in which the device resides.
  • Rate Plan: Rate plan associated with the device. The rate plan indicates the amount of data included per device.
  • ICCID: Identification number of the SIM.
  • Plan Included: Amount of data the device contributes to the pool.
  • Current Usage: Amount of data used during the configured time period.
  • Included Usage: Amount of data consumed from the pool during the time the device was assigned to the pool rate plan. If the total data consumed for the whole pool during the time period is less than 100%, this number is the same as Current Usage.
  • Overage: Amount of data consumed after the pool consumed 100% of its data.
  • Proj. Usage: Amount of data the device is projected to consume by the end of the selected time period.

The following screenshot displays how you can use the Device table to compare individual device data usage in your pool. The red boxes highlight the following for each device:

  • Plan Included: Amount of data included in the device's rate plan
  • Proj Usage: Amount of data used in the selected time period

Each device in this pool contributes 25 MB to the pool, and there are 151 devices in the pool. The first 10 device are projected to use less than 5 MB each. If most of the other devices have similar projections, the pool owner may use this information to reduce the rate plan to 4 or 5 MB instead of 25 MB.

Working with the Chart View

To view the pool utilization data as an interactive line chart, click Chart.

The chart-view displays each pool as a chart with utilization data from over the last month. The lines on the chart represent the following:

  • Monthly pool size: Amount of data allotted to the pool per month.
  • Monthly est pool size: Amount of data the pool is projected to use.
  • Actual usage to date: Amount of data used by the pool over the last month.

Note: Monthly est pool size and Monthly pool size show the same value when no devices are added or removed from the pool during the month and no devices are moved in or out of the billed state.

To view additional information about a pool, hover over the blue or gold lines. This reveals a color-coded window with the following information about the pool:

  • Date: Date the information is from.
  • Monthly pool size: Amount of data alloted to the pool for the month.
  • Actual usage to date: Amount of data used up to the selected date.
  • Device count: Number of devices in the pool.

In the following example, the chart on the left reflects an optimized pool, while the chart on the right represents an underutilized pool.

Note: These chart examples were viewed at the end of the month, so the trend line provides a close approximation to the final usage for the month. If it is early in the month, the final actual usage will likely flux from the projected actual usage.

An overutilized pool shows the Actual usage to date line surpassing the Monthly pool size line.

To view further details about the pool, click on the chart to access the Device table for that pool.

Exporting the Report

Click Export to download the report screen information as a .csv file.

Note: You must remain in the AerPort app in your browser until the file successfully downloads.

To view the file, open the .csv file in a spreadsheet app. To view the file by importing it through the Microsoft Excel Data menu:

  1. Open Microsoft Excel and create a blank workbook.
  2. Select Data > From Text or From Text/CSV.
  3. Locate the .csv file in your Downloads or other designated folder.
  4. Right-click the file and select Import.
  5. Follow the subsequent prompts to specify a comma-delimited file.
  6. If you see an option for Data Type Detection, select Do not detect data types.

Long numbers like device IDs may default to a format similar to scientific notation in Microsoft Excel. To view the full ID numbers:

  1. Select the range of cells you want to view.
  2. Right-click the selected range.
  3. Click Format > Number format.

Moving Devices In and Out of Pools

You can add or remove devices from a pool whenever you choose. To review devices and add or change a device pool assignment:

  1. Locate the device you want to adjust in the Pool Utilization Report page.
  2. Copy the device's rate plan name and ICCID to a seperate document for later use.
  3. Navigate to the Classic Aerport portal via the Return to Classic AerPort option.

  4. In the Classic Aerport portal, click into the Devices tab.
  5. (Optional) In the Rate Plan drop-down menu, select the rate plan your device uses. If you have a large number of devices, this may help you more easily identify the device.
  6. In the Search for devices box, paste the ICCID of the device and click the magnifying glass or press Enter. This opens the Device Diagnostics page.
  7. Click Go to device details.

  8. In the Device Details page, select Edit device > Rate plan and pool name.

  9. From the Rate plan and pool name dialog box, you can adjust the device's rate plan and/or pool assignment.

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