Patent ID: 6850974

Claim:
A method for aggregating network usage information from a plurality of network devices in a user-specified manner, comprising: defining an enhancement procedure utilizing a graphical user interface by: listing a plurality of available functions to be applied in real-time prior to end-user reporting, allowing a user to choose at least one of a plurality of fields, and allowing the user to choose at least one of the listed functions to be applied to the chosen field in real-time prior to the end-user reporting; collecting network communications usage information in real-time from a plurality of network devices; aggregating the network communications usage information in real-time prior to the end-user reporting, in accordance with the enhancement procedure; completing a plurality of data records from the aggregated network communications usage information, the plurality of data records corresponding to network usage by a plurality of users; and storing the plurality of data records; wherein the enhancement procedure is displayed by representing each function as a separate graphical representation, and the graphical representations are shown to be joined to each other in accordance with the enhancement procedure.