Report settings
Some settings are configurable only in Edit mode, which means, you need at least the Editor permission to make changes.
Overview
When viewing or editing a report, you can adjust report settings to have different views. Depending on the nature of the change, you may need to rerun the report.
Real-time updates: Changes that don't alter the results themselves are reflected in the report instantly, for example:
- Metric, Aggregation
- Advanced analysis
- Exclude partial Intervals, Include promotional credits
- Sorting of results (Edit mode only)
- Chart type (visualization), View data as (Comparative report) (Edit mode only)
- Changing currency (Edit mode only)
Changes requiring rerun: Changes that require you to rerun the report, for example:
- Adding/removing dimensions
- Modifying time interval/range (Edit mode only)
- Filtering dimensions
- Filtering metrics
Metric
You can choose from two categories of metrics: basic metrics and custom metrics.
Basic metrics include:
Cost: Analyze your reports on a basis of how much your selected dimensions cost you. This metric reflects the cost from your cloud provider.
Usage: Analyze your reports and selected dimensions on a usage basis. Make sure to pair this with the standard dimension Unit for a breakdown.
Savings: Analyze your reports and selected dimensions on a savings basis. These savings come as a result of your commercial agreement with Google Cloud and the agreed-upon discount between your company and DoiT, including Flexsave savings.
NoteThe discount is not available for: Google Maps APIs, Google Support, Looker, Preemptible VMs (compute engine), third-party GCP Marketplace services, or Premium OS Images.
Metric filters
Metric Filters allow you to filter the data in your report at query time and provide additional focus in your reports.
To configure a metric filter:
Add a metric filter using either one of the following methods:
- Select the Metric filter link below the Metric dropdown.
- Select the + Add Filter chip.
Select the metric to filter, the operator, and the value.
Supported operators: Greater than (>), Less than (<), Greater than or equals (>=), Less than or equals (<=), Between, Not Between, Equals (=), Not equals (≠).
You can filter on a Metric different from the one used in the report. For example, you can chart Usage while filter any interval with a Cost > $50.
When applied, a filter chip will appear in the metric bar.
This filter chip is blue when applied to the currently shown metric, and white while filtering a metric not currently shown.
Aggregation
Data aggregation functions help you summarize patterns so you can quickly identify the source of potential issues.
There are five aggregation options. They are available in different chart types though may behave differently.
Total: The results are displayed in absolute terms. A row and a column, each titled Totals, are added at the end containing the sum of the results per row and column, respectively.
% of Total: Each result is presented as a percentage of the total sum.
In a Table view, a column titled Totals is added at the end containing the sum of the results per row, expressed as a percentage.
% of Row: Displays cell values as a percentage of its row.
% of Column: Displays cell values as a percentage of its column.
Unit Cost: Mainly used for cost-per-unit pricing validation.
Advanced analysis
You can select one or more options from the Advanced analysis drop-down menu to identify trends or make forcast.
Trend analysis
When analyzing cloud usage, it's easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of data points. The Trend Analysis feature employs the Mann-Kendall algorithm to remove noises from your Cloud Analytics reports and shows only trending Metrics (i.e. Cost or Usage) in your series.
Below is an example of the preset report Trending services, showing both trending-up and trending-down services.
Forecast
To generate a forecast, select Forecast from the Advanced analysis drop-down menu. The forecast estimates what your costs may look like for the period you selected moving forward.
Below is an example of the preset report Historical Costs and Forecast, which shows your costs in the last 12 months with a forecast for the next 12 months
You can also use the forecasting feature to get an idea of what to expect of your missing cloud costs, given that billing data may lag behind.
Time Interval and Time Range
Specify a time aggregation of the data.
Time Interval: Choose from Hour, Day, Week, Month, Quarter, and Year.
Time Range: Choose a predefined time range or define your own custom range.
Changing the time interval will affect the Date/Time dimensions. For example, selecting the Time Interval Hour will result in Hour being automatically added to the X-axis (horizontal) of a report chart.
Time periods in DoiT Cloud Analytics reports use the time zone settings of the cloud providers:
- data from Google Cloud is based on the Pacific Time Zone
- data from AWS is based on the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Exclude partial Intervals
When looking at a report, the most current interval is almost always incomplete. For example, if the report is Daily then the current day will be collecting billing data throughout the day.
To remove incomplete time interval from the data of the report (e.g., hide data for the current day for daily intervals, current week for monthly intervals, etc.), select the Exclude partial Intervals checkbox.
This option is convenient when performing comparative reports, for example, Month over Month analysis, or Week over Week analysis. It can also help to improve the accuracy of the heatmap views by removing outliers, as partial intervals tend to skew trends by representing incomplete periods.
Promotional credits
Promotional credits, including migration credits, commitment related credits, vendor program credits, and others, are applied to monthly invoices. By default, they are not included in the reports.
For reports with Time interval set to Month or greater, you can select Include promotional credits to list them in the report, thus to have a more transparent view of the cost breakdown.
Filter dimension values
To view a subset of a dimension's values:
Select the chip of the dimension of interest.
Configure the filter.
There are two additional options:
- Exclude selection: To exclude a selection of values.
- Advanced: To filter services using regular expressions.
Select Save.
Re-run the report to apply the filters you've configured.
Dimension chips with and without configured filters are shown in different colors.
You can use the Expand button (|<) in the lower-right corner of the report page to display the configured filters.
Top/bottom results
When performing analysis, it is often helpful to hide values below or above certain thresholds.
The Top/bottom results option allows you to limit the number of results for fields displayed along the Y-axis (vertical) of the chart (the Group by dimensions).
Select the + Add Filter chip.
Select Top/bottom results.
Specify the filter settings, including:
- Limit to: Top or Bottom results.
- Number: The number of results to display.
- Metric: The metric by which the field is measured.
View as
This is where you select how your report is visualized. For example, you can choose to view your report as Table, Heatmap, Column Chart, Bar Chart, Treemap, Stacked Area, and other visualizations.
View data as (Comparative report)
The Compare Data dropdown automatically adds either % change or actual difference between two time intervals in a report.
To view a comparative report:
Enter the Edit mode of the report.
Select an option from the View data as dropdown list:
When being prompted, select Show report to allow the DoiT Platform to make adjustments necessary to enable the Comparative Report mode.
Once enabled, you will see new columns in your table based view showing the Δ between time intervals. This difference (Δ) appears after the intervals compared.
In the example below, there are new columns in the report showing the Percentage Change (Δ%) between time intervals. The percentage change between months 04 (April) and 05 (May) is shown in the column 05 Δ%.
Currency
Currency that the billing data is reported in (Metric must be Cost).
For the current month, we always apply the latest exchange rate (the rate of the current day or the day before) to the whole month. Once it passes the last day of a calendar month, we apply the exchange rate of that last day to that whole month. See Exchange rates for more information.