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Create budgets

DoiT Cloud Navigator: All tiers

You can create a new budget either from scratch, or based on an existing one. Creating budgets in the DoiT console does not cap your cloud spend but allows you to track it and get notified when it exceeds the defined thresholds.

Required permissions

  • Attributions Manager, Budgets Manager, Cloud Analytics

Create a budget

To create a new budget from scratch:

  1. Select Governance from the top navigation bar, and then select Budgets.

  2. Select Create new budget in the upper-right corner on the Budgets screen.

To make a copy of an existing budget:

  • If you are on the main Budgets screen, select the three dots menu () at the rightmost end of the budget entry of interest, and then select Duplicate.

  • If you are viewing a specific budget, select the Clone budget icon to the right of the budget name.

    Clone budget option

Once you created or copied a budget, enter a name for it. You can also add a description to the budget.

Configure the budget

The main components of a budget include: budget scope, budget type, and budget amount.

The new Budget screen

Set budget scope

To set the budget scope, from the drop-down list, select the attributions to which the new budget will be allocated.

Set budget scope

  • Include DataHub data: If your DoiT Cloud Navigator subscription includes DataHub, select this checkbox to include custom dimensions and metrics defined via DataHub.

  • Create new attribution: If the scope of your budget is not defined by any existing attribution, click this link to create a new attribution. For advanced options such as filtering dimension values, go to the main Attributions screen under Analytics.

Once you set the budget scope, save your changes to refresh the budget utilization and forecast data.

Select budget type

  1. From the drop-down list, select the budget type.

    • Recurring: A recurring budget restarts periodically. For a recurring budget, you also need to specify its Time interval (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly).

    • Fixed: A fixed budget is a one-time budget.

  2. The budget metric is Cost. You can't change it to other metrics.

  3. Provide information specific to the selected budget type.

    • For a recurring budget, specify its Start date.

    • For a fixed budget, specify the Start date and the End date.

  4. Save your changes to refresh the budget utilization and forecast data.

Note

Due to the billing data latency, if you choose Daily as the time interval, the budget preview chart will include the cost up to the previous day, not the current day.

Set budget amount

The budget amount is the upper limit of the budget. To set the budget amount:

  1. Make sure to choose the correct currency.

  2. Enter the budget amount. Note that you can't use decimals in the budget amount.

    For a recurring budget, there are two additional options:

    • Set recurring period budget based on the last period cost: The subsequent periods will adopt the cost of the last period rounded to the nearest dollar (or other currencies you choose for the budget).

    • Allow growth in recurring budget periods: If you choose this option to factor in expected growth in spending, you need to specify a uniform growth percentage for the subsequent periods.

If you need reference points, check the preview chart at the bottom of the page.

Spend progress and budget preview

After setting the budget amount, you'll see two progress bars and a preview chart:

  • Current Spend: Your current spend relative to alert thresholds (next section) you've set.

  • Forecasted Spend: How much you are forecasted to spend by the end of the budget period.

    The colors used in the progress bar blocks indicate the three alert thresholds.

  • Preview: The preview chart provides a ML forecast for future spend. You can switch between the Stacked Column view and the Table view.

Budget preview and spend visualization

Configure budget alerts

After setting the budget amount, you can adjust the budget alert thresholds and configure alerts notifications to get informed when your actual spend exceeds a threshold.

Set alert thresholds

For each budget, you can set up to three alert thresholds. By default, the thresholds are set at 50%, 85%, and 100% of the budget amount. Both the percentage and the threshold amount are adjustable. When one is changed, the other will be updated automatically.

Save your changes to see when your spend is forecasted to reach the thresholds.

Manage alert notifications

You always receive alert notification emails for budgets created by you, unless you manually remove yourself from the list of recipients.

You can also add others as recipients of the alert notification emails, or send the alerts to Slack channels.

Send alert notifications

Send alerts email

To send the alerts email to other team members, enter their email in the Send alerts to field. If the intended recipients do not have sufficient permissions, you'll be prompted to Share budgets with them first.

The alerts email includes the following information:

  • The alert threshold (amount and percentage) that has been exceeded

  • Your current spend amount and its percentage in the budget

  • The date when you're forecasted to reach 100% of the budget

You can select the View Budget Details button to open the budget in the DoiT console.

Send slack alerts

Depending on your Slack setup, you'll see different options from the drop-down list:

The two options are independent of each other.

Alerts sent to slack channels include the following information:

  • Budget type and period if applicable

  • The alert threshold (amount and percentage) that has been exceeded

  • Your current spend amount and its percentage in the budget

  • The date when you're forecasted to reach 100% of the budget

  • The progress bar of Forecasted Spend

You can select Open Budget in DoiT console to view the budget details.