What is Consumption Overview in PyraCloud?
The PyraCloud Consumption Overview is a set of functionalities that enable detailed spend analysis. The data is based on billing data fetched daily from the variety of providers.
Users can access multiple analytic reports and browse consumption cost information in easy to use interactive charts. The analysis is extended by leveraging information from other PyraCloud modules. Users can analyse spend per Custom Group (see Custom Groups) or per Budget (see Budgets).
Consumption Overview consolidates cost information from all supported platforms:
- Azure
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Office 365
- Software Assets
The consolidation allows users to analyze spend across multiple platforms in a single view.
How to Access Consumption Overview
Users can access Consumption Overview in PyraCloud by choosing the following menu item:
Users will see the “Consolidated Consumption” by default. This report provides consumption cost information gathered from every provider configured in PyraCloud.
Spend Reports
A report consists of multiple sections. See layout below:
Name | Functionality | |
1 | View selection | Switches between Consumption Overview reports. |
2 | Budget and resource tiles | Provides summary of budgets configured (see Budget) and resource assignment status (see Custom Groups). |
3 | Date filter | Sets the date range of data provided on the report. |
4 | Filter section | Sets filters that narrow down set of data provided on every report page. |
5 | Report pages | Change between sets of charts. Each page focuses on a particular cost analysis area. |
6 | Chart | Provides report data with various types of charts. |
7 | Currency selector | Switches report cost currency (exchange rates apply). |
View Consumption Data
Understanding Report Data
A report can consist of multiple pages. A single page can contain multiple charts or tables that provide report data.
NOTE: Data of every report page is dependent on the filters set in the date filter and filter section.
Understanding Drill Down and Filter By Functionality
You can use the “Drill down” functionality to see more granular data on the selected cost. As an example, you can see cost per day when you drill down on a specific month.
You can use the “Filter by” functionality to set the selected data item as a report filter. You will then only see this information in the rest of the report charts.
Drilling Down on Data
Drill down is a functionality that allows very precise data analysis. Most of the reports available in Consumption Overview have been built with a set of hierarchical dimensions that allow users to perform the drill down action by clicking on an area in the chart.
The below screenshots show a drill down scenario.
Choose a meter category, right click on its data bar and select the drill down option from the context menu.
As a result, users will see the cost chart of the meter subcategories, which are subcategories that exist under the selected meter category. The sum of the cost of the meter subcategories is equals to the selected meter category cost. It is possible to continue drilling down if there is another lower level dimension provided for that chart (meter name in that case).
Please note the current view and horizontal axis descriptions. These help users to identify which hierarchy level they are currently on.
Use the “Drill up” option to go back to the upper level of the hierarchy.
Users will see that the drill down functionality provides more details of the consumption cost. Such analysis is especially helpful when searching for potential consumption anomalies.
Filter Report to Selected Data Item
In some cases, there is a need to narrow the data context to a single data item (meter category, subscription, resource, etc.). Instead of setting an item as a filter, users can use the “Filter by…” functionality.
The usage of that function is similar to the usage of “drill down”. See below example:
This action will set the selected resource as a filter.
Now the entire report has data scoped to this single resource. Users can use any page of the report to analyse its consumption.
Slicing and Grouping Consumption Data
Selected report charts have the ability to slice data with the configured legend. The legend is an additional dimension added to data which slices the consumption values (e.g. monthly consumption).
Below is an example of monthly consumption sliced with the meter category legend dimension.
Users can change the legend dimension by choosing the legend picker (1) and selecting another dimension (2).
Change Chart Types
Users can switch to different chart types or display data as a table to suite their preference.
The following data visualization types are available:
- Vertical bar chart
- Linear chart
- Area chart
- Horizontal bar chart
- Pie chart
- Table
To change the visualization type click on the drop down (1) and select the visualization type (2).
Understanding Resource Details
If a chart provides resource data, users can navigate to resource details which are available in Resources.
When a chart or a table is displayed, users can click on the resource name.
Such navigation is also available when displaying a table.
Users will see the selected resource details displayed in a new Resources window.
Predicting Spend
Most of the report charts provide actual and predicted values. Predictions are calculated based on most recent actual values. Users will see predicted values for the data corresponding to the future time scope, with reference to the current date (if the scope of the time set in the date filter includes future days).
Below is an example of a chart that includes predicted values.
Predictions can be disabled for a chart. Use the configuration option shown below. If the “Show Predictions” option is unchecked, users will only see actual values.
Filtering Data
Each report allows users to filter data in a number of ways. Selecting filters and applying them will immediately change the data scope according to the filters selected. Filters apply to every page of a report.
Date Filter
The date filter marked below allows users to define the time range of the data they want to see on the report.
The reset option sets the date range back to default. Default is 6 months back and 3 months forward of today’s date. The default time range adjusts to meet the first and last day of the month.
NOTE: The “AzureSimple Billing Consumption Details” allows users to choose date ranges reflecting billing cycles instead of a start and end date.
Advanced Filtering
Every report provides users with the ability to filter data.
The set of filters (depending on the available report data characteristics) available in the section shown below, allows users to select specific filter values and narrow down the report to the data they want.
To start using a selected filter, click on it to see first 50 available values.
Users can either select a value from the list or type the name directly into the field.
Users can select multiple values. All values that are selected are visible in the filter summary.
Selecting values in one filter impacts the rest of the filters. Values are pre-filtered and users will only see values that correlate with the values they selected in the previous filter.
The Custom Group filter allows users to choose Custom Groups within a hierarchy.
NOTE: You can manage Custom Groups and resource assignments in Custom Group Manager.
Use the “Search” button to apply chosen filters on a report. User the “Reset” button to remove all filters.
Choose Currency
If a report provides consumption cost, then the currency of that cost is the currency defined in Budgets. The default currency is USD.
To change the currency for all reports select the preferred currency from the list of available currencies.
NOTE: If the currency selected is a different currency from the billing currency – the most up to date exchange rates are applied. The exchange rates are updated daily by SoftwareONE using external public rates source.
Software Assets
You can visualize and analyze your software assets spend. Each transaction is treated like a resource. You you can assign it to a custom group, add tags or split the quantity between different business units (the same way you can with cloud resources). You can read how to enable transactions by going to Software Assets On-boarding.
Transactions can be viewed separately in the report we designed for that purpose: Software Assets Spend Details or along with cloud resources using our consolidated report.
Metric selections
To give you flexibility, you can decide if you want to view you transactions by Cost or Quantity as shown below:
Predictions
There is built-in integration with PyraCloud Renewal Manager. This enables you to visualize your future Software Assets spend by connecting your transactions to planned renewals.
Consolidated view
As mentioned above, you can also view your transaction and cloud costs within Consolidated Reports.
Analytic capabilities
You can view your transactions by:
- Publisher
- Product Family
- License Model
- Document Type (Invoice or Credit Memo)
- PO Numbers
User Defined Resources
You can analyze the cost of the virtual resources that you manually added to the platform (see Resources). You can do this separately or combined with your provider costs.
To do that, open the Consolidated Consumption report from the dropdown as shown below:
Virtual providers can be accessed using the Provider filter in the Consolidated Consumption report. To select the virtual provider, first expand the filter section and then select the virtual provider you added in Resources as shown below:
The virtual resource costs are treated the same as any other resource costs (such as Azure or AWS). You can analyze the cost of the virtual provider on its own.
Or in combination with your resource costs.
Exporting Data
Most of the reports provides a list of consumption cost for each resource on the last page (within the date range you specified in the Date Filter).
This detailed table can be exported into a Microsoft Excel file (*.xlsx).
In order to do the export, choose the “Export” option above the listing table and save the generated file on your local computer.
Figure 26 – Exporting Data
NOTE: The file generated is compliant with the list of columns provided in the details table. Customize table columns before exporting to adjust the list of columns in the generated file.
If you would like more information on Software Transaction Reports please read this knowledge article.