This document provides step-by-step instructions on creating a dashboard widget in Finout to visualize budget and forecast data.
The Budget widget within Finout is a powerful tool designed to assist you in setting and monitoring budget targets for your cloud spending. This feature enables you to compare your actual expenses with your planned budgets and forecasts, providing a clear picture of your financial performance. By utilizing the budget widget, you can gain insights into how your spending aligns with your financial goals, identify areas where adjustments may be needed, and make informed decisions to optimize your cloud expenditure.
For more information about the budget feature, please refer to the main documentation.
Creating a New Budget Widget
Navigate to the Dashboard feature in the navigation bar.
Select Add widget and then choose Budget from the presented options.
From your list of created budgets, choose the one you want to use as the data source for your new widget.
The budget widget builder will be presented.
Name your widget.
Select a visualization type (bar, line, table, or numeric) that best suits your budget data.
Budget selection (optional): You can opt to select a different budget for visualization if needed.
Metric selection: Determine which metrics (cost, budget, forecast) to display. It's possible to select more than one metric.
Enable visualization layer (optional).
Widget main settings:
Date customization (optional): If needed, you can adjust the budget timeframe displayed in the widget to a different range.
Filter on budget values: Select specific budget values to display. You have the option to group by these values.
X-Axis configuration: For bar, line, or table widgets, decide whether the X-axis will show dates or values. For Numeric widgets, select either sum or average as the calculation method.
Operator configuration: For the numeric widget, select the operator; either the sum of the entire chosen budget date or the average of the chosen budget date.
Widget advanced settings:
Choose a cost type to show the actual cost.
Provide a brief of your budget widget. You can opt to display this description at the bottom of the widget.
Budget Visualization Layers
In Finout widgets, users can enhance customization and insights with widget layers, allowing multiple dimensions of data analysis within a single widget. Widget layers offer discrete levels of data manipulation or visualization, representing various types of data interactions such as computational calculations, trend projections, or custom metrics creation. This enables complex and rich data analysis without needing multiple separate widgets.
Benefits of using the widget layers:
Enhanced customization: Tailor your widgets to show exactly what you need, from basic metrics to advanced computational analyses.
Deeper insights: By layering different types of data analysis, gain a nuanced understanding of your metrics and their interrelations.
Efficiency: Consolidate complex data views into single widgets, reducing clutter and improving dashboard readability.
Layer types
1. Computational layer
The Computational Layer allows for the creation of custom ratio metrics. This is achieved by performing mathematical operations, such as division, subtraction, or percentage calculations between any two data points you select. The results of these operations can be visualized directly within your widgets, providing a powerful means for custom analysis and deeper insights.
Functionality:
Build ratios: Combine different data sources to create meaningful ratios, such as cost-to-revenue, to monitor efficiency or other key performance indicators.
Customize metrics: Tailor new metrics that are not readily available, enabling you to analyze specific aspects of your data in a way that suits your unique business needs.
Visualize relationships: See the direct relationship between chosen data points in visual form, making it easier to draw conclusions and make data-driven decisions.
Use cases:
Budget analysis: Calculate and visualize cloud spending as a percentage of your total budget to assess how much of your resources are allocated to cloud services.
Operational efficiency: Create a metric that compares production output to labor hours to determine operational efficiency over time.
ROI tracking: Monitor the return on investment by comparing the revenue generated against the marketing spend for each campaign.
How to use the computational layer:
Choose the two data points you want to use; cost, budget, or forecast.
Select the mathematical operation (division, subtraction, percentage) to apply to your chosen data points.
Once your custom metric is created, it will appear as an additional visualization in your widget.
For example, you can create a metric to represent cloud spending as a percentage of the total budget. This visualization provides valuable insights by highlighting the proportion of your budget allocated to cloud expenses, helping in evaluating spending efficiency and guiding strategic budgeting decisions.
2. Comparison layer
Enables the analysis of data across two distinct time periods, offering insights into shifts or patterns. (COMING SOON!)