This document provides comprehensive instructions for creating a dashboard widget in Finout to visualize cost or usage data.
Finout's cost and usage widgets are designed to assist in the effective monitoring of cloud spending and service utilization. The cost widget offers insights into the financial aspects of your cloud services, enabling systematic tracking and analysis of expenditure over time. On the other hand, the usage widget facilitates the visualization of service consumption, aiding in the easy monitoring and analysis of usage patterns and trends.
Creating a New Cost/Usage Widget
Navigate to the Dashboard feature in the navigation bar.
Select Add widget and choose Cost or Usage from the presented options.
The cost or usage widget builder will be presented.
Name your widget.
Select a visualization type (bar, line, pie, table, or numeric) that best suits your cost/usage data.
Data type selection: Determine which metric to display, either cost or usage.
Enable visualization layer (optional).
Widget main settings:
Date customization: Modify the widget time frame and time interval.
Load from view (optional): Select a created and saved view from the MegaBill to use its configuration.
Choose Filters (optional): Select which cost data to view. When loading from view, the filters will be populated automatically.
Group By (optional): Select value to group the cost/usage data by.
X-Axis grouping: For bar, or table visualization, decide whether the X-axis will show dates or values.
Operator configuration: For the numeric visualization, select the operator of the calculation method; either the sum of the entire chosen cost/usage data or the average of the cost/usage data.
Unit type: For a usage widget, choose the appropriate unit type for the data. The options for unit types depend on the filters applied. For example, if you filter by AWS services, only AWS-related unit types will be available for selection.
Widget advanced settings:
Specifically for the cost widget, choose a cost type to show the actual cost.
Provide a brief of your cost/usage widget. You can opt to display this description at the bottom of the widget.
Note: When editing an existing widget, you can reset any changes to revert to the last saved version.
Cost/Usage Visualization Layers
In cost and usage 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 including computational calculations and trend projections. This enables complex and rich data analysis without needing multiple separate widgets.
Benefits of using the cost/usage layers:
Enhanced customization: Tailor your widgets to show exactly what you need, from basic metrics to advanced computational analysis.
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
Trend projection layer
This layer allows users to make future predictions based on cumulative past and current data trends. It uses time frames to forecast, helping in strategic planning and decision making.
Functionality:
Trend identification: Based on the analysis of historical data, the trend line identifies the general direction of the data trend, using the linear forecast method.
Trend prediction: Using a linear forecast algorithm, the trend prediction provides cumulative data for future dates based on observed trends, enabling users to anticipate future trends and plan accordingly.
Visualization: See the trend line alongside the actual data points in a visual form, making it easier to identify deviations from the trend and data-driven decisions.
Use cases:
Budget forecasting: Users can leverage the trend projection layer to understand future cloud costs based on historical spending trends. By selecting relevant time frames, such as the past month, users can generate estimates of future cost trends and plan resource allocation more effectively.
Capacity planning: Users can predict future resource utilization and capacity requirements. By analyzing past usage patterns and projecting trends forward, users can anticipate changes in demand, optimize resource allocation, avoid over-provisioning or under-provisioning, and ensure the smooth operation of cloud environments.
Cost optimization strategies: Users can identify potential cost-saving opportunities by forecasting future cost trends. By analyzing historical cost data and projecting future spending patterns, users can proactively identify areas where cost optimization measures can be implemented. This includes optimizing resource utilization, rightsizing instances, leveraging reserved instances or savings plans, and adopting cost-effective pricing models.
How to use the trend projection layer:
1. Choose the method for the projected trend. Currently, a linear forecast is available.
2. Choose the baseline time range for data evaluation.
3. Specify the time frame for forecasted data.
4. Select the time interval for the widget display.
Once your custom metric is created, it will appear as an additional visualization in your widget.
For example, you can create a trend projection to visualize the cost trend for the remainder of the month.
Note: The trend projection line on the graph represents the current day's data, projecting it based on the established trend from historical data.
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 (Coming soon).
Comparison layer
Coming soon.