Tabular View

Tabular View is a data table found in the Billing Centers module that gives users a granular view into their cloud costs. To find a sample Tabular View go to the Billing Centers page (Cloud > Cost Optimization > Billing Centers) and click Tabular View. Tabular View only shows costs that are scoped to the Billing Center that you are viewing it from. It works at both the top Organization level Billing Center that the user has access to, as well as all child Billing Centers below that. You can group and filter data, select the dates, drill down to details, and export the data.

Tabular View has several options to control the data shown:

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Date Selector—Choose the date range for your column headings

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Cost Type Selector—Choose between the cost amortization and cost blending (AWS only) options

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Usage Metric Selector in Tabular View—Choose to show or hide the usage metric

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Group by Filter in Tabular View—“Pivot” and sum costs based on a number of dimensions

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Search Box Filter in Tabular View—Enter specific words or phrases to select which rows you want to display

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Drilling Down in Tabular View—Expand or collapse one group or all groups of data to display

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Percent Change Indicators in Tabular View—Show how a particular cost grouping is changing.

Once you decide which Tabular View data to show, you can perform the following tasks:

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Formatting Tabular View Reports

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Sharing the Tabular View With Other Users

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Exporting Tabular View Data

Date Selector

Many pages contain a date selector which changes the time range to which the data on the current page applies. Click on the date selector to open the picker. Some pages allow the granularity of data to be selected between Monthly, Quarterly, and Biannually. Other pages only support Month granularity but allow you to pick the time range from which to show data. A convenient list of common selections is provided on the right and can be set with a single click.

Once the data selector has been set, its configuration is saved as you navigate across other pages.

Cost Type Selector

Many pages offer the choice to view different cost types based on your use case. These options currently focus on amortizing one-time costs and on showing the AWS Reserved Instance blended costs. On any page with the cost type option, your selection will be reflected in the cost data on that page. On any page that does not have the option, the costs shown are blended, non-amortized.

Cost Amortization

Amortizing costs is defined as taking one-time costs and “spreading” the cost out over the lifetime of the purchase. If such a cost were shown “non-amortized,” then the full cost of that item is attributed to the time of the purchase. If a cost were “amortized,” then the cost would be divided into all of the hours of the duration of the cost and shown in each hour.

The simplest example of such a cost would be an up-front purchase of a Reserved Instance. Let’s assume we purchase a 1-yr Reserved Instance from AWS on January 5, 2018 at 3:00pm and it cost us $15,000. Here is how that purchase will be shown under both scenarios:

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non-amortized—The full $15,000 shows in cost data on Jan 5, 2018

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amortized—The full cost is divided by number of hours in the lifespan of the item (there are 8,760 hours in a year) and the result is attributed to each hour in the lifespan. In this case, we would see a $1.71 charge on every single hour between Jan 5, 2018 3:00pm and Jan 5, 2019 2:00pm.

Cost Blending

Note:Cost blending only applies to AWS costs.

Cost blending is a cost reporting approach that is used by AWS that spreads the discounts from Reserved Instances over all applicable instances. In Optima, you can choose whether to see costs that are blended or unblended.

To learn more about cost blending in AWS, see their documentation.

Usage Metric Selector in Tabular View

The Usage Metric Selector appears to the right of the Cost Type Selector in Tabular View and is set to show the usage metric by default. When shown, the usage metric appears in addition to the cost metric. A usage column will be visible to the right of the cost column under each date period you have configured for display. (Examples: day, month, or quarter.) Both a Cost Total and a Usage Total column are visible to the right under the Totals heading. These columns will also appear in CSV or Excel exports from Tabular View.

To hide the usage metric or show it again, open the dropdown menu under Usage metric is shown and select Hide usage or Show usage as appropriate.

Note:When viewing the usage metric:

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Usage amount breaks down according to many different usage units which vary by resource, such as Gigabytes (GB), Requests, or Hours.

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Total usage amount can only be summed across a common Usage Unit. For this reason, when you show the usage metric, the Usage Unit dimension will appear as a forced dimension in your Group by list. The forced Usage Unit dimension (pale yellow in color) can be dragged up or down in the hierarchy, but it cannot be deleted as long as the usage metric is shown.

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Usage amount totals will be visible for the Usage Unit dimension and any other dimensions below (to the right of) it in the hierarchy.

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Usage amount totals will not be visible for any dimensions above (to the left of) Usage Unit in the hierarchy. The display will show “…” in place of a number for these dimensions.

Tip:Usage units and amounts cover a broad array of data and can be confusing when being viewed for the first time. The table below describes some common issues.

Common Issues with Usage Units and Amounts
Usage Unit or Amount	Common Issue
Similar usage units	The usage units displayed in Cloud Cost Optimization are pulled directly from the bill data and may have some confusing similarities, such as “Hrs,” “Hours,” and “Hour.” However, they tend to be uniform across a single Resource Type or Usage Type. Adding those dimensions to Group by and filtering on a specific resource or usage type will often yield a single, uniform Usage Unit.
Usage unit of “None”	Some usage amounts simply have no associated unit in the bill data, and these appear as “None” in the Cloud Cost Optimization user interface. The free tier for AWS often appears with a Usage Unit of “None,” for example. If you see a number for usage with $0 of associated cost, this is likely the explanation.
Availability of data	Usage data has been pulled into the Cloud Cost Optimization backend since April 1, 2019. It is possible to see some usage data from before that date if an organization has had its bill reprocessed since then. Usage data from before April 1, 2019 may not be complete.

Group by Filter in Tabular View

To get to the level of detail that is necessary to compare costs, you can select up to 5 criteria in the Group By function. When the ‘+’ is clicked, a drop-down menu appears, so you can choose from the options in the table below.

Group By Filter Criteria in Tabular View

Group By Filter

Criteria Options

Adjustments

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Adjustment Cost Multiplier

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Adjustment Name

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Adjustment Rule Label

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Adjustment Usage Multiplier

Billing Centers

Cloud

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Cloud Vendor

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Cloud Vendor Accounts

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Cloud Vendor Account Name

Resources

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Bill Entity

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Bill Source

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Tags

Note:Tags are specific to your organization. Contact Flexera Support to add new tags.

After you select the appropriate Group By criteria, the data table will begin to populate with the cost from the selected criteria. The Group By columns are ordered based on which criteria are selected first. You can move the Group By criteria to the left or right to group the data to your liking.

Search Box Filter in Tabular View

To scale down the data to your exact specifications, use the search box filter. In the screen shot above, we entered Storage into the search box. Now the table only displays the results with the name “Storage” in part of the group text. When you export the Tabular View data, only data from that “Filter” criteria in the search box will be exported.

Drilling Down in Tabular View

To drill down to the exact data you are looking for, click the up and down arrows next to a grouping.

To expand or collapse all groups

Go to the Billing Centers page (Cloud > Cost Optimization > Billing Centers).

Click Tabular View.

Click the three-equal-lines icon on the right side of the Group column header.

Click Expand All or Collapse All.

Percent Change Indicators in Tabular View

The percent change arrows show trends from month to month. To display the arrows, click the Show button and check the Show percent change if cost difference is greater than $ box. This selection enables the color-coded up and down arrows to reflect the percent change from the previous month.

Percent Change Indicators in Tabular View
Color	Percent Change
Dark Green	The decrease is 30% or more.
Light Green	The decrease is more than 5% and less than 30%.
Gray	The increase or decrease is 5% or less.
Orange	The increase is more than 5% and less than 30%.
Red	The increase is 30% or more.

Formatting Tabular View Reports

You can format the view of the reports by clicking the three-solid-lines icon to the right of each column header. A popup will appear that displays the following options.

Tabular View Report Format Options
Report Format Option	Description
Pin Column	Pins the column to the left, to the right, or removes a pin using this option. Pin Column freezes the column, allowing for easier reading of the report if there are a lot of columns.
Autosize This Column	Sizes the column to the appropriate width.
Autosize All Columns	Sizes all columns to the appropriate width.
Reset Columns	Restores all columns to the default view.
Tool Panel	Offers the option to hide/unhide the columns you’ve selected in the Group By criteria.
Expand All	Expands all the rows to show detail for all the Group By criteria selected.
Collapse All	Collapses all the rows to only the first Group By criteria selected.

Sharing the Tabular View With Other Users

You can share a configured tabular view with other Cloud Cost Optimization users outside of Flexera One. For details, complete the steps below.

To share the Tabular View URL with other Cloud Cost Optimization users outside of Flexera One:

Create a tabular view with the dimensions, date, usage, and filter parameters.

Click the Copy share link (sideways “V”) icon on the upper-right side of the Tabular View page. The current URL is copied to the clipboard.

Paste the URL into other tools such as email or chat clients to send to other users.

Exporting Tabular View Data

Once you have the appropriate Date Selector, Group By, and Search Box Filter criteria selected, you can export the data to either a .csv or Excel file. The file will show all columns and dates that were selected as part of that criteria, and the filters also apply.

Tip:If you consume data in non-US formatted currencies, the Excel export provides a better experience.