Showback for teams
Showback means showing each team what its cloud usage costs, so the people who spend the money can see it. This guide goes from raw tags to a report each team receives on a schedule. Each step links to the page that owns the detail.
Before you start
- At least one connection with some history; see Quickstart.
- The Owner or Editor team role in the workspace you are mapping; see Access model.
- Read Allocation model once. It explains why rules, not filters, decide ownership.
1. Find out what your tags already say
Open Settings, then Tags. Look at Overall Coverage and Top Tag Keys. A key such as team or owner that carries most of the cost is the natural starting point. See Tags and tag coverage.
2. Make one ownership value per cost line
If the same meaning is spread over several keys or spellings, or some resources are untagged but obvious, create a virtual tag that reads the keys in order and fills the gaps with rules. Check its preview until "Unmatched" is small. See Virtual tags.
3. Define the owners
On Segments, add one segment per team, product and cost centre you report on. See Segments and allocation rules.
4. Assign cost with rules
Write rules from the most specific to the most general: a named account first, then a resource name prefix, then a tag. Preview each rule and watch coverage rise. Keep going until the unallocated share is one you can explain.
5. Build a report per team
Save a cost report grouped by Segment for the whole picture. For each team, save a report with a Virtual tag filter clause on the value from step 2 that names the team; Segment groups a report but is not a filter field. See Explore cost data and Save and manage reports.
6. Put them on a dashboard
Pin the reports to a dashboard so a lead can see every team at once. See Overview and dashboards.
7. Deliver them
Schedule each team's report to its email destination, weekly or monthly. See Share and schedule reports.
Keep it true
- Tag coverage drops as new resources arrive untagged. Set a coverage alert; see Tags and tag coverage.
- When a team reorganizes, change the rules, not the reports. Rules restate past months at once.