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Dashboard Author

note

Vega Dashboard Author is in Open Preview and is not General Availability (GA) at this time. More information about release phases may be found here.

About Dashboard Author

Vega Cloud provides a comprehensive set of standard FinOps dashboards to get your FinOps team operational and quickly. The Vega Dashboard Author feature is an optional add-on that enables you to go a step further, building your own custom data analyses on top of the Vega curated multi-cloud billing dataset, publishing dashboards for re-use, and distribution of your custom view to your stakeholders.

Enabling Dashboard Author

To access Dashboard Author, a user will need an admin to assign them to the report_author role. If this option is not available to you, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

Understanding the Vega Datasets

You will have access to the two standard Vega Datasets to build upon:

  1. The All Cloud Spend Summary dataset provide a daily aggregate over 13-months of cloud spend.
  2. The All Cloud Spend Detail dataset provides resource-level spend details over a rolling 90-day window.

These datasets are managed by Vega and cannot be modified in Dashboard Author. If you have custom data retention requirements, please coordinate your requirements with your Vega Customer Success Manager.

Create an Analysis

To create a custom analysis of your choosing, use the following procedure. Any analysis you create will be specific to your portal user.

  1. Under Vega Dashboard Author, choose Analyses, and then choose New analysis.
  2. Choose the given dataset to include in your new analysis, and then choose USE IN ANALYSIS.
  3. In the New sheet pop-up that appears, choose the sheet type that you want. You can choose between an Interactive sheet and a Paginated report.
  4. (Optional) If you choose Interactive sheet, follow these steps:
    • (Optional): Choose the type of layout that you want for your interactive sheet. You can choose one of the following options:
      • Free-form
      • Tiled

The default option is Free-form.

  1. Choose Create.
  2. Create a visual with desired fields and visual type.

Edit an Existing Analysis

Would you like to build another version or iterate on a prior analysis? Use the following procedure to make a copy tailored the way you wish.

  1. Navigate to Vega Dashboard Author, click on Analyses, and select the specific analysis you wish to modify.
  2. In case you are working with a pre-existing analysis from Vega, access the File menu and choose Save As to create your customized version.
  3. Tailor the data and visuals to align with your specific requirements. Modify and enhance the analysis to cater to your unique insights.
  4. Once your adjustments are complete, you have the option to either save the modified analysis for personal use or take it a step further by publishing it as a dynamic dashboard for broader access and collaboration.

Publish a Dashboard

When you are finished editing the analysis and layout, publish your Analysis to a Dashboard. Dashboards will be local to the user who creates them by default.

  1. Open the analysis that you want to use. Choose Share on the application bar, and then choose Publish dashboard.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • To create a new dashboard, select PUBLISH and then choose Publish new dashboard as, and then type a dashboard name.
    • To replace an existing dashboard, do one of the following. Replacing a dashboard updates it without altering security or emailed report settings.
      • To update it with your changes, choose Replace an existing dashboard and then choose a dashboard from the list.
      • To rename it, choose Replace an existing dashboard, choose a dashboard from the list, and then choose Rename. Enter a new name to rename the existing dashboard. When you rename a dashboard, it also saves any changes you made to the analysis.
  3. (Optional) Choose the sheets that you want to publish in the SHEETS dropdown. When you select sheets to add to the new dashboard, the dropdown shows how many sheets are selected for publishing. The default option is ALL SHEETS SELECTED.
  4. If you are replacing an existing dashboard, the sheets that are already published to the existing dashboard are pre-selected in the dropdown. You can make changes to this by selecting or de-selecting sheets from the dropdown list.
    • (Optional) Open the Advanced publish options. These options are only available if at least one sheet in the new dashboard is an interactive sheet.
  5. Choose Publish dashboard.

Share a Dashboard

Would you like to share a dashboard layout with other users? You have multiple options depending on your use case:

  1. Users not in the platform, or without the report_author role, will need an Export of the dashboard distributed to them. Depending on the configuration, PDF, XLS, or CSV are typical export formats and can be initiated by clicking Export in the upper right corner of the dashboard.
  2. Users in the platform who are members of the report_author role can have dashboards shared with them. In the upper right corner of the dashboard, select Share and enter the email address of the user. Shared dashboards will appear in that user's dashboard folder.

Data Dictionary

To understand the data available to build dashboards on, visit the Vega Data Dictionary