CloudZero Analytics provides customers with self-service cloud cost Analytics. Organizers and Editors can create and edit Dashboards to share with the rest of their organization. They can also create folders for organizing Dashboards.

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Analytics supports analysis of one year of data, to ensure an optimal user experience in building Dashboards. Additional data remains accessible through the Explorer.

View Analytics

Select the Analytics link in the CloudZero top menu bar to view the Analytics page:

From the Analytics page, you can take the following actions:

Select a quick filter to display a list of certain Dashboards:
- All Dashboards
- Dashboards in your Private folder (Organizers and Editors only)
- Dashboards marked as Favorites
- Recent Dashboards (the five most recently viewed).
Search all Dashboards in the organization.
Search Dashboards within the current folder.
Set a Dashboard as a favorite by selecting the heart icon next to its name.
Manage Dashboards.
Manage folders.

Manage Dashboards

By default, Dashboards appear in the Dashboards Home on the Analytics page. Organizers and Editors can take the following actions to manage Analytics Dashboards:

Create a Dashboard
Edit a Dashboard
Copy a Dashboard
Delete a Dashboard

All user roles can view public Dashboards. Organizers and Editors can also view the private Dashboards they have created.

Create Dashboard

To create a Dashboard:

On the Analytics page, click the Create Dashboard button:
Enter a Dashboard name.

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When you create a Dashboard, it will automatically inherit the visibility of the folder you create it in.
Click the Create button:
On the new Dashboard page, select Add to add a tile to your Dashboard: visualization, text box, Markdown box, or button.
If you add a visualization tile, select CloudZero Billing Data as the source of cost data, called an Explore:
Select the desired billing data fields to build your visualization. Use the search field to find a field or browse through the Dimension categories. Selecting a field will add it to the In Use tab and the Data section.
After selecting your data fields, select Run to see the data and the visualization populate. You can choose different fields and run the data again as needed.
To pivot and group the data, hover over the data you would like to pivot on and click the arrow icon. Alternatively, if the data you want to pivot on is in the table in the Data section, you can click on the icon and select Pivot.
To add a filter, hover over the data you would like to filter on and click the filter icon. This will add the selected data to the Filter section on the right where you can determine how you want to filter. Note that the data you want to filter on does not need to be included in the Data section. For example, you can filter any visualization by date.
Enter the name of the visualization.
Click the Save button.
Optionally, adjust the size and location of the visualization tile, add more tiles, or both. For more information about creating Dashboard tiles, see the Looker documentation.
Select Save to save the Dashboard.

Edit Dashboard

Organizers and Editors can rename Dashboards they have created and edit custom Dashboards anyone has created.

Note that Viewers can view but not modify Dashboards.

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When you create a Dashboard, it will automatically inherit the visibility of the folder you create it in. You can change its visibility by moving it into a folder with a different visibility setting.

Rename Dashboard

To rename a Dashboard:

On the Analytics page, locate the Dashboard you plan to rename.
Select the three-dot icon in the Actions column.
Select Configure Dashboard.
Update the Dashboard name.
Select Update.

Edit Dashboard content

To edit the content of a Dashboard:

On the Analytics page, locate the Dashboard you plan to edit.
Select the three-dot icon in the Actions column.
Select Edit Dashboard.
Follow the instructions on creating a Dashboard to add, update, or remove tiles on your Dashboard. For more information about editing Dashboard tiles, see the Looker documentation.
Select Save to save the Dashboard.

You can also edit a Dashboard you are currently viewing. Select the three-dot icon and choose Edit dashboard from the drop-down menu.

Copy Dashboard

Organizers and Editors can copy a Dashboard and then edit it. For example, you can duplicate one of CloudZero's standard Dashboards or a custom Dashboard that you or someone else created.

To copy a Dashboard:

On the Analytics page, locate the Dashboard you plan to copy.
Select the three-dot icon in the Actions column:
Select Copy Dashboard. CloudZero will immediately create a copy of the Dashboard and take you to it.
Optionally, follow the instructions on creating a Dashboard to add, update, or remove tiles in your Dashboard. For more information about editing Dashboard tiles, see the Looker documentation.
Optionally, rename the Dashboard. By default, CloudZero uses the original Dashboard's name and adds (copy) at the end.
Select Save to save the edited copy of the Dashboard.

Delete Dashboard

Organizers and Editors can delete only Dashboards they have created.

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If you delete a Dashboard by mistake, you must contact your CloudZero representative to restore it.

To delete a Dashboard:

On the Analytics page, locate the Dashboard you plan to delete.
Select the three-dot icon in the Actions column.
Select Delete Dashboard.
In response to the prompt identifying the Dashboard to be deleted, click the Delete button to confirm deletion. Note that this will immediately and permanently delete your Dashboard.

CloudZero deletes the Dashboard and reloads the page.

Manage folders

Organizers and Editors can take the following actions to organize Dashboards into folders:

Create a folder
Configure a folder
Delete a folder
Move a folder or Dashboard

All user roles can view public folders. Organizers and Editors can also view the private Dashboards they have created, which are stored in the Private folder.

Create folder

You can create folders within folders, nested as deeply as needed.

Note that you cannot create folders inside the Private folder.

To create a folder:

On the Analytics page, click the Create Folder button:
Enter a folder name (100 characters maximum).
Set the folder's visibility by selecting one of the options listed. Note that you cannot create a new private folder. Use the existing Private folder instead. When you finish, click the Create Folder button. The visibility options are:
- Public: visible to everyone in your organization.
- User Groups: visible only to members of selected groups. Select the user group(s) that will have access to the folder from the drop-down list.

CloudZero displays a Folder created successfully message when the folder is created.

Configure folder

You can update a the name and visibility of a folder. Note that you cannot rename the Private folder or change its visibility.

To configure a folder:

On the Analytics page, locate the folder you plan to configure.
Select the three-dot icon in the Actions column.
Select Configure.
Optionally, update the folder name (100 characters maximum).
Optionally, set the visibility for the folder by selecting the user group(s) that will have access to the folder. If no groups are selected, the folder and its contents will be public for all users in the organization.
Select Update.

CloudZero displays a Folder updated successfully message when the update is done.

Delete folder

A folder must be empty before you can delete it. Move or delete any Dashboards that are inside the folder first. Note that you cannot delete the Private folder.

To delete an empty folder:

On the Analytics page, locate the folder you plan to delete.
Select the three-dot icon in the Actions column:
Select Delete.
Click the Delete button to confirm deletion. Note that this will immediately and permanently delete your folder.

CloudZero deletes the folder and returns you to the parent folder, or the Dashboards Home on the Analytics page if there is no parent folder.

Move folder or Dashboard

You can move Dashboards and folders. Moving a folder also moves all of its nested contents. Note that you cannot move folders into the Private folder.

To move a Dashboard or folder:

On the Analytics page, locate the folder or Dashboard you plan to move.
Select the three-dot icon in the Actions column.
Select Move.
Select a destination folder and the Move button when it is available.

CloudZero moves the item into the selected folder.

Change Dashboard visibility

Each Dashboard inherits the visibility settings of its parent folder. Organizers and Editors can change the visibility of a Dashboard by moving it into a different folder:

To make a Dashboard private, move it into the Private folder.
To make a Dashboard public, move it into any public folder or the Dashboards Home.
To make a Dashboard accessible to a limited audience, move it into a folder that is only visible to specific user groups. You can configure a folder to be visible to the groups you select.

Maximize Dashboard Performance

CloudZero recommends that you follow these guidelines when building Dashboards to maximize performance and usability:

Set a default Dashboard usage date filter to include data only for the months you need. Fewer months means less data has to be processed to return your dashboard visualizations, which improves performance.

Limit the number of tiles used in your dashboard. Each tile added to a dashboard impacts memory consumption and results in additional queries to fetch data, which can impact performance. Adding too many tiles to a dashboard can also result in an overwhelming experience for users, and make key information more difficult to find.

Minimize the usage of pivot tables. Pivot tables consume more memory and result in more complex and less performant queries in loading data.

Try to use tables instead of individual tiles for summary-level headers. This minimizes the number of queries needed to return data and improves overall Dashboard performance.

Limit the number of rows and columns returned in visuals. Adding more rows and columns impacts ability of users to quickly analyze data on the Dashboard, and also has a negative performance impact on load times.