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<div class="block-paragraph_advanced"><p><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Cloud spending can be a big concern for financial operations (FinOps) teams. Google Cloud’s </span><a href="https://cloud.google.com/solutions/active-assist"><span style="text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Active Assist</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"> tooling can help, generating cost savings recommendations for optimizing Google Cloud resources. Then there are tools like </span><a href="https://cloud.google.com/recommender/docs/quickstart-recommendation-hub"><span style="text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Recommendation Hub</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><a href="https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/finops-hub"><span style="text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">FinOps Hub</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">, which offer consolidated views into recommendations for project owners and billing administrators. These tools are a big step forward in making recommendations more actionable and accessible for teams. However, using them requires granting higher permissions in the console — something that could give more access than security teams are comfortable with. Also, some organizations require more flexibility to tailor the views and reports using information stored in customer-persisted labels or tags. </span></p>
<p><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">To make these views easier to develop, we are pleased to announce an OSS Recommendations Dashboard, a Looker Studio dashboard powered by </span><a href="https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/active-assist/tree/main/recommendations-dashboard" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">open-source infrastructure scripts</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">. </span></p>
<p><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">The main goal of the dashboard is to pinpoint savings opportunities organization-wide, and to enable default dashboards with filters for folders and projects, helping users focus on key savings areas. This setup simplifies team collaboration and allows organizations to take advantage of potential savings. Additionally, these filters let you customize dashboards for your unique organizational requirements.</span></p></div>
<div class="block-image_full_width">

</div>
    </div>

</div>
<div class="block-paragraph_advanced"><p><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">This release of the OSS Recommendations Dashboard focuses on four primary features:</span></p>
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">1. </span><strong style="vertical-align: baseline;">Visibility across the organization<br/></strong><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Understanding the challenge administrators face in overseeing numerous projects, the dashboard offers a comprehensive view that encapsulates all savings opportunities throughout the organization. </span></p>
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">2.</span><strong style="vertical-align: baseline;"> Built-in filters for folders and projects<br/></strong><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">By highlighting the organizational structure, built-in filters facilitate easier interaction with relevant teams, making it easier to identify and act upon savings opportunities.</span></p>
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">3. </span><strong style="vertical-align: baseline;">Looker Studio for extendability<br/></strong><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Building on Looker Studio delivers  customizable analytics and reporting tools so that administrators can tailor their dashboard to meet their unique needs.</span></p>
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">4. </span><strong style="vertical-align: baseline;">Gamification<br/></strong><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Gamification elements help to enhance user engagement and motivation, making routine project management a more interactive and rewarding experience.</span></p>
<p><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">The OSS Recommendations Dashboard also includes a week-by-week line chart that  showcases projects that have successfully reduced their number of recommendations, and grouping recommendations by projects and folders is another feature that simplifies things for FinOps teams. The tool also ensures easy information access by allowing users to share dashboards and relevant data to a wider audience without having to navigate through excessive permissions.</span></p></div>
<div class="block-image_full_width">

</div>
    </div>

</div>
<div class="block-paragraph_advanced"><p><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Architecturally, the OSS Recommendations Dashboard is built on Google Cloud and integrated with Active Assist. The solution taps into a mix of tools:</span></p>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1" style="list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;">
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Cloud Scheduler</span></p>
</li>
<li aria-level="1" style="list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;">
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Cloud Workflows</span></p>
</li>
<li aria-level="1" style="list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;">
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Cloud Asset Inventory</span></p>
</li>
<li aria-level="1" style="list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;">
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Active Assist Recommendations</span></p>
</li>
<li aria-level="1" style="list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;">
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">BigQuery</span></p>
</li>
<li aria-level="1" style="list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;">
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Looker Studio</span></p>
</li>
<li aria-level="1" style="list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;">
<p role="presentation"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Terraform</span></p>
</li>
</ul></div>
<div class="block-image_full_width">

</div>
    </div>

</div>
<div class="block-paragraph_advanced"><p><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Cloud Asset Inventory and Active Assist Recommendations are the dashboard’s foundational data sources. Cloud Scheduler and Workflows serve as the orchestration mechanisms, ensuring timely and consistent extraction of data into BigQuery. BigQuery manages and processes this data, setting the stage for Looker Studio to present and visualize these insights. To streamline the deployment process, we've encapsulated this design within a convenient Terraform module. For more on deploying this solution, refer to this </span><a href="https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/active-assist/tree/main/recommendations-dashboard" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">guide</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Google Cloud's Active Assist can help you optimize your cloud resource operations. Combined with the OSS Recommendations Dashboard can have a profound impact on  your FinOps team. By providing project-level visibility and an organization-wide perspective, the OSS Recommendations Dashboard helps FinOps teams have better control over cloud spending. Moreover, because it’s built on Terraform, you can implement this solution promptly, to start getting visibility into your cloud spending fast.</span></p>
<p><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">If you’re eager for more insight into your Google Cloud spending and want to optimize your resources, the OSS Recommendations Dashboard provides not just clarity, but actionable intelligence. </span><a href="https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/active-assist/tree/main/recommendations-dashboard" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Dive in</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">, explore, and let your organization bask in the newfound savings!</span></p></div>

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--- !ruby/object:Feedjira::Parser::RSSEntry
published: 2024-03-22 16:00:00.000000000 Z
entry_id: !ruby/object:Feedjira::Parser::GloballyUniqueIdentifier
  guid: https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/cost-management/manage-cloud-costs-with-new-oss-recommendations-dashboard/
title: Unlock cloud savings with new Looker Studio Dashboard and Terraform scripts
categories:
- Business Intelligence
- Cost Management
summary: "<div class=\"block-paragraph_advanced\"><p><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">Cloud spending can be a big concern for financial operations (FinOps)
  teams. Google Cloud’s </span><a href=\"https://cloud.google.com/solutions/active-assist\"><span
  style=\"text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;\">Active Assist</span></a><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\"> tooling can help, generating cost savings recommendations
  for optimizing Google Cloud resources. Then there are tools like </span><a href=\"https://cloud.google.com/recommender/docs/quickstart-recommendation-hub\"><span
  style=\"text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;\">Recommendation Hub</span></a><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\"> and </span><a href=\"https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/finops-hub\"><span
  style=\"text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;\">FinOps Hub</span></a><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">, which offer consolidated views into recommendations
  for project owners and billing administrators. These tools are a big step forward
  in making recommendations more actionable and accessible for teams. However, using
  them requires granting higher permissions in the console — something that could
  give more access than security teams are comfortable with. Also, some organizations
  require more flexibility to tailor the views and reports using information stored
  in customer-persisted labels or tags. </span></p>\n<p><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">To make these views easier to develop, we are pleased to announce an
  OSS Recommendations Dashboard, a Looker Studio dashboard powered by </span><a href=\"https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/active-assist/tree/main/recommendations-dashboard\"
  rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; vertical-align:
  baseline;\">open-source infrastructure scripts</span></a><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">. </span></p>\n<p><span style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">The main
  goal of the dashboard is to pinpoint savings opportunities organization-wide, and
  to enable default dashboards with filters for folders and projects, helping users
  focus on key savings areas. This setup simplifies team collaboration and allows
  organizations to take advantage of potential savings. Additionally, these filters
  let you customize dashboards for your unique organizational requirements.</span></p></div>\n<div
  class=\"block-image_full_width\">\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  \n    <div class=\"article-module
  h-c-page\">\n      <div class=\"h-c-grid\">\n  \n\n    <figure class=\"article-image--large\n
  \     \n      \n        h-c-grid__col\n        h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3\n
  \       \n        \n      \"\n      >\n\n      \n      \n        \n        <img\n
  \           src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/1_vzk5oz0.max-1000x1000.png\"\n
  \       \n          alt=\"1\">\n        \n        </a>\n      \n    </figure>\n\n
  \ \n      </div>\n    </div>\n  \n\n\n\n\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-paragraph_advanced\"><p><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">This release of the OSS Recommendations Dashboard
  focuses on four primary features:</span></p>\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">1. </span><strong style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Visibility across
  the organization<br/></strong><span style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Understanding
  the challenge administrators face in overseeing numerous projects, the dashboard
  offers a comprehensive view that encapsulates all savings opportunities throughout
  the organization. </span></p>\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">2.</span><strong style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\"> Built-in filters
  for folders and projects<br/></strong><span style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">By
  highlighting the organizational structure, built-in filters facilitate easier interaction
  with relevant teams, making it easier to identify and act upon savings opportunities.</span></p>\n<p
  role=\"presentation\"><span style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">3. </span><strong
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Looker Studio for extendability<br/></strong><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Building on Looker Studio delivers  customizable
  analytics and reporting tools so that administrators can tailor their dashboard
  to meet their unique needs.</span></p>\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">4. </span><strong style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Gamification<br/></strong><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Gamification elements help to enhance user engagement
  and motivation, making routine project management a more interactive and rewarding
  experience.</span></p>\n<p><span style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">The OSS Recommendations
  Dashboard also includes a week-by-week line chart that  showcases projects that
  have successfully reduced their number of recommendations, and grouping recommendations
  by projects and folders is another feature that simplifies things for FinOps teams.
  The tool also ensures easy information access by allowing users to share dashboards
  and relevant data to a wider audience without having to navigate through excessive
  permissions.</span></p></div>\n<div class=\"block-image_full_width\">\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
  \ \n    <div class=\"article-module h-c-page\">\n      <div class=\"h-c-grid\">\n
  \ \n\n    <figure class=\"article-image--large\n      \n      \n        h-c-grid__col\n
  \       h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3\n        \n        \n      \"\n
  \     >\n\n      \n      \n        \n        <img\n            src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/2_XWIkkf0.max-1000x1000.png\"\n
  \       \n          alt=\"2\">\n        \n        </a>\n      \n    </figure>\n\n
  \ \n      </div>\n    </div>\n  \n\n\n\n\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-paragraph_advanced\"><p><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Architecturally, the OSS Recommendations Dashboard
  is built on Google Cloud and integrated with Active Assist. The solution taps into
  a mix of tools:</span></p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\" style=\"list-style-type:
  disc; vertical-align: baseline;\">\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">Cloud Scheduler</span></p>\n</li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\" style=\"list-style-type:
  disc; vertical-align: baseline;\">\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">Cloud Workflows</span></p>\n</li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\" style=\"list-style-type:
  disc; vertical-align: baseline;\">\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">Cloud Asset Inventory</span></p>\n</li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\" style=\"list-style-type:
  disc; vertical-align: baseline;\">\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span style=\"vertical-align:
  baseline;\">Active Assist Recommendations</span></p>\n</li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"
  style=\"list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;\">\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">BigQuery</span></p>\n</li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"
  style=\"list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;\">\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Looker Studio</span></p>\n</li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"
  style=\"list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;\">\n<p role=\"presentation\"><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Terraform</span></p>\n</li>\n</ul></div>\n<div
  class=\"block-image_full_width\">\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  \n    <div class=\"article-module
  h-c-page\">\n      <div class=\"h-c-grid\">\n  \n\n    <figure class=\"article-image--large\n
  \     \n      \n        h-c-grid__col\n        h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3\n
  \       \n        \n      \"\n      >\n\n      \n      \n        \n        <img\n
  \           src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/3_LmDSXUf.max-1000x1000.png\"\n
  \       \n          alt=\"3\">\n        \n        </a>\n      \n    </figure>\n\n
  \ \n      </div>\n    </div>\n  \n\n\n\n\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-paragraph_advanced\"><p><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Cloud Asset Inventory and Active Assist Recommendations
  are the dashboard’s foundational data sources. Cloud Scheduler and Workflows serve
  as the orchestration mechanisms, ensuring timely and consistent extraction of data
  into BigQuery. BigQuery manages and processes this data, setting the stage for Looker
  Studio to present and visualize these insights. To streamline the deployment process,
  we've encapsulated this design within a convenient Terraform module. For more on
  deploying this solution, refer to this </span><a href=\"https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/active-assist/tree/main/recommendations-dashboard\"
  rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; vertical-align:
  baseline;\">guide</span></a><span style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">.</span></p>\n<p><span
  style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">Google Cloud's Active Assist can help you optimize
  your cloud resource operations. Combined with the OSS Recommendations Dashboard
  can have a profound impact on  your FinOps team. By providing project-level visibility
  and an organization-wide perspective, the OSS Recommendations Dashboard helps FinOps
  teams have better control over cloud spending. Moreover, because it’s built on Terraform,
  you can implement this solution promptly, to start getting visibility into your
  cloud spending fast.</span></p>\n<p><span style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">If
  you’re eager for more insight into your Google Cloud spending and want to optimize
  your resources, the OSS Recommendations Dashboard provides not just clarity, but
  actionable intelligence. </span><a href=\"https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/active-assist/tree/main/recommendations-dashboard\"
  rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; vertical-align:
  baseline;\">Dive in</span></a><span style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\">, explore,
  and let your organization bask in the newfound savings!</span></p></div>"
carlessian_info:
  news_filer_version: 2
  newspaper: Google Cloud Blog
  macro_region: Technology
url: https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/cost-management/manage-cloud-costs-with-new-oss-recommendations-dashboard/
rss_fields:
- title
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author: Ben Good

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