Issues & annotations
Dated notes on spend, and a lightweight issue tracker for cost work with Jira push.
Issues & annotations
Keep the story behind a cost change next to the numbers, and track who is doing something about it.
- An annotation is a dated note on your spend, shown as a marker on Cost Explorer charts.
- An issue is a to-do about cost: investigate a spike, fix tagging, act on a saving. It has an owner, comments and a status.
- High and critical anomalies and budget alerts create an annotation and an issue for you automatically, once each.
- Cost alerts add an annotation for every event.
- You can push an issue to Jira once Jira is connected.
Annotations
A cost chart shows what changed but not why. An annotation records the why: "Migrated the data warehouse on the 12th". Everyone in your organisation can see it.
Add one in Cost Explorer
What you see
- Marker icons on chart columns that have notes.
- In the panel: the date, the text, who added it ("added by CostGlass" for automatic ones), a scope tag, a tag showing the source (Cost alert, Anomaly, Budget or System), and a View issue link when one exists.
- Resolve hides a note from the list once it no longer matters. Anyone can resolve.
- Delete is for the author, owners and admins. An issue opened from the note stays.
Automatic issues and annotations
| Source | Annotation | Issue |
|---|---|---|
| High or critical anomaly | Yes, with the date and how far above expected. | Yes, category Anomaly, once per anomaly. |
| Budget alert | Yes, once per budget and month. | Yes, category Budget. |
| Cost alert event | Yes, for every event. | No. The annotation links to the alert event instead. |
| You | When you add one. | Only if you tick Also open an issue. |
Medium anomalies do not create issues. You can create one yourself at any time.
Issues
The Issues page
Open Plan & Control then Issues. Tabs Open and Closed show counts. Filter with the search box, Category and Assignee (anyone, Assigned to me or a person). Click an issue to open its panel.
Create an issue
Working an issue
- Mark as resolved closes it; Reopen brings it back. Edit changes the fields.
- Write in the comment box and click Comment. Assignees and subscribers are emailed.
- Subscribe / Unsubscribe follows an issue without being assigned.
- The panel links to the annotation, anomaly or budget behind it.
- Delete (owners and admins) removes the issue and its comments permanently.
A critical anomaly appears on a database service. CostGlass opens an issue in the Anomaly category. You assign it to the platform engineer, who comments with the cause (a runaway job), fixes it, and clicks Mark as resolved. The note on the chart keeps the history for anyone who asks later.
Emails
Emails go to people you assign, and to assignees and subscribers when someone comments, resolves or reopens. The person who made the change is never emailed about their own action.
Jira
Once Jira is connected under Settings, Notifications (see Notifications), an open issue shows a Push to Jira button. It creates one Jira issue with the title, description, category and estimated saving. Pressing it again does not create a duplicate; it returns the existing one. If Jira is not connected, the button is not offered.
Limits
- 5,000 annotations and 5,000 issues per organisation, and 500 comments per issue.
- Descriptions and comments are plain text.
- Up to 10 assignees per issue.