Saved views, saved filters & scheduled emails
Keep, share and email the Cost Explorer views you use often, and reuse include/exclude filters across views and reports.
Saved views, saved filters & scheduled emails
Keep the Cost Explorer views you use often, share them with your team, email them on a schedule, and reuse the same include/exclude filters across views and reports.
Where in CostGlassCosts → Explorer → + Add Filter → Saved views & scheduled reports
PlanAll plans
Who can do thisAnyone can save and email themselves. Owners and admins can also manage shared views.
Time needed10 minutes
In short
- A saved view remembers the grouping, range and filters you had on screen. It is private to you, or shared with everyone in your organisation.
- A saved view can be emailed daily, weekly or monthly to colleagues, and posted as a short digest to Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- A saved filter is a named list of includes and excludes (Cloud, Service, Region, Account) that many views and reports can reuse. Edit it once and every view, report and scheduled email that uses it changes at its next run.
- Filters always apply together: a row has to match all of them. If a filter a scheduled email depends on is deleted, the email fails with a clear reason instead of sending unfiltered numbers.
- Emails run as the person who created the schedule and never show data beyond what their access allows.
Before you begin
- Some data in Cost Explorer. See the Cost Explorer guide.
- For scheduled emails: recipients must be active members of your organisation. Invite people first in Settings, Team.
- For Slack or Teams digests: an incoming webhook URL from your workspace.
Views, filters and reports: what is the difference?
- Saved view
- A whole Cost Explorer page state: grouping, time range, cost basis, filters, search, chart type. Opening it restores the page. It can be scheduled.
- Saved filter
- Only the filtering part: up to eight lists (Cloud, Service, Region, Account, each include and exclude). It has no date range and no grouping, which is why it is reusable.
- Scheduled email
- A saved view plus a time. Each time it is due, CostGlass runs the view and emails the summary.
Tip
Use a saved filter for a business idea that many views share, such as "Production accounts" or "Everything except Support". Use a saved view for a particular question, such as "Compute by region, last 3 months".
Save a view
1
Set up the page
In Cost Explorer choose the grouping, range and filters you want to keep.
2
Open the saved views panel
Press + Add Filter to open the filter tray, then expand Saved views & scheduled reports at the bottom.
3
Press Save current view
A dialog titled Save current view opens.
4
Name it and choose who sees it
Type a Name (up to 120 characters; you cannot have two views with the same name). Tick Share with everyone in my organisation to share it. Colleagues see the filters, never your data access: they only see the data they are allowed to see.
5
Press Save
A "View saved" message appears and the view is listed in the panel.
Limits
Each person can save up to 50 views and have up to 20 scheduled reports.
What a saved view can and cannot hold
A saved view stores the grouping (Service, Account, Region, Charge Category, Instance Type, Operating System, Commitment / Purchase Model, Kubernetes, or a cloud Tag), one of the standard ranges (7D to YTD), cost basis, cloud/account/service/region filters (single and multi-select, include and exclude), saved filters, table search, chart type and lens. It does not currently accept a Custom Date Range, a non-default credits mode, virtual tag grouping or filters, or Usage Meter grouping. If your view uses one of these, saving is refused with a message such as "'cr' is not a Cost Explorer setting". Switch those off, or share a Copy Permalink link instead, which can hold them. Daily or monthly is decided by the range: 7D, 30D, Current Month and Last Month are daily, longer ranges are monthly.
Open, update, rename, share, pin and delete
Each saved view is a row with these controls:
| Control | What it does | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| ☆ / ★ star | Pins the view to the top of the list. | Views you can manage |
| SHARED | A small tag on views shared with the organisation. Shared views from others show "by [name]". | Everyone |
| Open | Applies the view to the page. | Everyone who can see the view |
| Send to me | Emails this view to your own address right now. A 30-second wait applies between sends of the same view. | Everyone who can see the view |
| Schedule | Opens the schedule dialog (below). | The creator, and owners/admins for shared views |
| Rename / share | Change the name or switch sharing on or off. | The creator, and owners/admins for shared views |
| Update to current | Replaces the view's saved filters with what is on screen now. Use it after you adjust a view. | The creator, and owners/admins for shared views |
| Delete | Removes the view and its email schedule after you confirm. | The creator, and owners/admins for shared views |
Private means private
A private view cannot be seen, opened or deleted by anyone else, not even an owner. Owners and admins manage only shared views of colleagues. If you save a view as shared, every saved filter it uses must also be shared (see below), otherwise others could not open it correctly.
Email a view on a schedule
1
Press Schedule
On the saved view row. A dialog titled Email "your view name" opens.
2
How often
Choose Every day, Every week (then pick the Day) or Monthly, on the 1st.
3
Time (UTC)
Pick the hour. All times are in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which is the same as London in winter and one hour behind London in summer.
4
Recipients
Tick up to 10 active members of your organisation. If the team list cannot be loaded you can type addresses instead. Anyone who is not an active member, or who can see less data than you, is refused.
5
Slack or Teams (optional)
Under the recipients, add up to 5 Slack or Microsoft Teams channels: give each a label and paste its webhook URL. Webhook URLs are write-only; after saving you only see the last four characters, and leaving the box blank keeps the saved one.
6
Turn it on and save
Leave Schedule is on ticked and press Save schedule. You need at least one recipient or channel. To stop, press Remove schedule, or untick Schedule is on to pause it.
What the email contains
The subject is "[CostGlass] view name: total". The body shows the total in US dollars, the change against the previous period of the same length, the top ten rows of the view with their spend and share, and an Open this view button that opens the same view in Cost Explorer. Amounts are in US dollars as billed. Slack and Teams digests are shorter: total, change, the top five items and the top three movers, with a link.
How scheduling behaves
- No back-dating. Creating a schedule never sends for a time that already passed. The first email goes out at the next scheduled time.
- One try per slot. If a send fails, the next attempt is at the next slot. The view row shows "Emailed weekly on Monday at 07:00 UTC" and "last: [status]" so you can see what happened.
- Runs as the creator. The numbers are calculated with the creator's access. If the creator is later disabled, the report stops and says so.
- Who may receive it. Recipients must be active in your organisation and able to see at least what the creator sees: not limited to a part of the organisation, or limited to the same part as the creator. This prevents a scoped person from being sent data outside their scope.
- Spend lens only. Views switched to an AI token lens cannot be scheduled.
- Fresh figures. Each run recalculates; it does not reuse a cached answer.
Saved filters
A saved filter stores your include and exclude lists. It is applied on top of whatever else is on screen, so it narrows the view.
Create one
1
Choose your filters
Open the filter tray and set Cloud, Service, Region and Account filters as you want them (include and exclude). Single-value quick filters are also saved.
2
Press Save current filters as…
It appears beside Saved filters once at least one filter is set.
3
Name it
Give it a Name (up to 120 characters, unique across your organisation) and optional Description. Tick the sharing box to make it visible to the whole organisation; otherwise it is Private.
4
Save
It is saved and applied immediately. Each person can keep up to 100.
Note
Virtual tag filters are not part of a saved filter (they are only the four lists above).
Apply, edit, duplicate, delete
Press Saved filters in the tray to open the list. Each filter shows its name, who owns it, whether it is shared, a summary of its contents and "Used by N view(s)/report(s)".
| Action | How | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Apply | Tick the checkbox. A chip appears beside the button. | Up to 5 at once. Remove one with the ✕ on its chip. |
| Duplicate | Press the copy icon. | Creates a private copy named "(copy)". Anyone who can see a filter can duplicate it. |
| Rename or share | Press the pencil icon. | Only the creator, or an owner/admin for a shared filter. |
| Replace this filter's definition with the filters on screen | Link under the filter, shown when filters are set on screen. | Every view and report using it changes at its next run (the confirmation says so). |
| Delete | Press the bin icon. | If it is in use you are told how many views or reports depend on it. See "When a filter is deleted". |
How filters combine (AND)
Think of every filter as a rule. A cost line must pass all rules to be counted.
- Includes intersect. If one filter includes services A and B and another includes B and C, only B passes.
- Excludes add up. If one filter excludes X and another excludes Y, both X and Y are removed.
- Includes and excludes together. Something both included and excluded is removed.
- No overlap, no data. If two includes have nothing in common, the result is empty rather than ignoring one of them.
- Saved filters combine with the filters on screen in the same way.
Example
Filter "Production" includes accounts prod-1 and prod-2. Filter "Not support" excludes the service Support. Applying both shows production accounts without support charges. Adding the on-screen filter Cloud: AWS narrows it to AWS only.
Sharing and what can use a shared filter
- A private filter is yours alone. A shared filter is visible to everyone in your organisation, editable by its creator and by owners and admins.
- A shared view or shared report can use only shared filters. You cannot attach a private filter to something you share.
- You cannot make a shared filter private again while shared views or reports, or other people's views, still use it. The message lists which ones.
When a filter is deleted or stops being visible
Scheduled emails fail rather than send wrong numbers
A view or report always looks up its saved filters when it runs. If one has been deleted, or is no longer shared with the person the report runs as, the run fails and records the reason (for example in the schedule's "last:" status). It does not skip the filter and email unfiltered spend. Fix it by removing the missing filter from the view, restoring the filter, or sharing it again.
When you delete a filter that is in use, CostGlass tells you how many views and reports use it and asks you to confirm. If you confirm, it is unlinked and removed; the affected views and any scheduled emails then fail until you edit them.
On the Cost Explorer page, an applied filter that is gone or not shared with you shows as an unavailable chip with the note that the data below is not filtered by it. Remove the chip.
Where saved filters apply
Cost Explorer and the saved reports in Reports use them. They are not applied to Kubernetes namespace allocations or to the savings badges in Cost Explorer.
Recipes
Weekly cost digest for the finance team
1
Build the view
Group by Service Name, range Last Month (or Last 30 Days), no filters.
2
Save it as shared
Name it "Finance: monthly services" and tick the sharing box.
3
Schedule it
Press Schedule, choose Monthly, on the 1st at 07:00 UTC, tick the finance team, Save schedule.
4
Check
Press Send to me to see exactly what they will receive.
One definition of production, used everywhere
1
Filter
Open Account in the filter tray, choose is, tick your production accounts.
2
Save as a filter
Press Save current filters as…, name it "Production" and share it.
3
Reuse
Apply "Production" in any view or report. When an account joins production, edit the filter once and every view, report and scheduled email follows.
A Slack digest every Monday
1
Create a Slack incoming webhook
In Slack, create an incoming webhook for the channel and copy its URL.
2
Schedule the view
In the schedule dialog choose Every week, Monday, a time. Under channels press Slack, enter a label and paste the webhook URL.
3
Save
You can have email recipients, channels, or both.
FAQ
Why does saving my view say a setting is not a Cost Explorer setting?
The view includes something saved views do not hold yet, such as a custom date range, a credits mode other than Net of credits, virtual tag grouping or filters, or Usage Meter grouping. Change it back or share a Copy Permalink link instead.
Can I email a view to someone outside my organisation?No. Recipients must be active members of your organisation. Add them as a team member first, or forward the email yourself.
Why did my scheduled email not arrive?Open the saved views panel and read the "last:" status on the view. Common reasons: a recipient is no longer active, a saved filter was deleted, or the creator was disabled. Remember times are in UTC.
Why did I not get an email the moment I created the schedule?A new schedule never sends for a time that already passed. Use Send to me to receive one now.
Can a colleague see my data through a shared view?No. A shared view shares only the settings. Everyone sees data according to their own access.
Do I have to use saved filters?No. Views already store the filters on screen. Saved filters are for reuse and central editing.
What happens to a view when I change my mind about a filter?Change the filters on the page and press Update to current. The view keeps its name, sharing and schedule.
Are Slack and Teams digests sent in my currency?Emails and digests are in US dollars as billed, regardless of your display currency.