Outcome
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to pick the right showback dimension based on the audience question, describe the underlying data source for each, and combine dimensions when a question requires more than one.
| Tier | Architect |
| JTBD | ”Answer a cost question with the least-complex view that actually answers it.” |
| Personas | FinOps Lead · Engineering Leader · Finance Partner |
| Prerequisites | T0, Foundations · M3.1, RBAC · M3.4: Multi-account |
| Time | 9 minutes |
| Bloom verb | Pick (Evaluate), Describe (Understand), Combine (Apply) |
1. Concept
Showback: the practice of reporting cost back to the team or unit that incurred it; has three primary dimensions in ZopNight: Organisation (rollup), Teams (per-team accountability), and Tags (flexible attribute-driven breakdown). Picking the right dimension upfront is what makes the resulting report actually answer the question.
DIMENSION USE WHEN EXAMPLE──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────Organisation Org-wide rollup needed "What did we spend?"Teams Per-team accountability "Which teams overspent?"Tags Per-attribute breakdown "Which cost-center burned $?"Each dimension has its sweet spot. Mixing dimensions adds complexity; pick the simplest that answers the question, and only combine when the question truly requires both.
Each dimension’s data source
DIMENSION UNDERLYING TABLE AGGREGATION──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────Organisation cost_records (raw) summed by orgTeams cost_allocation_daily where dimension_ type='team'Tags cost_allocation_daily where dimension_ type='tag'Internally, ZopNight computes daily allocations into a single cost_allocation_daily table with a dimension_type column. Reports query this table with filters. The three dimensions are not separate data pipelines; they are different filters on the same allocation engine, which is what makes combining them tractable.
Decision tree
"What's our total spend?" → Organisation"How is each team spending?" → Teams"How is each cost_center spending?" → Tags (key=cost_center)"How is each environment doing?" → Tags (key=environment)"What's per-team breakdown by tag?" → Teams + Tags combined"Which environment is the platform team's spend concentrated in?" → Teams + Tags combined"How much did this marketing campaign cost?" → Tags (key=campaign)"What did the data team spend on RDS?" → Teams + service filterThe right dimension follows from the noun in the question. “Team” implies Teams; “environment” or “cost-center” implies Tags; “we” or “org” implies Organisation.
Question-first design
A common mistake is to start with the report layout (“let’s build a per-environment dashboard”) and then figure out what it answers. Question-first works better:
1. Write the question in plain English2. Identify the noun (team / cost-center / environment / org / etc.)3. Pick the dimension that has that noun4. Build the reportWhen you cannot pick a dimension cleanly, the question is probably two questions in one: split them.
Combining dimensions
QUESTION COMBINATION──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────"Platform team's spend by cost-center" Teams (filter=platform) + Tags (group by cost-center)
"Prod environment spend by team" Tags (filter env=prod) + Teams (group by team)
"Q2 marketing campaign: which teams Tags (filter campaign=Q2) +participated and how much?" Teams (group by team)The pattern: one dimension filters, the other groups. Three-way combinations are possible but rarely useful; if you need three dimensions, the report is probably too dense.
What ZopNight surfaces by dimension
DIMENSION PRIMARY SURFACE SECONDARY VIEWS──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────Organisation Reports → Org overview Per-cloud, per-OU, time-seriesTeams Reports → Teams Per-team trend, vs budget, top resources within teamTags Reports → Tags Filter by key + value; top tag values; coverageEach surface has consistent UX patterns: filters at the top, summary at left, breakdown chart in the middle, drill table at the bottom.
Audience-to-dimension mapping
AUDIENCE DEFAULT DIMENSION──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────Executive (monthly review) Organisation (rollup)Finance (budget vs actual) Organisation + Teams (with chargeback math)FinOps Lead All three (depending on the question of the week)Engineering Leader Teams (their teams' health)Platform Engineer Teams (scoped to their team)Compliance / Audit Tags (compliance-scope tags)Marketing (campaign cost) Tags (campaign key)The mapping is not strict: a FinOps Lead might present an Organisation rollup to the executive team and a Teams view to the engineering team in the same week. But the default surfaces by audience are stable.
How ZopNight uses the dimensions
The Reports section in ZopNight’s UI is organized around these three dimensions. Reports → Org Overview is the rollup landing; Reports → Teams is the team-scoped landing; Reports → Tags is the flexible attribute landing. Each report has consistent filters (time range, account, environment); the data underneath comes from the same allocation engine.
For a new analyst onboarding, the recommended exploration order is: Org Overview (orientation) → Teams (where the money goes) → Tags (deeper attribution). Within a quarter, the analyst should be comfortable switching dimensions to answer questions in real-time during meetings.
2. Demo
Three meetings, three different dimensions:
MONDAY: Exec monthly review AUDIENCE: CEO, CFO, CTO QUESTION: "Cloud cost trend MoM?" DIMENSION: Organisation REPORT: Reports → Org Overview HEADLINE: "Total $2.1M (-3% MoM); driven by ml-infra rightsizing" TIME: 5-minute slot
TUESDAY: Engineering leadership review AUDIENCE: Engineering Leaders + FinOps Lead QUESTION: "Which teams are growing fastest?" DIMENSION: Teams REPORT: Reports → Teams (trended over 90 days) HEADLINE: "ml-infra +30% YoY, data +8%, platform -5%" TIME: 20-minute slot, with discussion of ml-infra growth
WEDNESDAY: Marketing post-campaign review AUDIENCE: Marketing + Finance QUESTION: "Q2 campaign cost?" DIMENSION: Tags (key=campaign, value=Q2-launch) REPORT: Reports → Tags → filter HEADLINE: "$14,200 total; 78% on Lambda, 22% CDN egress" TIME: 10-minute slot, with ROI discussion vs revenueThree audiences, three dimensions, three reports: all from the same underlying cost data.
3. Hands-on (6 min)
For your team’s monthly cost review, write the questions in order:
QUESTION 1 (typically the headline): __________________________________________________________ Best dimension: __________
QUESTION 2 (where is the cost concentrated): __________________________________________________________ Best dimension: __________
QUESTION 3 (compare to budget or prior period): __________________________________________________________ Best dimension: __________
QUESTION 4 (drill into the anomaly, if any): __________________________________________________________ Best dimension: __________
If you find yourself wanting "all three dimensions for question 2",the question is probably actually multiple questions: split it.4. Knowledge check
Q1
“Which team overspent against budget?” Best dimension:
A. Organisation rollup
B. Teams: the noun is “team,” and budget data is team-scoped. Reports → Teams with the budget overlay surfaces who is over and by how much.
C. Tags
D. Random account
Show answer
Correct: B. Team-scoped question; Teams dimension. The budget data is team-attached in ZopNight.
Q2
“Per-environment spend breakdown” requires:
A. Organisation
B. Tags with key=environment, group by value (dev/staging/prod). Environment isn’t a team: it’s an attribute that applies across teams.
C. Teams
D. Account isolation
Show answer
Correct: B. Environment is a tag-driven attribute; Tags is the right dimension. Multiple teams might have prod resources; tag attribution sums them.
Q3
A question requires “platform team’s spend by cost-center”:
A. Single dimension
B. Combined: filter to team=platform (Teams), group by tag cost-center (Tags). The Reports UI supports this composition via the “Group by” + filter chain.
C. Cannot be answered
D. Random
Show answer
Correct: B. Combined dimensions handle multi-attribute questions. One dimension filters; the other groups.
5. Apply
Reports surfaces each dimension as a tab: Reports → Org, Reports → Teams, Reports → Tags. Filters apply consistently across all three.
For recurring reports, save the configured filter as a dashboard widget (M3.7).
Related lessons
- L2: Team attribution and shared resources (next)
- L3: Tag attribution
- L4: Tag coverage
- L5: Unit economics
- T3.M3.4.L4: Rollup vs isolation
Glossary terms touched
Showback · Chargeback · Allocation dimension · cost_allocation_daily