Cost Assignment¶

Cloud billing data arrives as a single undivided total. Without Cost Assignment, you cannot tell which team, product, or client is responsible for which part of that spend — making chargeback, budgeting, and accountability impossible.

CloudPi Cost Assignment solves this through a three-layer model:

• Rules capture cloud costs by matching resources against criteria you define (account, tags, or attributes)
• Projects own those costs — each rule is linked to exactly one project, and a project rolls its rule costs into a single total
• Groups organize projects for visibility — a group's cost is the sum of all projects inside it

This hierarchy gives you a clean path from raw cloud spend all the way up to a client organization total.

Cloud Billing Data (AWS / Azure / GCP)
         │
         ▼
    [ Rules ]  ←── match by account, tag, or attribute
         │
         ▼
   [ Projects ]  ←── own the matched costs; linked to a Client Org
         │
         ▼
  [ Project Groups ]  ←── organize projects; sum child costs for display
         │
         ▼
  [ Client Organization ]  ←── top-level billing entity

Understanding Key Concepts¶

Rules¶

A rule is a filter definition that tells CloudPi which cloud resources belong to a project. Every cost that gets assigned starts with a rule.

Rules have three types:

Each rule also has:

• Priority (1–100): when two EXCLUSIVE rules match the same cost, the higher priority wins
• Exclusivity: EXCLUSIVE means a cost can only be counted once; SHARED means a cost can appear in multiple rules simultaneously

A rule is always linked to exactly one project. You cannot share a rule across projects.

Projects¶

A project is the unit of cost ownership in CloudPi. It represents a logical workload, team, or product line. All costs matched by a project's rules roll up into a single project total.

Key project properties:

A project's cost = the sum of all costs matched by all rules attached to that project.

Costs not matched by any rule appear as Unassigned at the organization level.

Project Groups¶

A project group is an organizational container for projects. It has no cost logic of its own — its total is simply the sum of costs from all projects inside it.

Groups exist to let you mirror your internal org structure. For example, you might have a group called Platform containing projects for your infrastructure, monitoring, and shared services.

Key group properties:

Every project must belong to a group. If no group is specified during project creation, a default group is used.

Client Organization¶

A client organization is the top-level billing entity — the AWS billing account, Azure tenant, or GCP organization that CloudPi is connected to. Projects are always linked to a specific client org, and all cost reporting flows up to this level.

Cost rollup summary:

Rule A  ─┐
Rule B  ──┼─→  Project X  ─┐
Rule C  ─┘                  │
                             ├─→  Group "Platform"  ─┐
Rule D  ─┐                  │                        │
Rule E  ──┼─→  Project Y  ─┘                        ├─→  Client Org Total
Rule F  ─┘                                           │
                                                      │
Rule G  ──→  Project Z  ──→  Group "Data"  ──────────┘

Assigned vs. Unassigned Costs¶

The Entity Totals panel on the Rules screen shows three numbers for your selected organization:

• Total Cost — all cloud charges for the selected org and months
• Assigned Cost — the portion captured by at least one rule
• Unassigned Cost — the remainder not yet matched by any rule

Your goal is to drive Unassigned Cost toward zero. A high unassigned amount usually means some accounts, tags, or resource types are not yet covered by a rule.

How To¶

Prerequisites¶

• Rules: RULES menu access (Read to view, Write to create/edit)
• Projects: PROJECTS menu access (Read to view, Write to create/edit)
• At least one cloud organization connected to your workspace
• Billing data available for the months you want to analyze

Step 1 — Open Cost Assignment¶

From the left navigation menu, go to Cost Assignment → Rules.

Create a Rule¶

Step 2 — Set Billing Context¶

Select your Cloud Provider, Organization, and Billed Month(s) at the top of the rule builder. Use the presets (Current Month, Last 3 Months) or pick individual months.

Step 3 — Choose Rule Type¶

Select Account-Based (A), Tag-Based (T), or Attribute-Based (B).

Step 4 — Define Filters¶

Account-Based (A):

• Select a Subaccount (required)
• Optionally add Region, Resource Group (Azure), and up to 3 Tag filters

Tag-Based (T):

• Add one or more Tag key:value pairs — at least one required

Attribute-Based (B):

• Select one or more attributes and choose the values to match:
• Service, Category, Resource Type, Service Category, Usage Type, Commitment Discount

Step 5 — Preview Matching Costs¶

Click Apply to refresh the Filter Preview in the Cost Overview panel on the right.

Step 6 — Set Rule Options (Optional)¶

Step 7 — Create the Rule¶

Click Create Rule, select the Project to link it to, and confirm. The rule appears immediately in the Rules table.

Monitor Rules in the Rules Table¶

The Rules Table below the rule builder shows all rules in your workspace:

Create a Project Group¶

You need at least one group before creating a project. Groups can also be created inline during project creation.

1. Go to Cost Assignment → Projects
2. Click + Create New Project
3. In the Project Group field, click Create New Group
4. Enter a group name (alphanumeric and underscores only)
5. Save the group — it is now available in the dropdown

Create a Project¶

1. Go to Cost Assignment → Projects
2. Click + Create New Project
3. Fill in the required fields:

1. Optionally configure:
2. Recommendations — enable cost optimization suggestions (on by default)
3. Remediation — enable automated remediation (on by default, requires Recommendations on)
4. Self Rule — auto-assigns any resource tagged with this project's ID
5. Sync Type — sync cost data now or later
6. Optionally invite users (Project Admin or Project User) and select a project icon
7. Click Create Project

The project appears under its group accordion with its current-month cost total.

View Cost Rollup by Group¶

1. Go to Cost Assignment → Projects
2. Each accordion = one Project Group
3. The accordion header shows: group name, project count, and total group cost (sum of all child project costs for the current month)
4. Expand the accordion to see individual project rows

View a Project's Rules¶

1. Go to Cost Assignment → Projects
2. Find the project and expand its row
3. The expanded view shows all attached rules with rule name, type, exclusivity, scope summary, and status

Edit a Rule¶

1. Find the rule in the Rules Table and click the Edit icon
2. Adjust filters, name, priority, or exclusivity
3. Click Update Rule

Cloud Provider and Organization cannot be changed in edit mode.

Edit a Project¶

1. Find the project in the Projects table and click the Edit action
2. Update description, rules, group, recommendations, or remediation settings
3. Save changes

Cloud Provider and Organization cannot be changed after project creation.

Delete a Rule or Project¶

Delete a rule: Click the Delete icon in the Rules Table and confirm. The rule's matched costs return to Unassigned.

Delete a project: Click the Delete action in the Projects Table and confirm. All rules linked to that project become unlinked and their costs return to Unassigned.

FAQ¶

Q: What is the difference between a Rule, a Project, and a Group?

A rule defines the filter that matches cloud resources (which costs belong here). A project owns those costs — it is the destination rules flow into, and it is linked to a client organization. A group organizes projects for display and sums their costs; it has no cost logic of its own. The full chain is: Rules → Project → Group → Client Org.

Q: How is a Project Group's cost calculated?

A group's cost is the sum of costs from all projects inside it, aggregated at display time. It is not stored separately. If you move a project to a different group, the cost moves with it immediately.

Q: What is the difference between Billed Cost, Effective Cost, and List Cost?

Billed Cost is what your cloud provider charged you for the period. Effective Cost applies amortized reserved instance or savings plan discounts. List Cost is the on-demand (MSRP) price before discounts. Your workspace administrator sets which type is active — it applies to all rules and cannot be changed per rule.

Q: Can a rule be linked to more than one project?

No. Each rule links to exactly one project. Create separate rules with appropriate filters if you need to assign similar costs to multiple projects.

Q: Can the same cost appear in two different projects?

Only if both matching rules are set to SHARED exclusivity. If both are EXCLUSIVE, only the higher-priority rule's project receives the cost. Use SHARED deliberately — for example, shared infrastructure that legitimately belongs to multiple teams.

Q: What happens to costs when I delete a rule or project?

Deleting a rule returns its matched costs to Unassigned. Deleting a project unlinks all its rules — their costs also return to Unassigned. The rules themselves are not deleted, but they are no longer linked to any project.

Q: Why can't I change the Cloud Provider or Organization on an existing rule or project?

These fields define which billing data source the rule or project reads from. Changing them would silently re-scope all historical cost data, causing inconsistencies in reports. Create a new rule or project for a different provider or org.

Q: What does "Unassigned" cost mean?

Unassigned cost is the portion of your cloud billing data not captured by any rule. Review the Dimension Costs panel to see which subaccounts, tags, or resource types are uncovered, then create rules for each. The goal is to drive Unassigned close to zero.

Q: Why does my Filter Preview show $0?

• The selected Billed Month(s) may not have ingested data yet — check Dimension Costs to confirm data exists
• Tag-Based rules are case-sensitive — verify tag keys and values match your cloud tags exactly
• For Account-Based rules, confirm the subaccount belongs to the selected organization
• Click Apply after any filter change — the preview does not refresh automatically

Q: What is rule Priority and when should I change it?

Priority determines which EXCLUSIVE rule wins when two rules match the same cost. Higher numbers are evaluated first. The default of 50 works for most cases. Set a specific rule to priority 90 and a broad catch-all rule to priority 30 so the specific rule always wins.

Q: What is the Self Rule option on a project?

Self Rule automatically assigns any cloud resource tagged with this project's ID to the project, without a separately defined rule. Useful when your team already tags resources with project identifiers at provisioning time.

Q: Can I assign the same project to multiple groups?

No. Each project belongs to exactly one group. Edit the project and select a different group from the dropdown to reorganize.

Q: How often do cost totals refresh?

Cost totals update each time CloudPi ingests new billing data from your cloud provider — typically daily. Intra-day changes are not reflected until the next ingestion cycle.

Q: What are wildcard or pattern-based filters?

Some filter fields support * as a wildcard — for example, prod-* matches prod-api, prod-db, and any other value starting with prod-. Regex patterns are available in advanced configurations — contact your workspace administrator.

Q: I do not see the Create Rule or Create New Project button. Why?

Both buttons require Write permission for their respective menus (RULES and PROJECTS). If you only have Read access, you can view and preview but not create or edit. Contact your workspace administrator to request Write access.