Creating custom groups

Follow these steps to create custom groups:

1. From the main menu, navigate to Cloud tools > Custom Groups.

2. Click Create a group to start building the group structure.

3. On the Edit Group Structure page, set up the structure levels. Choose Tag Keys as Structure Levels.

1. Assign groups to the created structure levels. To create the groups, choose the New group functionality for the required structure level:

You can create groups using already existing tags or manually.

Example

Creating the structure automatically

It is possible to create Custom Groups automatically. The system can create groups for you based on existing tag combinations that match the defined structure levels.

Enable the following option when editing the structure for this automation:

If groups do not exist, they will automatically be created if automation is enabled and there is a matching tag combination in your infrastructure. This process constantly runs in the background. The group will also be created once you modify resource tags in Resources or you use Resource Rules. The mechanism does not automatically remove any existing groups.

When the automation is enabled, it is not possible to remove a group with resources assigned. Such a group would immediately be created again.

Removing empty groups automatically

Enable the following option to allow the system to automatically remove groups without resources and budgets:

Once enabled, the system will periodically scan your structure and remove groups that have no resources assigned and no budgets created.

Consider this setting if you want to have your structure maintained fully automatic.

Assigning resources to a group

Once the structure has been created, users can go back to Custom Groups to see all resources:

You will see the view shown below. The next step is to navigate to “Unassigned Resources”:

In unassigned resources, users will find all resources that are not assigned to groups.

Users can use filters to find resources in order to assign them to a specific group.

There are two possible ways to group resources:

• Assign resources to a group.

• Assign resources to multiple groups

Assigning resources to a group

If required, search for the resources. Then select the check boxes of the resources, click on “Move” and select the group:

Those resources are now assigned to the selected group and their entire resource spend will be fully associated with this group.

Assigned resources receive tags that reflect the group assignment structure. As an example, the resources assigned to group “Location-A” have the following tags:

Assigning resources to multiple groups

Assigning resources to multiple groups means that the spend of such resources will be split between selected groups according to the way users specify.

If required, search for the resources. Then, select the checkboxes and select Edit Allocation.

Specify the split details on the Split Allocation page:

Select the groups and provide an allocation percentage for each group.

Repeat the step to select groups and specify the allocation percentages. If this is done, select Save Cost Split:

The cost of those resources split will be assigned in the following way:

• 70% of the cost is assigned to the group emea > HR

• 30% of the cost is assigned to the group: krakow1

Users can see the split resources assigned to the groups provided. They are marked with the “Split” icon.

Managing group association

Resource group assignments can be managed through the following modules:

• Custom Groups - Go to the details of a resource and select View Cost Allocation.

• Resources - Go to the selected Resource Details page. Resource group assignment information is provided in the Groups section.

Custom groups allow you to define an organizational hierarchy (for reporting and budgeting) and govern cloud environments (resources running on Azure, AWS, and Office365 licenses).

With Custom Groups, you can build a hierarchical structure based on custom-defined dimensions, for example, departments, teams, or projects, and map resources.

Using custom groups

To keep the organizational assignments of a resource (tag) consistent with the tagging on the cloud provider environment, Custom Groups interfaces with the Tags and Resources. This allows you to ensure data consistency within the portal and within the cloud environments of Azure and AWS.

The built-in functionalities across Custom Groups and Resources allow users to decide how to handle those tag assignments (lock, allow overwrite, and so on) and are included as a framework that can be configured according to your requirements.

Prerequisites

Define the objectives

Before creating custom groups, ensure that you document the objectives for the structure. The common requirements that influence the setup of Custom Groups include the following:

Define the Group Structure

Custom Groups are structured in a way that they allow almost endless scenarios of an organizational setup. Therefore the horizontal (Groups) and vertical (Group Levels) structure must be defined:

Identify the Right Group Levels

Custom Groups use structure levels to define the levels of an organization, and are used to assign individual groups. Examples of common dimensions are:

• Company

• Location

• Department

• Team

• Service

These dimensions are directly mapped to Tags and Resources as tag keys. This allows you to directly synchronize between the portal and the Cloud Provider.

Identify the Right Groupings

Defining the group name is a bit more flexible than defining the dimensions. Group names correspond with the tag values and can be created and deleted at any time. Examples of common group names include:

• SoftwareOne (for Company)

• Switzerland (for Location)

• Marketing (for Department)

• Sales Area South (for Team)

• Mail (for Service)

You can assign one group across the same parent dimension to allow for cross-vertical reporting. For example:

• 1st dimension values for Location: Switzerland, USA, Brazil, and so on.

• 2nd dimension values for Department: Finance, HR, and so on.

This will allow reporting, budgeting, and chargeback by location including the corresponding departments (top-down), and run cross-vertical reporting by department (independent from location).

Scenarios

To better outline the link between the organizational requirements and the recommendation on how to structure your groups in Custom Groups, the following customer scenarios will be used throughout the document and reflect 3 examples:

Example I: Default Customer Scenario

This scenario represents organizations that are:

• Single company

• Flat structure

• Single Country

• Most likely department's view

• Changes to the organization are unlikely

In this case, the recommendation is to define two dimensions:

Example II: Enterprise Customer Scenario

This scenario represents organizations that are:

• Group of companies

• Requires support for M&A

• Multi-country

• Fragmented department structure

• Organization changes throughout the year

Example III: Service-Based Scenario

This scenario represents organizations that are:

• Services oriented

• Multi-customer (internal and external)

• Focus on release management

• Frequent on-/off-boarding

The recommendation is to define 3 dimensions:

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