The "Understand the terms in your Azure usage and charges file" doc seems outdated

Lukasz Opasiak 21 Reputation points
2021-11-16T09:55:39.793+00:00

Hello.

During my work on cost analysis I noticed the exported cost files are not fully compatible with fields presented in https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/understand/understand-usage#list-of-terms-and-descriptions

Differences for PAYG:

Fields mentioned in docs that are missing in generated cost file:

  • AccountName (EA, PAYG)
  • AccountOwnerId (EA, PAYG)
  • BillingPeriod (EA, PAYG)
  • Cost (EA, PAYG)
  • InvoiceId (PAYG, MCA)
  • PartNumber (EA, PAYG)
  • PlanName (EA, PAYG)
  • ResourceName (EA, PAYG)
  • UnitPrice (EA, PAYG)
  • BillingAccountId (All)
  • BillingAccountName (All)
  • BillingCurrency (All)
  • BillingPeriodEndDate (All)
  • BillingPeriodStartDate (All)
  • BillingProfileId (All)
  • BillingProfileName (All)
  • ChargeType (All)
  • Date (All)
  • EffectivePrice (All)
  • Frequency (All)
  • IsAzureCreditEligible (All)
  • PayGPrice (All)
  • PricingModel (All)
  • Product (All)
  • ProductOrderId (All)
  • ProductOrderName (All)
  • PublisherName (All)
  • PublisherType (All)
  • Quantity (All)
  • ResourceId (All)
  • SubscriptionId (All)
  • SubscriptionName (All)
  • Term (All)

Fields available in file that are missing in docs:

  • SubscriptionGuid
  • UsageDateTime
  • UsageQuantity
  • ResourceRate
  • PreTaxCost
  • ServiceName
  • ServiceTier

These are the differences for the PAYG cost file only. It makes working with and analysing these cost files hard, because it's impossible to know what to expect without actual files.
Is it possible to update this doc?

I believe this ticket is a bit similar to https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/answers/questions/330914/azure-billing-export-csv-format-differences.html.

Azure Cost Management
Azure Cost Management
A Microsoft offering that enables tracking of cloud usage and expenditures for Azure and other cloud providers.
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  1. Monalla-MSFT 12,861 Reputation points
    2021-11-18T19:55:21.46+00:00

    Hello @Lukasz Opasiak - Thanks for reaching out.

    That doc explains the fields that are available from cost analysis, UsageDetails API, and scheduled exports.

    And we are not clear exactly whether you're talking about cost analysis downloads, invoice usage downloads, or scheduled exports.

    If you are referring to Cost Analysis , then see below :
    Cost analysis doesn't support all fields and generally works by grouping and aggregating data. When data is aggregated, we won't show all fields. If they want all fields, they need to use Exports or the UsageDetails API.

    For instance, when we group by resource group, we can't show the resource details because that would result in more rows than there are resource groups. There are also cases where we don't have resource groups (like a reservation purchase) and this is when people end up with a null or empty string value for the resource group name.

    Hope this helps.

    If the above response helped, please feel free to "Accept as Answer" so it can be beneficial to the community.

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