Getting Started with Scopes

Common Usage Patterns

Projects with only Scopes

• Projects may contain one or more Scopes and no accounts
• This creates a clean financial boundary and is ideal for grouping alike resources that do not need additional account specific spend.
• Enables budgeting, reporting, and enforcement at the Scope level
• Compliance and access controls still require account-based projects, and this type of usage is only for financial-driven use cases.

Recommendation:

Use separate “operational” projects with traditional accounts mapped to them for compliance and identity features, and “financial” projects with Scope(s) only.

Projects with Scopes + Accounts

• Projects may include both Scopes and Accounts
• Enables consolidated reporting with granular ownership
• Any unscoped spend in the targeted accounts still contributes to the Project total
• Ideal if all spend is mapped into Scopes and each scope does not need its own budget. This allows the Kion account(s) to provide compliance, identity, and savings opportunities to the project.

Users will see additional changes to the UI to enhance clarity of which Accounts and Scopes are contributing to the Project's total.

Spend Reporting with Scopes

• Scopes appear as both a dimension and filter in spend reports
• Spend that does not belong to a scope will show up as “Unscoped spend”. This represents spend that is still sitting on the CSP account and does not match any criteria created.
  • Users can click into the hyperlinked spend on the detail tables to see further detail.

Creating and Managing Scopes

Creating a Scope

1. Navigate to Accounts & Scopes > All Scopes.
2. Click the Add button at the top-right to create a new Scope.
   • NOTE: If you don't see the Add button, you may not have permissions to create new scopes. You must be an Administrator or have the Manage Scopes global permission to create a new Scope.
3. On the Create Scope form, enter a Scope Name, Alias, and Description.
4. Select the Project where this Scope will be assigned.
5. Within the Timeframe section, select a Start Date for the scope. This will be the first month the Scope will be included in your financial data. Optionally select an End Date.
6. Within the Criteria section, select one or more Accounts that will be used as the source data for this Scope. Only data within these accounts will be used in processing this Scope. See Working with Criteria for more information on creating the appropriate criteria based on your needs.
7. Click the Create button to create the new Scope.

After creation, users have the ability to copy Scope criteria (with Text editor) or delete the Scope after it’s saved. Disabling or deleting a Scope does not modify cloud resources or impact underlying accounts.

Additionally, Scopes can be managed by using the filter options on the Scope List Page for easier navigation. Please note, reprioritization of Scopes via "Manage Scope Priority" will not allowed if active filters are present.

Moving a Scope Between Projects

1. Edit the Scope
2. Change the associated Project
3. Save the changes

No re-creation is required.

Data Processing and Timing

• Scope changes (create, edit, reprioritize) kick off a recomputing of financial data. These updates are not immediate, and any changes to spend will not be reflected until data has processed for a given month. Processing begins with the current month and moves backward chronologically. This means data will reflect in spend reports for the current month sooner and update for the oldest month last in the process.
  • A banner will display in Kion alerting users if any month is still in the middle of recomputing Scope spend.
  • During this time, time sensitive features like enforcements and scheduled reports could temporarily be altered depending on if Scopes have finished processing at the time of the trigger.
  • When deleting or creating new Scopes, there can be an interim state where the spend associated with the Scope is not reflected in the spend report UI. 
    • For example, if a Scope is deleted and contains $10K worth of spend, the Scope will be deleted from the system and spend reports, but since that $10K has yet to be redistributed, the spend will temporarily not be in spend reports.
      • Users can reference the invoice page on billing sources if there is a critical need for validating financial totals during the Scope processing phase.
• For new financials being available for Kion to ingest, that data will not be present in Kion until the completion of the entire financial process. This means Kion will ingest new data and process it to include Scopes before it's made available throughout the platform.
• Processing time varies based on the following. These are ranked in ~order of impact, greatest to least:
  • Start Date for Scopes (ex: scopes starting years ago will take significantly longer to process than Scopes dating back a year or less)
  • Number of Accounts chosen on the criteria (ex: a single account criteria processes fastest)
    • It is recommended that criteria only target the accounts required for optimal performance. Scopes with many accounts may cause delays in financials ingesting timely.
  • Environment size (billing sources, spend, etc.)
  • Size of the infrastructure Kion runs on
  • Number of Scopes
  • Criteria complexity (ex: a single service-based rule processes faster than resource identifiers or multi-group criteria)
• Larger environments with many Scopes may experience longer processing times.
• A banner will appear throughout the app to all users to indicate if Scope reprocessing is in progress. During this time, financials will reflect spend prior to making changes.
• Users not utilizing Scopes will not experience any changes in processing times or behavior.
• It is recommended that new Scope creation, edits, or deleting happens in the same session as much as possible. Each time a change is made, Kion needs to reprocess financials to account for any changes to financials. Grouping changes together will create the most efficient process for both the application and the impact to users.

Exact timing and sizing details are still being determined as customer adoption continues. For some customers with shorter Scope timelines and less complexity, Scopes may process in 5-20 min. For larger customers with many Scopes, adding or editing Scopes may generate processing times ranging from several hours to days. Updated guidance will be provided as this feature matures and Kion received additional benchmarking data.

Miscellaneous

• Labels
  • Scopes can not currently be labeled; projects and/or accounts can still be labeled as before.
  • In spend reporting, labels will default to accounts or projects (depending on where the label exists) and will ignore the Scope selection entirely.