FinOps Cost Dashboard Setup with Power BI

Step-by-step guide to building an executive FinOps dashboard in Power BI for multi-cloud cost visibility across Azure, OCI, and AWS.

January 10, 2025

12 min read

FinOpsPower BIReportingMulti-CloudAzureOCI

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📊 Build Your FinOps Control Center

Build a comprehensive FinOps dashboard in Power BI to track cloud spending, trends, and optimization opportunities across your multi-cloud environment.

🎯 What You'll Build

A single-pane-of-glass dashboard showing:

Total Cloud Spend

Aggregated costs across all platforms with historical trends

Cost Trends

Month-over-month and year-over-year comparisons

Environment Breakdown

Costs segmented by production vs non-production

Top 10 Resources

Most expensive resources at a glance

Budget vs Actual

Real-time alerts when approaching budget limits

Cost per Team

Chargeback reports using tag-based attribution

📋 Prerequisites

•Power BI Desktop (free version works)
•Access to Azure Cost Management, OCI Cost Analysis, or AWS Cost Explorer
•Basic understanding of Power BI and DAX
•Azure AD permissions for Cost Management API (Reader role)

🏗️ Architecture Overview

Azure Cost Data → Azure Cost Management Connector
OCI Cost Data → OCI API → CSV Export → Power BI
                                          ↓
                                    Power BI Dashboard
                                          ↓
                                  Publish to Power BI Service
                                          ↓
                              Share with Stakeholders

Step 1: Set Up Azure Cost Management Connector

Option A: Direct Azure Connector (Recommended)

1.Open Power BI Desktop
2.Click Get Data → Azure → Azure Cost Management
3.Sign in with Azure AD credentials
4.
Select Scope:
- Management Group (for multi-subscription)
- Subscription ID
- Resource Group
5.Configure Date Range: Start Date: 2024-01-01, End Date: Today, Granularity: Daily

Option B: Cost Management Export (For Automation)

Set up automated exports:

Create Azure Cost Exportbash

# Azure CLI: Create cost export
az costmanagement export create \
  --name "monthly-costs" \
  --scope "/subscriptions/YOUR-SUB-ID" \
  --schedule-recurrence "Monthly" \
  --recurrence-period from="2025-01-01" to="2025-12-31" \
  --storage-account-id "/subscriptions/.../storageAccounts/costsexport" \
  --storage-container "exports" \
  --definition type="ActualCost" timeframe="MonthToDate"

Then connect Power BI to the storage account.

Step 2: Import OCI Cost Data

OCI doesn't have a direct Power BI connector, so use CSV exports:

Generate OCI Cost Report via CLI

oci-cost-export.shbash

#!/bin/bash
# oci-cost-export.sh

TENANCY_ID="ocid1.tenancy.oc1..aaa..."
COMPARTMENT_ID="ocid1.compartment.oc1..aaa..."
START_DATE="2024-01-01"
END_DATE="2025-01-31"

# Get usage report
oci usage-api usage-summary request-summarized-usages \
  --tenant-id "$TENANCY_ID" \
  --time-usage-started "$START_DATE" \
  --time-usage-ended "$END_DATE" \
  --granularity DAILY \
  --query-type COST \
  --compartment-depth 5 \
  --group-by='["service","compartmentName"]' \
  --output table > oci-costs.csv

Import CSV to Power BI

1.Power BI Desktop → Get Data → Text/CSV
2.Select oci-costs.csv
3.Click Transform Data to clean

💡 Transform Steps

• Remove unnecessary columns
• Rename columns to match Azure schema:
time_usage_started → Date
computed_amount → Cost
service → ServiceName
compartment_name → ResourceGroup

Step 3: Data Modeling

Create Unified Cost Table

Merge Azure and OCI data into single table:

Create UnifiedCosts tabledax

// Create UnifiedCosts table
UnifiedCosts =
UNION(
    SELECTCOLUMNS(
        AzureCosts,
        "Date", [Date],
        "Cloud", "Azure",
        "Cost", [Cost],
        "Service", [ServiceName],
        "Environment", [Tags.Environment],
        "Owner", [Tags.Owner],
        "Project", [Tags.Project]
    ),
    SELECTCOLUMNS(
        OCICosts,
        "Date", [Date],
        "Cloud", "OCI",
        "Cost", [Cost],
        "Service", [ServiceName],
        "Environment", [FreeformTags.Environment],
        "Owner", [FreeformTags.Owner],
        "Project", [FreeformTags.Project]
    )
)

Create Date Table

Calendar table for time intelligencedax

// Calendar table for time intelligence
Calendar =
ADDCOLUMNS(
    CALENDAR(DATE(2024,1,1), TODAY()),
    "Year", YEAR([Date]),
    "Month", FORMAT([Date], "MMM"),
    "MonthNum", MONTH([Date]),
    "Quarter", "Q" & FORMAT([Date], "Q"),
    "YearMonth", FORMAT([Date], "YYYY-MM")
)

Define Measures

Key DAX measuresdax

// Total Cost
Total Cost = SUM(UnifiedCosts[Cost])

// Month-over-Month Change
MoM Change =
VAR CurrentMonth = [Total Cost]
VAR PreviousMonth = CALCULATE([Total Cost], DATEADD(Calendar[Date], -1, MONTH))
RETURN
DIVIDE(CurrentMonth - PreviousMonth, PreviousMonth, 0)

// Budget Variance
Budget Variance =
VAR ActualCost = [Total Cost]
VAR BudgetAmount = 50000  // Or reference Budget table
RETURN
ActualCost - BudgetAmount

// Cost per Environment
Prod Cost = CALCULATE([Total Cost], UnifiedCosts[Environment] = "prod")
NonProd Cost = CALCULATE([Total Cost], UnifiedCosts[Environment] <> "prod")

// Average Daily Cost
Avg Daily Cost =
AVERAGEX(
    VALUES(Calendar[Date]),
    [Total Cost]
)

Step 4: Build Dashboard Visuals

Page 1: Executive Summary

KPI Cards (Top Row):

1. Total Spend (MTD)
2. Budget Remaining
3. MoM Change %
4. Largest Single Resource Cost

Charts (Main Area):

Line Chart: Daily cost trend (last 90 days)
- X-axis: Date
- Y-axis: Total Cost
- Legend: Cloud (Azure, OCI)
Donut Chart: Cost by Environment
- Values: Total Cost
- Legend: Environment (prod, staging, dev)
Bar Chart: Top 10 Services by Cost
- Y-axis: Service Name
- X-axis: Total Cost
- Color: Cloud

Page 2: Detailed Analysis

• Table: Resource-Level Costs (Columns: Resource Name, Owner, Project, Daily Cost, Total Cost)
• Matrix: Cost by Team & Project (Rows: Owner, Project | Columns: Month | Values: Total Cost)
• Treemap: Service Distribution (Group: Service Name | Size: Total Cost | Color: Cloud)

Page 3: Trends & Forecasting

• Line Chart: Monthly Trend with Forecast (Use Power BI's built-in forecast - 30 days ahead with confidence interval)
• Stacked Area Chart: Cost Breakdown Over Time (X-axis: Month | Y-axis: Total Cost | Legend: Service Category)

Step 5: Add Interactivity

Slicers (Filters)

Add slicers to filter entire dashboard:

• Date Range (Calendar slicer)
• Cloud Provider (Azure / OCI)
• Environment (prod / staging / dev)
• Owner (Team list)

Drill-Through Pages

Create drill-through page for resource details:

• Right-click any resource → "Drill through" → Resource Details
• Shows full cost breakdown, tags, daily trend

Step 6: Set Up Alerts

Budget Alert Measure

Budget alert with traffic lightsdax

Budget Alert =
VAR CurrentSpend = [Total Cost]
VAR BudgetLimit = 50000
VAR PercentUsed = DIVIDE(CurrentSpend, BudgetLimit, 0)
RETURN
IF(
    PercentUsed > 0.8,
    "🔴 Over Budget",
    IF(
        PercentUsed > 0.6,
        "🟡 Warning",
        "🟢 On Track"
    )
)

Conditional Formatting

Apply traffic light colors to budget KPI:

• Green: < 60% of budget
• Yellow: 60-80% of budget
• Red: > 80% of budget

Step 7: Publish & Share

1.
Publish to Power BI Service
- File → Publish → Select Workspace
- Configure scheduled refresh (daily at 6 AM)

Set Up Row-Level Security (RLS)

// Only show team's costs
[Owner] = USERNAME()

3.
Create App
- Publish as Power BI App
- Share with organization
4.
Pin to Teams
- Add dashboard tab in Microsoft Teams channel

🚀 Advanced Tips

Anomaly Detection

Flag unusual spendingdax

// Flag unusual spending
Cost Anomaly =
VAR CurrentCost = [Total Cost]
VAR AvgCost = [Avg Daily Cost]
VAR StdDev = STDEV.P(UnifiedCosts[Cost])
RETURN
IF(
    CurrentCost > AvgCost + (2 * StdDev),
    "⚠️ Anomaly Detected",
    "Normal"
)

Currency Conversion

If multi-currency:

Cost USD =
SWITCH(
    UnifiedCosts[Currency],
    "EUR", UnifiedCosts[Cost] * 1.10,
    "GBP", UnifiedCosts[Cost] * 1.27,
    UnifiedCosts[Cost]  // Default USD
)

✅ DO

• Update dashboard at least daily
• Use consistent color schemes
• Include tooltips explaining metrics
• Test with different user roles

❌ DON'T

• Clutter with too many visuals
• Use pie charts for >5 categories
• Forget last-updated timestamp
• Mix currencies without conversion

⚠️ Troubleshooting

Issue: Power BI refresh fails
Solution: Check gateway connection, verify API permissions
Issue: OCI data not updating
Solution: Automate CSV export with cron job
Issue: Slow dashboard performance
Solution: Use incremental refresh, limit date range

🎯 Next Steps

• Integrate AWS costs using AWS Cost and Usage Report
• Add forecasting models using Azure Machine Learning
• Set up email alerts for budget overruns
• Create executive summary PDF export

📚 Related Resources

Need more FinOps insights? Check out FinOps Flight Deck for strategies and best practices.

Back to All Playbooks