I'm trying very hard to embrace the changes set forth with the Cloud 12.6 version, but am finding it difficult.  My company uses only Azure at the moment and I still find the reports to be lacking actionable information.  The use of hidden tables (namely dbr.daily) seem to compound the ability to tweak reports for end users needs.  

Has anyone else come across this issue and does anyone have any suggestions that may help me help my endusers?

Will be monitoring this one - very interested - thank you for posting!

Adding @Julie Batty as FYI, too.

Hi @Sue Vincent. Are you on Cloud Business Management or Cloud Cost Management? Just trying to understand your situation and what you mean by 'lacking actionable information'? :-)

Adding @Oliver Smith as FYI.

Hi Clare,

I'm referring to Cloud Cost Management.  I have recently been updated to Apptio 12.6 Components Version 106 for Cloud.  We are an all Azure shop and was promise better integration with Azure, but either my expectations were too high or perhaps my data quality is too low.  Or a combination of both. I find that in Version 104 I had more control to make reports that my end users could use, that I could create links to detailed data.  That no longer exists in 106 (in part to the dbr. daily table and behind the scenes magic) and it's making it very difficult for me to promote to the end users.  Looking for guidance/support/ideas of how to get the information my end users are used to back out to them with the new version.  Hope that makes sense.

Hi @Sue Vincent

We've only ever used CCM 12.6 so never had this as an issue. We tend to use the out of box reports and our end Users appear quite happy with them, although they will be improve once tagging improves. Sorry, thought we could help :-( 

Hi Clare,

Thanks for trying - out of curiosity are you an Azure or AWS shop?  And are you on Components version 106?

Hi @Sue Vincent - we are on v106 and we have both Azure and AWS feeding via Datalink :-)

Thanks Clare,  I have a suspicion that my project is not set up accurately (even though I set it up with the help of Apptio).  I'm going to set up another project in parallel.  See if I get the same results.  I currently have both V104 and V106 projects and the numbers within them are significantly different.  The V106 is using the multicloud connector and the other the "regular" connector.  Not sure if the multicloud connector groups data our not, which may impact the numbers.  When in doubt reboot, right?

It turns out that there is something wrong with one of my projects.  My old Version 104 project and my new version 106 project do not produce the same results, even though the same data is going in.  We expected the row counts to be different but even the dollar amounts are off significantly.  Apptio Support is looking into this and I'll be sure to post what findings are discovered. 

Sorry for the slow reply (was on leave) but glad you've found out the issue. In addition, I have noticed that CCM is setup to lean more towards AWS and more work is needed to configure Azure. Maybe this will change with each addition to CCM and the updates.

Very helpful discussion. Thanks!

So after working with a few people the problems I have are a bigger challenge than expected.  If you are just starting your cloud journey, V106 should be fine.  But for those of us that have already started down the path, there are significant differences.   It all comes from the multi cloud connector pre-processing step.  The data that my end users are used to seeing from V104 just isn't readily available in V106 for Azure.  While I understand Apptio's desire to shorten processing times, this connector change results in reports that are not like for like.   I am working with Apptio to get a similar report that my end users are accustomed to using the dbr.daily hidden file.  There are other issues with the V106 - including the fact that the numbers are all in factors of 1000 for some odd reason.  Rumor is this won't be changed until the next release.  At least misery loves company  :-)

I am also faced with the challenge from Microsoft who will retroactively update their data making reconciliation an extremely difficult task.  

I will continue to work on this and post updates as I have them.  

Thanks for this post Sue!  I'm looking at upgrading to the multi-cloud connector, but after reading this post I'm nervous about the impact to my current reports.  Do you have the listing of fields which are no longer available?

I'll continue to monitor this as well.

Hi Eric, 

Are you an Azure,  AWS or both shop?  I can only speak to Azure, since that's all we have at the moment.  The big question I would ask is how much do you use the daily details?  The multi-cloud connector does some preprocessing before loading the data into Apptio and the reports, so some of the granularity is harder to come by (it's in a hidden table).  I'm still working my way through the data and how to use it.  And to be honest, how my business users need to use it.  Our company is fairly new to the Cloud party, so there is a lot of flux anyway.  There are benefits to the MultiCloud connector, but just be careful.  I think eventually everyone will have to move over anyway - it's just a matter of when you want to bite the bullet.  

Part of my frustration is that I misunderstood what was going to happen when I moved to MultiCloud connector and v106.  I was expecting quite a different result than what I got, so my expectations and reality were misaligned.  I'm still working to get them back together so my company can move forward successfully with the reports that are out of the box. I'm sure I'll get there, it's just going to take time and patience.

Good luck with your journey!

We have both.  We don't really use the daily details, so a revamp in that area may be welcomed.  I have a lot of our reports customized and speaking with our CSM we might have to reconfigure some of them when moving to the new connector.  We are going through a migration to R12 and part of that is requiring the multi-cloud connector. So I guess we'll be moving whether I like it or not.  I'm going to give our cloud org a heads up and let them know the reports may be down for a little as I work through any changes.

It seems like there's a lot of patience needed in the journey, but in the end it will be worth it.  Good luck with yours!

Extremely helpful!