The Operational Runbook
NOTICE: The Runbook is a BETA Component and is not yet officially supported by Apptio. Some information on this page may also be incomplete due to in-progress or incomplete development. Please exercise caution before actively using this component in your Costing environments.
The Operational Runbook is a collection of reports to validate data loads, attributes, and allocations across your Cost Transparency platform!
- Validate your data starting points
- Display how General Ledger items flow to each of your financial objects and IT Resource Towers
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This report collection provides instructions to prepare your Apptio solution every month. Once you review the CT Runbook, your verified data foundation can be promoted to Production with the latest financial data. Each button below navigates you into specific data checklists and important validation tasks.
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Overview
To use the Operational Runbook, you must first install the correct component within
ApptioOne Costing and you have Beta features enabled:
- Open the Components menu in the Project tab.
- Find and install the component with Runbook in its title (i.e. "CT Runbook" or similar).
- Once installed, contact Apptio Customer Success to request a Runbook data configuration.
The Runbook consists of five reports that we recommended reviewing in order, as they form a logical process for validating the quality of your data foundation.
Data Loading
Data Loading tracks all occurrences of incoming data and displays the data files required by your Cost Transparency datasets. Use this report to ensure that all necessary data is being loaded properly and within correct intervals.
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The first step in your monthly review is to ensure all required data is loaded into Cost Transparency! Each data file or set may require a different refresh interval – this will be displayed in the Refresh Frequency columns throughout this report.
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Data Loading is divided into 3 reports for analysis: Mapping Files, Financial Fact Data, and Labor Fact Data. The data file tables within each category are organized by the Component, Dataset, and Refresh Frequency columns.
Mapping Files
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Mapping files may not need to be modified each month, so they are typically updated on an Ad-Hoc Basis. Quality checks may trigger the necessity of updating some of these mapping tables.
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Financial Fact Data
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The data sources in this table provide fundamental financial details for your Cost Transparency reports and allocations. Ensure each of these are loaded and refreshed at regular intervals!
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Labor Fact Data
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The data sources in this table provide information about the labor resources in your data.
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Financial Quality
Financial Quality provides an overview of the Cost Source object. This will display associated unit drivers and costs that begin at Cost Source, as well as allocations out of Cost Source. Quickly leverage the totals from each model and review the important dimensions to validate the overall cost you’re expecting from a month’s general ledger.
The second step in preparing Apptio each month is ensuring the quality of your reporting, data mapping, and allocations. This step is complete when:
- Unit Drivers at Cost Source are correctly defined
- Key dimensions for reporting are completely configured without any (Various)
- Cost Source is fully allocated to the resource objects
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Cost Source Unit Drivers
This table provides information on which common Unit Drivers populate the Cost Source, including Expense Type and Fixed Variable.
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The Cost Source object relies on Unit Drivers to ensure that data at the Cost Source object reflected in the appropriate metrics. The table defines the unit drivers that are required at Cost Source and their expected values.
Go look in the Cost Source Master Data table and inspect the values of these unit drivers. Any (Various), non-standard values, or incorrect data will affect your resulting reports.
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Financial Data Perspectives Complete
This table displays overall amounts at the Cost Source based on each Expense Type (Actuals, Budget, Forecast), organized by OpEx and CapEx. Use this as a a single source of validation for starting amounts from the General Ledger, which will be shown and used in out-of-the-box reports.
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The following list describes the recommended data-to-model assignment for optimal Apptio financial reporting. The Financial Data Perspectives Complete section displays any data gaps in these models.
- Operating Expense data should go in the Cost model
- Operating Expense Budget should go in the Budget model
- Operating Expense Forecasts should go in the Forecast model
- Capital Expenditure data should go in the CapEx model
- CapEx Budget and CapEx Forecast data should go in their respectively named models.
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Important Dimensions for Allocations
This table provides the important dimensions of your Financial data, that will be leveraged as outgoing allocations to the rest of the financial layer, which includes the following:
- Labor (Cost Pool & Cost Center)
- Vendors (Cost Center or Vendor ID)
- Fixed Assets (Cost Center)
- Other Cost Pools (Cost Center)
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These dimensions are used for data relationship in allocations and, where indicated, are used as numerical values for allocation weighting when there is a one-to-many relationship.
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Resource Quality
The Resource Quality report provides an overview of your financial data for your data and each resource component above the Cost Source. This includes Important attributes for out-of-the-box reports based on component:
- Labor - Location, Role Type, Owner, Cost Center Owner
- Time Tracking
- Fixed Assets - Class, Category, Location, Age
- Vendors - Vendor Type, Vendor Function, Vendor Manager, Vendor Service, Vendor Location
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The third step in preparing Apptio each month is ensuring the quality of your reporting, data mapping, and allocations. This page focuses on data and allocation quality for resource data that reports on Labor Fixed Assets and Vendors.
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Important Dimensions for Reporting
Highlights potential gaps in reporting for each component.
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These dimensions are not used for allocations, but are important for the completeness of reporting.
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Important Dimensions for Allocations
Highlights how costs are flowing in each component, and better understand missing allocation attributes.
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These dimensions are used for data relationships in allocations, and where indicated, are used as numeric values for allocation weighing when there is a one-to-many relationship.
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Allocation Completion
The Allocation Completion report shows how costs are flowing from the Cost Source to each of the Resource Objects, and also from the Resource Objects to the IT Resource Towers. It is designed to identify fallout within the model and where costs are not flowing. Instead of manually inspecting the Sankey model one allocation at a time, use this report for an all-in-one view on fallout from:
- Unassigned Costs– Costs that are not assigned to the receiving component due to missing weighting or relationship.
- Relationship Mismatches – Costs are booked to one cost center, but the receiving object weighting is booked to another cost center.
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The fourth step in preparing Apptio each month is exploring the completeness of your allocations. This page focuses Allocation success:
- From Cost Source to Resource Objects
- From Resource Objects to IT Towers
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Allocation from Cost Source to Labor
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Cost Source Unassigned Labor Cost
A common issue allocating Cost to Labor: some Cost Centers with salary, T&E, or training expenses may not have headcount properly assigned to them. Any rows displayed in this table are likely encountering this problem.
Labor Unassigned Cost
A common issue in allocating Cost to Labor: Labor headcount is assigned to a Cost Center but the salary expenses are not hitting that same Cost Center. Any rows displayed in this table are likely encountering this problem.
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Allocation from Cost Source to Fixed Assets
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Cost Source Unassigned Depreciation Cost
A common issue allocating Cost to Fixed Assets: Cost Centers with deprecation expenses many not have any assets properly assigned to them. Any rows displayed in this table are likely encountering this problem.
Fixed Asset Unassigned Cost
A common issue in allocating Cost to Assets: Assets are assigned to a Cost Center but the depreciation expenses are not hitting that same Cost Center. Any rows displayed in this table are likely encountering this problem.
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Tower Quality
The Tower Quality report confirms whether costs from Cost Source are properly allocating to the IT Resource Towers. This includes how costs flow in from each of the resource components, in addition to highlighting any (Various) values in Cost or Quantity that could affect reports or allocations out of IT Resource Towers.
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The last step in preparing Cost Transparency each month is exploring the accuracy and completeness of your allocation of costs into IT Resource Towers and SubTowers.
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Fully Allocated?
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This compares your Monthly OpEx at Cost Source (Operating Expense Cost) with your Monthly OpEx at IT Resource Towers (IT Resource Towers). Ideally both numbers will match, which indicates full allocation of your costs!
If the Towers number is different than your Cost, this doesn’t necessarily indicate a bad situation! You may simply have allocations that require additional inspection and fine tuning. Also remember that allocations configured to circumvent the IT Resource Towers object will not be included in the Towers number.
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Potential Allocation Problems
This section displays unassigned costs that do not flow from one component to another:
- Labor
- Time Tracking
- Other Cost Pools
- Fixed Assets
- Vendors
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One potential problem with allocations into IT Resource Towers is that some data relationships result in unanticipated, accidental spreading of OpEx across many rows. This creates inaccurate cost representations in IT Towers. The tables in this section are filtered to show any problematic allocations, to highlight data relationships that should be updated.
NOTE: A driver with less than 100% Allocated Cost to Towers does not always determine fallout. Review the Other Cost Pools Unassigned Cost table…
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{Various} in Key Dimensions
This section reviews the Dimenisions of the IT Resource Towers to highlight any {Various} values, which indicates a lack of granularity in the model object identifier to support the cost flow. This results in costs being unassigned even if it should match on a certain attribute. {Various} values can occur anywhere in the model, so this section should help identify where they are occurring.
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Your reporting must be optimized to remove any (Various) values found in these key dimensions.
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