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FinOps Cost Optimizer — from install to a report that shows real spend

Install app-finops-cost, get a seeded cost lakehouse, a star-schema semantic model with 13 DAX measures, a 5-page executive report that renders real values on first open, and a 4-tile live-spend KQL dashboard. ~25 minutes.

What you end up with

Four items: FinOps Cost Lakehouse, FinOps Cost Semantic Model, FinOps Monthly Executive Report, FinOps Live Spend. The report is the interesting one: the install-time report binder rewrites it into a direct query over the seeded lakehouse tables, so it shows numbers immediately instead of a "choose a data source" gate.

Prerequisites

You need Why If it is missing
A Loom workspace Apps install into a workspace Tutorial 01 — First workspace
LOOM_ADLS_ACCOUNT (+ the medallion containers) The lakehouse provisioner writes Delta/CSV into ADLS Gen2 Lakehouse row shows an honest gate naming the account
A Synapse serverless SQL endpoint configured The report's direct query reads the seeded tables via OPENROWSET The report binds but cannot execute
LOOM_KUSTO_CLUSTER_URI (optional) The FinOps Live Spend dashboard needs an ADX data source Dashboard row shows a remediation gate
An ADX billing_events table (optional) The four live tiles query it by name See the caveat below

Live Spend vs the report — two different data paths

The report runs on the seeded lakehouse and works on day one. The FinOps Live Spend dashboard queries an ADX table called billing_events (Cost Management exports streamed in via Event Grid) that this app does not create. Its tiles error until that table exists in the database the dashboard resolves to — the bundle sets no explicit database, so it falls back to LOOM_KUSTO_DEFAULT_DB. Plan for that before you judge the dashboard.

1. Install the app

  1. Left nav → Apps → FinOps Cost Optimizer (/apps/app-finops-cost).
  2. Install into workspace → workspace, optional folder (e.g. FinOps).
  3. Deploy artifacts to live Azure services → On. Compute → Shared.
  4. Install, then watch the async job report.

Item order matters and is deliberate: the lakehouse provisions first so its CSVs are on disk before the report binder runs.

2. What gets provisioned

Item Provisioner Real backend
FinOps Cost Lakehouse (lakehouse) lakehouseProvisioner ADLS Gen2 folders + Delta tables; sample rows landed as CSV then loaded to managed Delta
FinOps Cost Semantic Model (semantic-model) semanticModelProvisioner TMSL model (Azure-native tabular layer; a Fabric/Power BI workspace is opt-in only)
FinOps Monthly Executive Report (report) reportProvisioner + the install-time report binder Rewritten to a direct-query data source: one denormalized SELECT joining the seeded fact + dim via the model's relationship keys, exposed as the derived table Query
FinOps Live Spend (kql-dashboard) kqlDashboardProvisioner Confirms the ADX cluster + database; tiles run live KQL through /api/items/kql-dashboard/<id>?run=1

Why the report actually renders

A bundle report is authored at the semantic-model level (FactSales[Total Sales] style refs). Left alone it would open on a "choose a data source" gate, and binding it to the fact + dims would produce multi-table gates because the Loom-native report executor does not join. The binder solves both: it emits one flattened direct query and rewrites every visual into single-table config.wells over Query, resolving each measure to its base column plus an aggregation. That only works because the lakehouse table and column names deliberately match the model (BillingFact / DimService, BilledCost / AmortizedCost / ServiceFamily, …).

3. Seeded data

billing.BillingFact — 12 rows of denormalized daily Cost Management billing across April–June 2026, deliberately carrying Owner / CostCenter / SubscriptionName / Month / MonthName / Year on the fact so the by-owner and trend visuals resolve without seeding every dimension:

ResourceId Subscription Owner Cost centre Months
aks-prod-eastus Production-Platform Priya Nair CC-1001 Apr / May / Jun
sqldb-orders-prod Production-Platform Marcus Reed CC-1001 Apr / May
stblobanalytics01 Analytics-Shared Dana Kim CC-2100 Apr / Jun
aoai-copilot-eastus AI-Innovation Sam Ortiz CC-3300 Apr / May / Jun
vm-batch-scoring DataScience-Sandbox Dana Kim / Marcus Reed CC-2100 / CC-4200 May / Jun

billing.DimService — 5 rows: Azure Kubernetes Service (Compute / Mission-Critical), Azure SQL Database (Databases / Business-Critical), Storage Accounts (Storage / Standard), Azure OpenAI (AI + Machine Learning / Premium), Virtual Machines (Compute / Standard).

The semantic model is wider than the seed — BillingFact declares 24 columns and six dimensions (DimService, DimSubscription, DimRegion, DimEnvironment, DimTag, DimDate). Measures beyond the seeded columns (Reserved Spend %, Idle Spend, …) need a real Cost Management export before they mean anything.

The 13 measures

Total Spend, Amortized Spend, MoM Growth, YoY Growth, Forecast Spend (3M), Unit Cost, Reserved Spend %, On-Demand Spend %, Untagged Spend, Untagged Spend %, Idle Spend, Idle Spend %, Top Service Spend.

The last four are the FinOps Foundation "actionable" set — untagged and idle spend are the two levers that pay for the exercise.

4. First meaningful task — read the report, then re-slice it

  1. Open FinOps Monthly Executive Report. Five pages: Executive Summary, By Service, By Owner & Cost Center, Forecast & Anomalies, Recommendations.
  2. On Executive Summary, the Total Spend (This Month) card must show a dollar value, not a gate. That single card is the proof that the binder ran and the Synapse endpoint answered.
  3. Go to By Owner & Cost Center. With the seed, spend concentrates on aoai-copilot-eastus (Sam Ortiz / CC-3300) growing month over month — the shape a real AI-spend conversation starts from.
  4. Open FinOps Cost Semantic Model and inspect a measure, e.g. Untagged Spend % = DIVIDE ( [Untagged Spend], [Total Spend] ). This is the allocation lever: anything untagged cannot be charged back.
  5. Swap in your own data: replace the seeded BillingFact rows with a real Cost Management daily export (same column names) in FinOps Cost Lakehouse, then reopen the report. Because the binder resolved columns, not row values, the report follows your data.

The live dashboard (when you have billing_events)

Open FinOps Live Spend. Four tiles:

  1. Spend Today (Running Total) — card, sum(billed_cost) for startofday(now()).
  2. Hourly Spend Trend — Last 24 Hours — timechart, bin(billing_time, 1h).
  3. Top 10 Services by Spend (24h) — barchart by service_name.
  4. Anomalies — Subscriptions with > 50% Daily Spend Increase — table, today joined to yesterday on subscription_id, filtered to GrowthPct > 50.

5. Verify it worked

  • Install dialog: lakehouse row created with the ADLS path; report row created.
  • Report → Executive Summary: Total Spend (This Month) shows a number.
  • Lakehouse editor → Tables: BillingFact (12 rows) and DimService (5 rows).
  • Dashboard: tile 1 returns a card, or an honest Kusto error if billing_events does not exist yet.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Cause Fix
Report opens on "choose a data source" The binder did not run — usually the lakehouse row failed first Fix the lakehouse gate, then Retry the report row (or re-run the install; it is idempotent)
Report binds but every visual is empty Synapse serverless cannot read the seeded CSVs Confirm the serverless endpoint is configured and the Console UAMI has Storage Blob Data Reader on the ADLS account
A visual shows a multi-table gate The visual was hand-edited back to a cross-table well Re-point it at a Query column — the Loom-native executor is single-FROM by design
Lakehouse row = remediation LOOM_ADLS_ACCOUNT unset Set it, restart the revision, Retry
Dashboard tiles error "billing_events not found" The ADX table does not exist Stream Cost Management exports into ADX, or edit the tile KQL to your own table
Reserved Spend % / Idle Spend are zero Seeded rows have no IsReserved / IsIdle columns Expected — they arrive with a real Cost Management export

Cleanup

Delete the four items, or the workspace. The ADLS folders the lakehouse created are real — remove them from storage if you want the space back.

What's next