Group and filter options in Cost analysis and budgets

Cost analysis has many grouping and filtering options. This article helps you understand when to use them.

To watch a video about grouping and filtering options, watch the Cost Management reporting by dimensions and tags video. To watch other videos, visit the Cost Management YouTube channel.

Group and filter properties

The following table lists some of the most common grouping and filtering options available in Cost analysis and budgets. See the notes column to learn when to use them.

Some filters are only available to specific offers. For example, a billing profile isn't available for an enterprise agreement. For more information, see Supported Microsoft Azure offers.

Property When to use Notes
Availability zones Break down AWS costs by availability zone. Applicable only to AWS scopes and management groups. Azure data doesn't include availability zone and will show as No availability zone.
Billing period Break down PAYG costs by the month that they were, or will be, invoiced. Use Billing period to get a precise representation of invoiced PAYG charges. Include two extra days before and after the billing period if filtering down to a custom date range. Limiting to the exact billing period dates won't match the invoice. Will show costs from all invoices in the billing period. Use Invoice ID to filter down to a specific invoice. Applicable only to PAYG subscriptions because EA and MCA are billed by calendar months. EA/MCA accounts can use calendar months in the date picker or monthly granularity to accomplish the same goal.
BillingProfileId The ID of the billing profile that is billed for the subscription's charges. Unique identifier of the EA enrollment, pay-as-you-go subscription, MCA billing profile, or AWS consolidated account.
BillingProfileName Name of the EA enrollment, pay-as-you-go subscription, MCA billing profile, or AWS consolidated account. Name of the EA enrollment, pay-as-you-go subscription, MCA billing profile, or AWS consolidated account.
Charge type Break down usage, purchase, refund, and unused reservation and savings plan costs. Reservation purchases, savings plan purchases, and refunds are available only when using actual costs and not when using amortized costs. Unused reservation and savings plan costs are available only when looking at amortized costs.
Department Break down costs by EA department. Available only for EA and management groups. PAYG subscriptions don't have a department and will show as No department or unassigned.
Enrollment account Break down costs by EA account owner. Available only for EA billing accounts, departments, and management groups. PAYG subscriptions don't have EA enrollment accounts and will show as No enrollment account or unassigned.
Frequency Break down usage-based, one-time, and recurring costs. Indicates whether a charge is expected to repeat. Charges can either happen once OneTime, repeat on a monthly or yearly basis Recurring, or be based on usage UsageBased.
Invoice ID Break down costs by billed invoice. Unbilled charges don't have an invoice ID yet and EA costs don't include invoice details and will show as No invoice ID.
InvoiceSectionId Unique identifier for the MCA invoice section. Unique identifier for the EA department or MCA invoice section.
InvoiceSectionName Name of the invoice section. Name of the EA department or MCA invoice section.
Location Break down costs by resource location or region. Purchases and Marketplace usage may be shown as unassigned, or No resource location.
Meter Break down costs by usage meter. Purchases and Marketplace usage will show as unassigned or No meter. Refer to Charge type to identify purchases and Publisher type to identify Marketplace charges.
Operation Break down AWS costs by operation. Applicable only to AWS scopes and management groups. Azure data doesn't include operation and will show as No operation - use Meter instead.
Pricing model Break down costs by on-demand, reservation, or spot usage. Purchases show as OnDemand. If you see Not applicable, group by Reservation to determine whether the usage is reservation or on-demand usage and Charge type to identify purchases.
PartNumber The identifier used to get specific meter pricing.
Product Name of the product.
ProductOrderId Unique identifier for the product order
ProductOrderName Unique name for the product order.
Provider Break down costs by the provider type: Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, AWS, and so on. Identifier for product and line of business.
Publisher type Break down Microsoft, Azure, AWS, and Marketplace costs. Values are Microsoft for MCA accounts and Azure for EA and pay-as-you-go accounts.
Reservation Break down costs by reservation. Any usage or purchases that aren't associated with a reservation will show as No reservation or No values. Group by Publisher type to identify other Azure, AWS, or Marketplace purchases.
ReservationId Unique identifier for the purchased reservation instance. In actual costs, use ReservationID to know which reservation the charge is for.
ReservationName Name of the purchased reservation instance. In actual costs, use ReservationName to know which reservation the charge is for.
Resource Break down costs by resource. Marketplace purchases show as Other Marketplace purchases and Azure purchases, like Reservations and Support charges, show as Other Azure purchases. Group by or filter on Publisher type to identify other Azure, AWS, or Marketplace purchases.
Resource group Break down costs by resource group. Purchases, tenant resources not associated with subscriptions, subscription resources not deployed to a resource group, and classic resources don't have a resource group and will show as Other Marketplace purchases, Other Azure purchases, Other tenant resources, Other subscription resources, $system, or Other charges.
ResourceId Unique identifier of the Azure Resource Manager resource.
Resource type Break down costs by resource type. Type of resource instance. Not all charges come from deployed resources. Charges that don't have a resource type will be shown as null or empty, Others, or Not applicable. For example, purchases and classic services will show as others, classic services, or No resource type.
ServiceFamily Type of Azure service. For example, Compute, Analytics, and Security.
ServiceName Name of the Azure service. Name of the classification category for the meter. For example, Cloud services and Networking.
Service name or Meter category Break down cost by Azure service. Purchases and Marketplace usage will show as No service name or unassigned.
Service tier or Meter subcategory Break down cost by Azure usage meter subclassification. Purchases and Marketplace usage will be empty or show as unassigned.
Subscription Break down costs by Azure subscription and AWS linked account. Purchases and tenant resources may show as No subscription.
Tag Break down costs by tag values for a specific tag key. Purchases, tenant resources not associated with subscriptions, subscription resources not deployed to a resource group, and classic resources cannot be tagged and will show as Tags not supported. Services that don't include tags in usage data will show as Tags not available. Any remaining cases where tags aren't specified on a resource will show as Untagged. Learn more about tags support for each resource type.
UnitOfMeasure The billing unit of measure for the service. For example, compute services are billed per hour.

For more information about terms, see Understand the terms used in the Azure usage and charges file.

Publisher Type value changes

In Cost Management, the PublisherType field indicates whether charges are for Microsoft, Marketplace, or AWS (if you have a Cross Cloud connector configured) products.

What changed?

Effective 14 October 2021, the PublisherType field with the value Azure was updated to Microsoft for all customers with a Microsoft Customer Agreement. The change was made to accommodate enhancements to support Microsoft products other than Azure like Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365.

Values of Marketplace and AWS remain unchanged.

The change didn't affect customers with an Enterprise Agreement or pay-as-you-go offers.

Impact and action

For any Cost Management data that you've downloaded before 14 October 2021, consider the PublisherType change from the older Azure and the new Microsoft field values. The data could have been downloaded through exports, usage details, or from Cost Management.

If you use Cost Management + Billing REST API calls that filter the PublisherType field by the value Azure, you need to address the change and filter by the new value Microsoft after 14 October 2021. If you make any API calls with a filter for Publisher type = Azure, data won't be returned.

There's no impact to Cost analysis or budgets because the changes are automatically reflected in the filters. Any saved views or budgets created with Publisher Type = “Azure” filter will be automatically updated.

Next steps