Vantage Launches Issues: Teams can Coordinate and Collaborate on Cost Issues

An example of Vantage Issues

Today Vantage announces the launch of Issues: the ability for teams to coordinate and collaborate on cost issues within the Vantage console. Customers can now create issues, assign them to members in their workspace, and can associate them to either a Cost Report or set of AWS resources. Team members can comment on issues, adjust issue category and status and estimate potential cost savings impact all either through the Vantage console and via the Vantage API.

Before the launch of Issues, teams used Vantage for visibility into cloud costs but coordination and collaboration of cost-related issues oftentimes would fall into spreadsheets or transient conversations over chat applications like Slack or via E-mail. These mechanisms, being de-coupled from the underlying cost data, would oftentimes drift away from the current representation of underlying infrastructure which meant more time spent for engineering and finance teams to keep things up-to-date.

Now, all Vantage users, including users in the free tier, can use Vantage Issues to track cost-related initiatives in their organizations. Anyone on a team can create issues with a title and description, assign them accordingly to someone on their team and optionally assign it to a corresponding Cost Report or set of AWS resources. Here are a few examples of how customers use issues today:

• Someone on your team sees CloudWatch Log Groups without retention policies applied and creates an issue to provide details on how to mitigate this. On this issue, they assign a list of log groups that are impacted and assigned it to an engineer on their team. The assigned user will receive an email to inform them they’ve been assigned, update status via comments, and eventually close the issue out so they’re no longer held accountable.
• There is an initiative at an organization to wind down an antiquated service that has a corresponding AWS tag. The manager of this initiative already has a Cost Report created for this AWS tag and creates an issue on Vantage for his team to wind down this service over time. The manager can quickly see comments and progress from her team and monitor associated costs on the attached Cost Report.
• An organization built their own, customized cost recommendation system. They want to serve their own organization's cost recommendations for their team to analyze within the Vantage console. Using the Vantage API, their system creates issues automatically and assign them to the appropriate individual. API access to Vantage issues is in closed beta but will be available to everyone soon.

Issues is available to all users as part of existing subscriptions on Vantage, including users in the free tier. To get started with Issues, head to https://console.vantage.sh/issues

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is being launched today?

Today we are launching Vantage Issues: a new collaboration feature in the Vantage console that allows teams members to discuss and track cost related initiatives. Issues allows team members to have a central place to view and discuss the status of various cost related items. Managers can hold engineers accountable through tracking cost related work via Vantage Issues.

2. Who is the customer?

This feature is available to all Vantage users, including users in the free tier. While this feature is available to everyone, we expect it to be used much more by teams.

3. How much does this cost?

There is no additional cost to using Vantage Issues.

4. What is a Vantage Issue?

A Vantage issue consists of the following:

• Title
• Description
• Category
• State: Open or Closed
• Optional: Estimated Savings Value
• Optional: Assignee
• Optional: Cost Report
• Optional: List of comments

5. How do I access Issues on the Vantage console?

You can head to https://console.vantage.sh/issues or access it from the navigation under “Issues”.

6. Who has access to Issues on my team?

Everyone on your team has access to Issues by default.

7. Can I comment on issues?

Yes.

8. Can I get emails about Issues?

Yes. You will get emails in the following situations:

• When an issue is created and you're assigned.
• When someone comments on an issue you've created, been assigned to or also commented on.
• When an issue is closed.
• When an issue is re-opened.

9. What happens when I close an issue?

Everyone subscribed to the Issue will receive an email notification.

10. Can I sort Issues?

Not right now. Though this is on the roadmap for the next iteration of Issues. To provide product feedback feel free to join us in the Vantage Slack Community.

11. What are the limits for the number of active issues per tier?

All tiers have an unlimited number of issues available to them.

12. Can I create Issues via the Vantage API?

API access to Vantage issues is in closed beta but will be available to everyone soon. To get access to the closed beta, please contact support either through email or via Intercom in the lower right portion of the Vantage console.

13. Can I list Issues via the Vantage API?

API access to Vantage issues is in closed beta but will be available to everyone soon.

14. Does Issues integrate with other issue trackers such as JIRA, Asana or Monday.com?

Not at this time, but it is something we are considering in the future. To provide feedback on product expectations here, please join our Slack Community.

15. If a Cost Report is referenced on an issue, how do you see that?

The title of the Cost Report and link to the report itself will be present on the issue page.

16. Can I search issues?

Issues are not currently searchable.

17. Can I invite people to my team from the assignee field if they’re not on my team already?

No, you need to first visit the users settings page to invite team members before assigning them to an issue.

18. Can I share links of Issues with other members on my team?

Yes, each organization will have an auto-incrementing issue counter. As Issues are created for your organization, you’ll get devoted URLs with that specific Issue ID to share with other members on your team.