Today, Vantage announces the launch of an integration with Microsoft Teams. Vantage users can now add a Microsoft Teams Integration to their Vantage account and receive daily, weekly or monthly reports of their cloud costs directly in their organization’s Microsoft Teams public or private channels.
Keeping track of your cloud spend can be a cumbersome problem. One of the best ways for engineering teams to keep an eye on things going awry or being held accountable is to get visibility on their cloud costs. Before, Vantage customers could receive cost summaries via E-Mail or Slack which is where the majority of organizations would like to get this information. This allowed teams to go into the Vantage console, create a cost report and have the corresponding costs posted to Slack or emailed out for their teams to get visibility on cost trends. After launching the Slack integration, the number one request we received was for teams who use Microsoft Teams to be able to take advantage of the same functionality.
An example of cloud costs being posted to a Microsoft Teams channel.
Now, Vantage integrates with Microsoft Teams in addition to Slack. From the Cost Report Notifications page, customers can associate their Microsoft Teams account with their Vantage account. Upon completing that integration, users can adjust cost report notifications to be delivered to a specific channel in Microsoft Teams. Vantage users can edit existing cost report notifications or create new ones where they'll be able to choose any number of Microsoft Teams channels from their team's account.
Microsoft Teams support is available to all Vantage users at the time that this blog post has been published. Users can connect their Microsoft Teams account on the Report Notifications page and clicking the “Setup Microsoft Teams Integration” button. Once this is completed all cost report notifications will have a “Microsoft Teams Channels” field where the desired channels can be selected.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is being launched today?
Today, Vantage is announcing the launch of an integration with Microsoft Teams to give Vantage users the ability to get updates on their cloud costs directly posted to Microsoft Teams’ public or private channels.
2. Who is the customer?
The customer is any Vantage user with a connected AWS account and a Microsoft Teams Account. This is available to all users across all tiers, including the free tier.
3. How much does this cost?
There is no additional cost for using Microsoft Teams.
4. I’m part of a team on Vantage - will everyone be able to see and leverage Microsoft Teams integrations?
Yes.
5. How do I add the Vantage integration to my team’s Microsoft Teams?
Visit the Report Notifications page and click the Setup Microsoft Teams Integration button. You will have to log into with your Microsoft 365 account and authorize Vantage to access your account.
6. How do I update an existing cost report notification to go from E-Mail to Microsoft Teams?
After adding the Vantage Microsoft Teams integration you can click edit on a Cost Report Notification and there will be a Microsoft Teams Channels field. You can start typing any channel where you would like that report notification to be delivered. You can add as many channels as you like and they will all receive the notification.
7. Do I need to change any settings on my Microsoft Teams account to enable this integration?
No, but you will need permissions to add integrations to your Microsoft Team’s account.
8. Can I request the latest cost data with a Microsoft Teams command similar to the Slack “/vantage” reports command?
Not at this time but this is something we plan to add in the future.
9. Can I adjust the time of day which Vantage delivers a Microsoft Teams Cost Report Notification?
Not at this time. Right now all Cost Report Notifications are delivered at 4:00 PM UTC.
10. What permissions does Vantage require to my Microsoft Teams account?
- Read names and descriptions of Teams
- Read names and descriptions of channels
- Send messages to channels
11. Can I send report notifications to both Slack and Microsoft Teams?
No, customers may choose either a Slack integration or a Microsoft Teams integration but not both.
12. How does Vantage technically integrate with Microsoft Teams?
The Vantage app for Microsoft Teams has been verified by Microsoft. Vantage interacts with Microsoft Office 365 to set the approved permissions for the app in your account and makes use of the Microsoft Graph API to get and send info to your Microsoft Teams account.
13. Can I send cost report notifications to private channels?
Yes.
14. Is there any limit to the number of Cost Report Notifications I can send to Microsoft Teams?
No. You may create as many cost report notifications as you’d like for various Cost Reports to be posted to whatever channels you’d like.
15. What are some best practices Vantage sees in regard to how customers leverage Microsoft Teams or Slack integrations?
Typically we see customers create one Cost Report on Vantage for either each one of their engineering teams or each one of their products. Once these Cost Reports are created, they’ll create a Slack or Microsoft Teams integration and create a cost report notification typically **daily** that is posted to that respective team or product’s channel.
Alternatively, certain customers will create a new channel called “cloud-costs” and have their total bill posted to that channel.
