Cost model details

The second horizontal pane on the right, the Cost Model Details pane, provides options for specifying attributes of an element that you associate with a cost model. Depending on your selections in the Cost Model Hierarchy pane teh following tabs are displayed in the Cost Model Details pane:

• #Properties
• #Direct Cost
• #Price
• #Allocation

Properties of a cost model

When you select a cost model in the Cost Model Hierarchy pane, the Properties tab is displayed:

The Properties tab contains the following information:

• Name specifies the name of the model or the cost model element that you select.
• Description specifies a brief description of the cost model.
• Type specifies whether the cost model is for technical or business service.
• Status specifies whether the cost model is active or inactive. You can mark only one cost model as active for a specific fiscal period. If you have multiple cost models for a service, you can set each of them as active for a different fiscal period. The software uses the active cost model to calculate costs, such as chargeback.
  
  For example, consider a service that is modeled using three cost models for a period ranging from FY2006 to FY2010. You can set one model as active from April 2006 to March 2007, the next from April 2007 to March 2008, and the third model from April 2008 to March 2010. To calculate chargeback for a fiscal period from April 2006 to March 2010, the software uses the data from all three service cost models. Similarly, to calculate chargeback for a fiscal period ranging from April 2007 to March 2010, the software uses only the second and third service cost models.
• Auto-refresh toggles automatic refresh of the cost model.
  
  The default auto-refresh interval is five minutes. To set it to any other value, a system administrator can specify the value in the SCHEDULER_COST_MODEL_REFRESH_JOB configuration parameter in the magick URL interface.
  
  Auto-refresh is especially useful when you create multiple interrelated cost models. Any changes in shared elements require a refresh of all cost models that use those elements. In a complex cost model scenario, the cost models might get out of sync if the values associated with cost model elements are changed and not applied to all the cost models. This results in incorrect analysis data.
• Fiscal Range specifies the fiscal period for which the model is defined.
• Modelers identify the users who receive all notification messages associated with the model. The software sends notification each time a cost model requires a refresh and when a cost model is refreshed with updated values. By default, this field displays the name of the user who created the cost model. You can update the field to add or remove users.
• Consumption Metric displays the consumption metric associated with a cost model. This is an optional field; however, it is required to perform chargeback analysis.
• Notes specify additional information for the cost model.
• Access Restrictions specify the organizational units and support groups that have access to this data. For more information about Access restrictions, see Data-access-restrictions.

In the Cost Model Hierarchy pane, when you select a service in the model hierarchy, the Properties, Direct Cost, and Price tabs are displayed. When you select a cost model element, the Properties, Direct Cost, and Allocation tabs are displayed.

When you select the name of the service or an element in the Cost Model Hierarchy pane, the Properties tab has the following fields: 

• Name specifies the name of the service or the cost model element that you select.
• Description specifies a brief description of the cost model element.
• Notes contain additional information for the service or element, specific to this cost model. The information is not carried to other models that share the same element.
• Currency (optional) specifies the currency code that you need to use to specify any user adjustment values in the Direct Cost tab. By default, the user adjustments are shown in the display currency that you set in the Settings option. For more information about setting the display currency, see Setting-your-locale-and-currency-preference.
• Related Foundation item specifies the relationship of the element to the foundation item. For example, if you selected a Project element in the Cost Model Hierarchy pane, you can add a relationship to a project in the existing foundation database. You can link one cost model element to multiple foundation objects. The cost of related foundation items is then displayed as the foundation cost of the selected element in the Direct Cost tab.
  To add the related foundation item:
  1. Click Edit.
  2. Use the Filter by Impact option in the chooser to display only the relevant items.

  3. From Available Resources, select the foundation item. and close the chooser.
     
     The Related Foundation item table displays the ID, name, and description of the selected item. 

     Note

     You can view and edit the list of items related to a service from the Summary tab in the IT Service Details page.

Direct Cost tab for a cost model element

The second tab in the Cost Model Details pane is Direct Cost, as shown in the following figure.

Use the Direct Cost tab to specify the following cost data associated with an element:

• Cost View specifies the type of cost: Planned or Actual.

• Expense tables display expense information that varies based on the Cost Type selected in the Cost Model Hierarchy pane:

  Selection	Expense tables displayed
  Total Expense, Depreciation, or Expense	Non Depreciation Expense, Depreciation Expense, and Total Expense
  Capital	Capital Expense

  The tables display the following costs:

  • Foundation Cost: If the element is linked to a foundation item, the Foundatio row is populated.
  • User Adjustments: Make adjustments to the foundation values. You can select any currency format in the Properties tab.
  • Adjustments in: Displays the user adjustment values in the display currency. The software uses the rate conversion tables to convert the user adjustment values that you specify in the second row to display values in this row.

  • Total: Displays the total of Foundation and User Adjustment values. 

    Note

    The User Adjustment values are used only in the cost models and do not change the values stored in the foundation database. To change the values stored in foundation database, use the corresponding window for that foundation element. For example, you can update the foundation cost of an Asset by using the Cost tab in the Asset window.

Price tab for a business service in a cost model

When you select a business service in the Cost Model Hierarchy pane, the Price tab is displayed:

Use the Price tab to specify the following price data associated with a service. The Price tab is displayed for a business service only. It is not displayed for a technical service.

• Price Currency specifies the type of currency for the unit price value of the service. The software calculates the corresponding value in the currency format set for display and displays it in the Price in display currency row in the Unit Price table. 

  Note

  You can use the Settings option in the main window to select the currency format to display.

• Unit Price table displays the following information:
  • Unit Price of the service. To specify a unit price, click in the cell and specify a value. After you have specified a value in a cell, you can right-click to use the Fill Right or Distribute Right option to auto-fill the remaining cells in this row. Fill Right adds the same value in each cell to the right of the selected cell. Distribute Right divides the value equally among the cell that you select and all cells to the right of the selected cell.
  • Price in Display Currency converts the amount that you enter in the first row into the display currency format. You set the display currency using Settings in the main BMC IT Business Management Suite window.
  • Actual Unit Cost displays the unit cost of the service. The unit cost of a service is the actual allocated cost divided by the actual consumption for the specified period. If the consumption for that period does not exist or is zero, the actual unit cost is zero.
  • Variance displays the difference between the unit price and actual unit cost. This value is always for the the cost type of Total Expense.

The Allocation tab is displayed when you select a cost model element in the Cost Model Hierarchy pane.

Use the Allocation tab to specify the amount by which an element is allocated to the cost model. The Allocation tab displays the following information:

• Allocation Method specifies the type of allocation for the cost model: Automatic, Full, or Manual. The default setting is Automatic. That means the software assigns an equal amount to the element for each instance of its usage in a cost model. For example, if element A is used in model 1 and model 2, the allocation of element A in each model is set to 50%. Similarly, if it is used in only one model, the software sets the allocation to 100%.
   When Allocation Method is set to Full, the allocation is always 100%. When set to Manual, you can specify the allocation values.
• Unit of Measure specifies a standard unit that represents the allocation values that you specify. This option is available only when you set Allocation Method to Manual.
• Cost View specifies whether to display actual or planned cost information.
• View As specifies whether to view the allocation data as raw value or as percentages. This option is available only when you set Allocation Method to Manual.
• The Cost Allocation table displays the allocation information for an element. When an element is used in multiple cost models, the allocation table displays allocations for all cost models that use this element.
• The Apply button temporarily saves your changes and enables you to continue making changes to the cost model. These changes are not saved to the database until you select Save in the Cost Model Hierarchy pane.
• The Reset button reverts to the last applied values of the cost model.