Recommendations Overview

Use this article to understand the Recommendations Overview report and how to interpret potential savings, realized savings, asset type, source, and monthly savings trends.

Overview

Recommendations Overview is the reporting view for savings opportunities managed in Yarken.

It summarizes recommendation savings so teams can see the size of the opportunity, the value already realized, and how recommendations are distributed across asset types, sources, and months.

Use this report when you need to review recommendation performance, explain savings progress, or compare potential savings against realized savings over time.


Open Recommendations Overview

To open the report:

  1. Go to Reports.

  2. Open Cost Transparency.

  3. Select Recommendations Overview.

The page opens the recommendation dashboard for the selected year and period.


Filter the report

Use the report controls to focus the dashboard on the period or recommendation subset you want to review.

You can:

  1. Select the year.

  2. Select the month range.

  3. Use Add Filter to apply available report filters.

  4. Interact with charts where the dashboard supports chart-level exploration.

Confirm the active filters before comparing totals with the Recommendations workspace or Analytics.


Summary cards

The top of the report shows high-level savings totals.

Card

What it shows

Potential Savings

Estimated savings available from recommendations in the selected report context.

Realized Savings (YTD)

Savings realized during the selected year-to-date reporting period.

These cards help leaders and operators quickly compare remaining opportunity with delivered savings.

Potential and realized savings may also appear in other areas of Yarken, including the Home dashboard where savings cards are configured.


Savings by Asset Type

The Savings chart breaks recommendation savings down by asset type.

Use it to compare potential and realized savings across categories such as cloud, hardware, software, or other configured asset types.

This chart helps answer questions such as:

  1. Which asset types have the largest savings opportunity?

  2. Which asset types have already delivered realized savings?

  3. Where is the gap between potential and realized savings the largest?

  4. Which areas should be prioritized for review?

A large potential savings value with low realized savings may indicate a backlog of opportunities that still need action.


Potential Savings by Source

The Potential Savings chart shows potential savings grouped by recommendation source.

Use it to understand where savings opportunities are coming from, such as manual recommendations or provider-sourced recommendations.

This chart helps teams understand whether the optimization pipeline is being driven by internal reviews, cloud provider recommendations, uploaded files, or other enabled sources.


Monthly Savings

The Monthly Savings chart shows recommendation savings by month.

The chart can show monthly potential and realized savings, plus year-to-date trend lines where available.

Use this chart to answer questions such as:

  1. Which months had the highest savings opportunity?

  2. When did realized savings increase?

  3. How does year-to-date realized savings compare with year-to-date potential savings?

  4. Are recommendations being completed at the same pace that opportunities are being identified?

Monthly trends help teams review savings progress in governance meetings, FinOps reviews, and leadership updates.


Chart data source

Recommendations Overview uses recommendation data managed in Yarken.

Chart

Data source

Savings

Recommendations

Potential Savings

Recommendations

Monthly Savings

Recommendations

Recommendation records may be created manually, uploaded from files, or imported through configured Advanced Integrations.


Relationship with the Recommendations workspace

The report depends on recommendation records from Admin > Recommendations.

Use the Recommendations workspace to:

  1. Create or upload recommendation records.

  2. Review and update recommendation status.

  3. Record potential and realized savings.

  4. Dismiss recommendations that are not being pursued.

  5. Validate source, category, asset, and cloud resource information.

After recommendation records, upload rules, connections, or pipelines are updated, run Cube Refresh from the bottom of the Admin menu before validating report totals.

Use Recommendations Overview to interpret those records as savings trends and dashboard totals.


Relationship with the Home dashboard

Recommendation savings can be reflected elsewhere in Yarken, including the Home dashboard.

The Home dashboard may show cards such as Potential Savings (As Of) and Realized Savings (Till Date). These values help users see recommendation savings in the same executive view as other spend and budget indicators.

If values differ between dashboard areas, check the selected date range, filters, source recommendation records, and whether Cube Refresh was run after the latest recommendation data change.


Use this workflow when reviewing recommendation performance:

  1. Open Recommendations Overview.

  2. Confirm the selected year and month range.

  3. Review total potential and realized savings.

  4. Check savings by asset type to identify major opportunity areas.

  5. Check potential savings by source to understand where recommendations are coming from.

  6. Review monthly savings to compare opportunity identification with realized impact.

  7. Open Admin > Recommendations to investigate individual records.

  8. Use Recommendations Data when you need custom reporting or deeper analysis.


Troubleshooting report values

If report values do not look correct, check:

  1. The selected year and month range.

  2. Any active filters applied to the report.

  3. Whether recommendation records exist in Admin > Recommendations.

  4. Whether status values are current.

  5. Whether potential and realized savings values were entered or loaded correctly.

  6. Whether provider integrations and pipelines have run successfully.

  7. Whether uploaded files show Loaded status and expected record counts.

  8. Whether Cube Refresh was run after recommendation data, upload rules, connections, or pipelines were updated.

If the report still appears incorrect, compare the dashboard values with the underlying records in Admin > Recommendations and the fields available in Recommendations Data.


Next step

Recommendations Data


Related content

Recommendations

Savings Recommendations

Manage Recommendations

Set up Recommendation Integrations