Recommendations

Recommendations help teams manage optimization opportunities across assets, cloud resources, applications, servers, and other areas of technology spend.

Use this page to capture savings ideas, track recommendation status, upload recommendation files, apply upload rules, and measure potential and realized savings over time.

Recommendations give teams a structured place to manage optimization work instead of relying on disconnected spreadsheets or one-off review notes.

What Recommendations helps you manage

Use Recommendations to:

• Create optimization recommendations manually

• Upload recommendations in bulk

• Track recommendation source, category, status, complexity, and value

• Link each recommendation to an asset type and asset code

• Capture cloud resource IDs where available

• Record potential savings and realized savings

• Review uploaded files and processing status

• Use upload rules to transform or enrich recommendation data during upload

• Support FinOps, IT finance, asset optimization, and cost governance workflows

Recommendations are especially useful when teams need to move from identifying savings opportunities to tracking action and confirmed outcomes.

Access Recommendations

To open Recommendations:

1. Navigate to Admin

2. Select Recommendations

The Recommendations page includes three tabs:

• Details

• Uploaded Files

• Upload Rules

Details tab

The Details tab lists recommendation records currently available in Yarken.

Use this tab to:

• Search recommendations

• Add a new recommendation

• Upload recommendation records

• Edit existing recommendations

• Delete recommendations

• Download recommendation data

• Review recommendation status, value, complexity, and savings fields

The table includes fields such as recommendation ID, source, asset type, asset code, category, recommendation details, status, cloud resource ID, complexity, value, recommendation date, potential savings, and realized savings.

Create a new recommendation

Use Add New when you want to create one recommendation directly in the application.

To create a recommendation:

1. Open Recommendations

2. Select the Details tab

3. Click Add New

4. Enter a Recommendation ID

5. Select the Source

6. Select the Asset Type

7. Select the Asset Code

8. Select the Category

9. Enter the recommendation Details

10. Select the Status

11. Enter the Cloud Resource Id where applicable

12. Select Complexity

13. Select Value

14. Confirm or update the Recommendation Date

15. Enter Potential Saving where applicable

16. Enter Realized Saving where applicable

17. Click Save

Use direct entry for individual recommendations, manual savings ideas, one-off optimization actions, or recommendations created during review meetings.

Recommendation fields

If Recommendation Date is not provided, Yarken uses the creation date for the recommendation.

Upload recommendations

Use Upload when you need to add recommendations in bulk.

To upload recommendation data:

1. Open Recommendations

2. Select the Details tab

3. Click Upload

4. Choose the recommendation file to upload

5. Confirm the destination as Recommendation

6. Map the file columns to the required recommendation fields

7. Review the mapping and validation results

8. Complete the upload

9. Open Uploaded Files to confirm the file status

Use the recommendation template from Admin → Data Templates when preparing bulk uploads. This reduces mapping errors and helps keep field names consistent.

Uploaded Files tab

The Uploaded Files tab shows recommendation files loaded into Yarken.

Use this tab to review:

• Year

• Month

• File name

• Destination

• File type

• File status

• Loaded records

• Total records

• Errors

• Mapping fields

• Uploaded date

• Uploaded by

Use Add Filter to narrow the file list by destination, period, status, uploader, or other available fields.

Uploaded file actions

Each uploaded file has actions for managing the file and its loaded data.

Available actions include:

Use these actions when validating uploaded recommendations, fixing mapping issues, or refreshing recommendation data after source changes.

Download recommendation data

You can download recommendation data from the Recommendations page.

To download from the Details tab:

1. Open Recommendations

2. Select the Details tab

3. Apply search or filters if you only need a specific set of records

4. Open the more actions menu

5. Select Download

To download an uploaded file:

1. Open Recommendations

2. Select the Uploaded Files tab

3. Find the uploaded recommendation file

4. Select the Download action for that file

Use downloads for review, reconciliation, audit support, or offline analysis.

Upload Rules tab

The Upload Rules tab allows administrators to transform, validate, or enrich data during upload.

Upload rules are useful when recommendation files need consistent values before they are loaded into the system.

Use upload rules to:

• Set default values

• Update fields during upload

• Apply transformation logic

• Improve consistency across recommendation files

• Reduce manual cleanup before upload

The Upload Rules table includes fields such as source table, field to update, rule type, rule, comment, updated date, and updated by.

Create an upload rule

To create an upload rule:

1. Open Recommendations

2. Select the Upload Rules tab

3. Click Add New

4. Select the Source Table

5. Select the Field to Update

6. Choose the Rule Type

7. Define the rule

8. Add a comment where useful

9. Save the rule

Use upload rules when repeated files require the same transformation or enrichment logic.

Potential and realized savings

Recommendations separate estimated opportunity from confirmed value.

Track both fields to understand the optimization pipeline, delivered savings, and remaining opportunity.

Status, complexity, and value

Use status, complexity, and value together to prioritize work.

Status shows where the recommendation is in the workflow.

Complexity shows the expected level of effort.

Value shows the expected business or financial impact.

A high-value, low-complexity recommendation is usually a strong candidate for early action. A high-value, high-complexity recommendation may need additional review, technical assessment, or governance approval.

How Recommendations fit the Yarken model

Yarken connects financial data, operational context, and optimization workflows in one operating model.

Recommendations connect cost insights to action. They help teams move from identifying waste or inefficiency to tracking whether a recommendation was accepted, implemented, and measured.

Recommendations support workflows across:

• FinOps

• IT finance

• Cloud optimization

• Asset optimization

• Vendor governance

• Application rationalization

• Technology cost governance

Recommendations do not define the TBM structure, but they help teams act on what the broader cost model reveals.

Reporting on recommendations

Use Recommendations Overview to review recommendation performance through dashboards.

Use Recommendations Data in Analytics to build custom reports for recommendation status, potential savings, realized savings, category, source, asset type, cloud resource, and timeline.

Recommended practices

Use these practices when managing recommendations:

• Keep recommendation IDs unique and consistent

• Use clear, repeatable categories

• Keep source values consistent for reporting

• Link recommendations to the correct asset type and asset code

• Update status as work progresses

• Record potential savings when the opportunity is identified

• Record realized savings after the action is complete

• Use upload rules for repeat data cleanup

• Review uploaded file errors before relying on report outputs

• Use filters to focus review by source, status, period, or category

Strong recommendation discipline improves savings visibility and reduces manual follow-up.

Troubleshooting recommendation uploads

If uploaded recommendations do not appear as expected, check:

• Required fields are mapped

• Recommendation IDs are populated

• Asset type and asset code values are valid

• Category, status, complexity, and value fields use accepted values

• Recommendation dates use the expected format

• Potential and realized savings values are numeric where required

• The uploaded file status shows Loaded

• The file error count is reviewed

• Upload rules did not overwrite fields unexpectedly

If needed, use Re-map and reload to correct field mapping and process the file again.

Next step

• Recommendations Overview

Related content

• Recommendations Data

• Savings Recommendations

• Use Upload Rules

• FinOps and Cloud

• Analytics Overview