ROLE-BASED ACCESS NOTE: Some of the features and functionality described in this article require the assignment of the Admin user role to your user account. Without this role assigned, some or all of the functionality may not be available to you.
The Aimably Daily Cost Report email is sent out at the same time each day, according to your company's configuration. Depending on this configuration, the email may contain old or partial data sets. This guide will help you understand why the email is delivering the data it contains and how to resolve the issue by selecting a new email delivery time.
Reasons for Old or Partial Data
If your daily cost email appears to contain day-old data or older, this is because the email is being delivered prior to the running of the AWS daily billing cycle, which begins at 1 am UTC.
If your daily cost email appears to contain partial data, this is because the email is being delivered while AWS is still in the process of running its daily billing cycle, which typically lasts about an hour.
The AWS Daily Billing Cycle
Currently, the AWS usage data aggregation logic begins its daily calculations at 1 am UTC on the day after the day whose usage is to be reported. Please refer to this image to connect the data aggregation timeline to the timeframe of actual usage:
Aimably can be configured to retrieve and report the most recent usage data at any time in the day. When a report is about to be delivered, Aimably will query AWS for the most recent usage and costs data. This ensures you are receiving the most accurate data provided by AWS for that time of day.
If this query is performed prior to 1 am UTC, the data will appear to be stale even though it is the most recent made available by AWS. Additionally, if the query is performed just after 1 am UTC, the data will appear to be incomplete as the job has not yet terminated by AWS.
Selecting a New Report Delivery Time
It is important to select a daily cost email delivery time that will ensure you the most complete and recent data available. We recommend the following steps to determine your appropriate notification time:
- Convert 1 am UTC to your local time zone (e.g. 5 pm PST, 8 pm EST)
- Add at least two hours to protect yourself from variations due to daylight savings and give the AWS billing logic enough time to aggregate your total usage
- If the selected time is outside of your working hours, review your corporate behavior and determine whether it's more appropriate to delay delivery until the next working hour or if immediacy is preferred
For assistance in making this decision, the following table demonstrates which data would be reported depending on general timeframes in the North American workday.
| Report Receipt Time | Timezone Conversion | Most Likely Cost Data Content |
|---|---|---|
| North America Morning |
6 am PST |
24 Hour Period Ending Prior Afternoon |
| North America Afternoon |
2 pm PST 5 pm EST 10 pm UTC |
24 Hour Period Ending Prior Afternoon |
| North America Evening |
7 pm PST 10 pm EST 3 am UTC |
24 Hour Period Ending Current Day's Afternoon |
Changing the Delivery Time in Aimably
Changes to Report delivery times can be made in the Company Profile. Access the Company Profile by opening the Configure navigation menu group and selecting Update Company from the options displayed:
Once there, you'll want to change the field labeled 'Time of day to send daily report emails' to your selected time in the registered timezone above. Once this is complete, click 'Update settings.'
