Azure Workbook Bar Chart not showing (showing the Grid view fine)

Question

i am running a query on azure workbook that gives costs for on-demand and spot instances month to date within a number of resource groups. i want to have this data shown in bar chart as well where it could show for example a number of bars in a graph that in Resource Group A you have $100 for Spot and $500 for spot this month to date etc. when i switch visualization to bar chart or any other graph it shows the error: "Could not find appropriate columns for Bar chart." i do not know what column have i got wrong and what to change in this json.

{
  "type": "Usage",
  "timeframe": "MonthToDate",
  "dataset": {
    "granularity": "Monthly",
    "aggregation": {
      "totalCost": {
        "name": "PreTaxCost",
        "function": "Sum"
      }
    },
    "filter": {
      "and": [
        {
          "dimensions": {
            "name": "ResourceGroup",
            "operator": "In",
            "values": [
              "RG1",
              "RG2",
              "RG3",
              "RG4",
              "RG5"
            ]
          }
        },
        {
          "dimensions": {
            "name": "ServiceName",
            "operator": "In",
            "values": [
              "Virtual Machines"
            ]
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    "grouping": [
      {
        "type": "Dimension",
        "name": "ResourceGroup"
      },
      {
        "type": "Dimension",
        "name": "PricingModel"
      }
      
    ],
    "visualization": {
      "chartType": "BarChart",
      "title": "Cost by Resource Group",
      "legend": "show"
    }
  }
}

when i change visualization to Bar chart or any other chart it shows the error: Could not find appropriate columns for Bar chart.

i was expecting for a bar chart diagram that would show the cost of on-demand and spot instances categorized with their respective resource groups.

Answer 1

To create a bar chart that gives costs for on-demand and spot instances within a number of resource groups, you need to give X-axis & Y-axis objects as shown.

You have only one aggregation function selected in the code Sum for PreTaxCost.

To create a bar chart, you must first choose at least one dimension and one aggregate function.

Refer MSDoc for the above detailed information.

{
  "type": "Usage",
  "timeframe": "MonthToDate",
  "dataset": {
    "granularity": "Monthly",
    "aggregation": {
      "totalCost": {
        "name": "PreTaxCost",
        "function": "Sum"
      }
    },
    "filter": {
      "and": [
        {
          "dimensions": {
            "name": "ResourceGroup",
            "operator": "In",
            "values": [
              "RG1",
              "RG2"
            ]
          }
        },
        {
          "dimensions": {
            "name": "ServiceName",
            "operator": "In",
            "values": [
              "Virtual Machines"
            ]
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    "grouping": [
      {
        "type": "Dimension",
        "name": "ResourceGroup"
      },
      {
        "type": "Dimension",
        "name": "PricingModel"
      }
      
    ],
    "visualization": {
      "chartType": "BarChart",
      "title": "Cost by Resource Group",
      "legend": "show",
      "xAxis": {
        "title": "Resource Group"
      },
      "yAxis": {
        "title": "Cost"
      }
    }
  }
}

Answer 2

Without seeing a concrete JSON response from the API you are calling (that isn't listed anywhere here, presuming{scope}/providers/Microsoft.CostManagement/query?api-version=2023-03-01?) the most probable answer is that the API you are calling is returning numeric values inside of strings, and you might have to explicitly tell workbooks what the column types are.

for example: