Preferred Labels

Preferred Labels allow organizations to surface the most relevant labels at the top of selection menus in the Ternary Reporting Engine. This reduces friction when building reports and ensures consistent use of key labels across FinOps, engineering, product, and finance workflows.

What are Preferred Labels in Ternary?

Preferred Labels are a curated subset of existing labels that are promoted to the top of label dropdowns within the Reporting Engine. They do not create new labels or modify underlying data. They only influence label visibility and ordering in report configuration.

This feature is designed for environments with a large number of labels, where only a small set is routinely used for cost allocation, analysis, or reporting.

Which data sources support Preferred Labels?

Preferred Labels can be configured for the following source data types:

• FOCUS billing data
• Kubernetes cost and usage data
• Carbon footprint data
• BigQuery usage data

Each source is configured independently to reflect how labels are used across different reporting contexts.

How are Preferred Labels configured?

Preferred Labels are configured from the Admin section of the platform. To set Preferred Labels:

• Navigate to Admin → Global
• Select the relevant source data type
• Select the labels that should appear at the top of dropdown lists. Filter by integration to easily sift through the available labels
• Optionally hide labels that are not to be used for data analysis.
• Submit the configuration to save changes

Preferred Labels can be created for both Groupings and Measures. The selected labels are immediately promoted within the Reporting Engine.

How do Preferred Labels appear in reports?

Once configured, Preferred Labels appear at the top of label dropdowns when creating or editing reports. All other labels remain available and searchable, but are listed below the preferred set.

This ordering applies consistently across report builders and other label selection interfaces that reference the Reporting Engine.