Linking connections to initiatives

Connecting a platform lets Roiva read your account. Linking that connection to an initiative tells Roiva which initiative its costs or value count toward. A connection that isn't linked keeps syncing, but nothing it brings in reaches any initiative's ROI.

Video: Linking a support desk connection as a value source (1:23)

Integrations → Unlinked lists every live connection that isn't counting toward anything yet, the ones with the most synced spend first, and what each one needs.

What each connection needs

Every link has a role, and the role decides what the connection books:

A cost source link — the provider's bill is booked as the initiative's cost, so give the link only the part of the bill the initiative runs on. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Snowflake, OpenAI, Anthropic, QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Brex and Ramp are cost sources. A finance system or card platform books the vendors you pick, each at the share you set. A cloud account books the services or tags you pick, Google Cloud the budget you name, and Snowflake the usage types you pick. OpenAI and Anthropic book their whole bill unless the link claims only some projects or workspaces, or sets a share. GitHub books only the AI line items on its bill — Copilot seats and AI credits — unless the link names other products, such as Actions, Codespaces or Storage. Any connection whose bill pays for the initiative needs a cost link, even one that usually plays another role, such as GitHub. A connection that reports usage but no spend, such as Claude Enterprise or OpenAI Codex, can't be a cost source: its cost comes from the invoice in your finance system, or a recurring cost on the initiative.
A value source link — what the connection syncs becomes the initiative's value: tickets deflected in Zendesk, Freshdesk or Intercom, deals won in HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, payments in Stripe. Jira, GitHub, n8n, Make and Zapier need a value source link too: it adds a time-savings formula that turns resolved issues, accepted Copilot suggestions or successful automation runs into value.
Any link — a platform that only feeds usage data to the initiative's formulas and books no dollars itself, such as Claude Enterprise, Google Workspace or Looker. Its link is an activity source, the only role it can take.

A data warehouse can hold both roles at once. Snowflake and Databricks can be a cost source for one initiative and an activity source for another, or both for the same one. An activity source link to Snowflake, Databricks or BigQuery is also what lets you write a metric query for that initiative alone, whose readings are the initiative's own. See Metrics from your own data warehouse.

The link form offers only the roles a connection can book. The others are shown but can't be chosen, each with a line saying where that number comes from instead.

The Synced column

For a connection with a bill, Synced shows what the provider billed over the reporting period, none of which is attributed to an initiative yet. Click it to see the months or bills behind it.

A value or activity connection has no dollar figure until it's linked, because its value is what an initiative's formula makes of the data. For those, Synced counts the records or metric entries the connection has brought in, so you can see it has data waiting.

Link, Set up link, or Map customers

Most connections link in their row: choose the initiative, click Link, and the connection starts booking on its next sync.

The rest need to know which part of the account belongs to the initiative, so Set up link opens the full form:

AWS and Azure — pick the services (Bedrock or SageMaker, say), or a tag: a cost-allocation tag on AWS, a resource tag on Azure. The cloud bill covers everything on the account, not just your AI work.
Google Cloud — name the Cloud Billing budget that covers the initiative. Create one budget per initiative in the Google Cloud console, limited to the projects, services or label it uses, and the link matches it by name. Only its scope is used: its amount isn't the initiative's approved budget (see Budgets and budget vs. actual).
Snowflake — pick the usage types: Compute, Storage, Cortex and so on. Snowflake has no tag to split a type by initiative, so a mapping books the account's whole spend on that type. Map a type only when all of it is the initiative's.
QuickBooks, Xero and NetSuite — pick the vendors whose bills are the initiative's.
Brex and Ramp — pick the vendors whose card charges are the initiative's.
HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive — pick which won deals count, by a deal mapping or a deal property.

Stripe shows Owners and Admins Map customers instead: its Customers tab lists the customers it has synced, and you choose the initiative each one's payments count toward. A Member gets Set up link and types each customer's name or ID. A Stripe link books nothing for customers that aren't mapped.

A connection that's linked but maps nothing shows Add mappings. It looks linked, but it books $0 until something is mapped.

A vendor on both a cost link and a mapping

An initiative can hold a vendor's own cost link and, on its books, a vendor mapping for the same vendor. The link books what the initiative runs on — GitHub's AI line items, the workspaces or projects a model provider's link claims, the usage types a Snowflake link maps — while the invoice in your books is the vendor's whole bill. Booking both counts the same spend twice.

For GitHub, Anthropic, OpenAI and Snowflake, the invoice is left to the link in any month the link books, and a row booked there earlier is given up. Two things keep the invoice instead, and the link books nothing that month: an allocation rule for the vendor, which is an approved split with journals behind it, and a locked period, which no sync may change. Months before the link's data still book from the mapping, at the share you set, so set the share to the part of the bill the initiative runs on.

AWS, Azure and Google Cloud work differently. Your books spell those vendors the same way as their other products — an Azure invoice comes from Microsoft, beside your Microsoft 365 bill — so leaving an invoice out could drop a cost that was never the link's. Both are booked, the mapping form warns you, and you set the share for the part the link doesn't already count.

Allocation rules

Allocation rules can decide where a platform's bills go instead of links, on every plan. A connection whose platform has an active rule leaves the table for Booked by allocation rules below it, with nothing to link. A finance connection with no rule for its platform yet asks for An allocation rule, and its button is New allocation rule.

Connections that don't need a link

Below the table, the page lists connections that aren't asking for a link:

Feeds measurements — a formula already reads what the connection syncs, so it's doing its job unlinked. A cloud bill an initiative measures itself by is the usual case: the bill is the figure being measured, not a cost of the initiative, and linking it as a cost source would book the very spend you're tracking. Roiva works this out on its own, and the line under each one names the formula reading it. Link to an initiative if you do want it booking costs as well.
Booked by allocation rules — see above.
Nothing reads these — linking one would book no dollars and feed no formula, so there's nothing to do.
Not for an initiative — company-wide overhead, or a tool on trial, that an owner or admin has set aside by hand. Its spend still counts as unattributed in the Board Brief. Put back on the list undoes it.

One connection, several initiatives

The … menu at the end of each row has Link to Several Initiatives, which opens the connection's Initiatives tab, where you can link it to more than one initiative, and Not for an Initiative, which sets it aside. A model provider like OpenAI or Anthropic, or GitHub, divides its bill by share, or by the projects or workspaces each link claims. A cloud or finance connection divides it by what each link maps.

Who can link

Any member of the account can link a connection to an initiative, change a link's mappings and shares, and unlink it, just as they can edit the initiative. Connecting a platform, syncing, reconnecting, disconnecting and setting a connection aside as Not for an initiative are for owners and admins.

The link form lists the vendors, customers and deals a connection has synced but no mapping claims yet, and only owners and admins see those lists, because they come from the synced records. A member types the name into a mapping instead.

Connecting your first integration — connecting a platform in the first place
Adding costs and value entries — the entries a link books
Allocation rules and accounting periods — splitting bills with rules, and locking a month
Managing a connection — sources, syncing, disconnecting and deleting