Controlling costs and shared billing FAQs

Yashasvika Duggal
  • Updated

What happens when owners remove a user from a Google Cloud Billing account?

A user who no longer has a role in a Google Cloud Billing account can no longer create a Terra Billing project. Instead, they will get the following error message:
Screenshot of what happens if you try to create a Terra billing project but have no Billing acccount.png

They will also not be able to see detailed cost breakdowns or reports in Google Cloud console.

Users can still charge costs to a Cloud Billing account they have been removed from! By creating workspaces under any Billing projects they created or where they are still users
or
By performing operations in any workspaces they created or that were shared with them

To learn how to prevent these charges, see Best practices for managing shared (funding) resources.

What happens when owners remove a user from a Terra Billing project?

When you remove a user from a Terra Billing project, they will no longer be able to create workspaces with that Billing project.

If they have been removed from all Terra Billing projects, they will get the following message when they try to clone or create a workspace:
Screenshot of error message when you need a billing project to clone.png

Note: Users can still charge cloud costs costs to a Billing project they've been removed from!By operating in any workspace that has been shared with them
or
By operating in any workspace they created when they were still a Billing project user
(as long as that Billing project is connected to a valid Google Cloud Billing account)

To prevent this, Cloud Billing account owners need to 1. disable billing on all Terra projects created by this user, and 2. remove them from any shared workspaces.

To learn more, see Best practices for managing shared (funding) resources.

What happens when you remove a user from a workspace?

When a user is removed from a workspace (i.e., has no permission to view, compute or share the workspace), they will be unable to access the workspace and they will no longer be able to accrue any costs by analyzing in the workspace. When they try to open the workspace, they will get a warning message to this effect. This takes effect immediately.

Can you link a Terra billing project and a Google project?

It is not possible to link an existing Google Project to a Terra workspace. Only Terra can create the workspace Google projects (which are mostly in the background and different from the Terra Billing project).

In some cases, Google Cloud users can run into trouble when trying to integrate their Terra billing projects with Google Cloud.  It's useful to understand the following:

  • Terra will always create a Google Cloud project when you create a workspace. You can see the workspace Google project in the Workspace Information (on the right column in the Dashboard).
    Screenshot of workspace Google project in Dashboard

  • If you are the Google Cloud Billing account owner, you will see the workspace projects in the Google Cloud console here. The Google project that Terra creates **will have the format terra-####**.

  • Google Cloud Billing account owners can change the Cloud Billing account associated with a Terra Billing project in Terra. Go to the Billing page at https://app.terra.bio/#billing.
    Screenshot of popup to change Billing account in Terra

 

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