Overview
Creating a document walks you through Azure Documenter's setup wizard to generate your first Azure document, including selecting a billing date range, document type, and publish destination.
Business value
- Get a working document generated within minutes using a guided, step-by-step wizard
- Choose a billing date range that matches your reporting cadence, from the last 7 days to a full quarter
Prerequisites
Required permissions
The Service principal must have Reader access to the target Azure subscription.
Within Turbo360, the following roles and permissions are required:
| Role | Access |
|---|---|
| Account owner, Owner, Contributor | Full access to the Documentation tab |
| Custom role: Documentation Read | Can view generation history of document configurations and download already generated documents |
| Custom role: Documentation Manage | Full create, edit, and delete access to the Documentation tab |
Custom roles use the Documentation feature permission in the Add role dialog. Setting the toggle to Read grants view-only access; users can view generation history and download already generated documents. Setting it to Manage grants full create, edit, and delete access to the Documentation tab.
How it works
Billing date range
The billing date range determines the period covered by subscription fee and Azure resource utilization data. Azure Documenter provides eight options:
- Last 7 Days: billing and metrics for the last 7 days
- Last week: billing and metrics for the previous calendar week
- Week before last: billing and metrics for the week before the previous calendar week
- Last 30 Days: billing and metrics for the last 30 days
- This month: billing and metrics for the current month
- Last month: billing and metrics for the previous month
- This quarter: billing and metrics for the current quarter, limited to the last 90 days
- Custom: a specified period, limited to 90 days
The default billing date range is last month, giving a cost comparison from last month to this month.
Steps
Use the following steps to create your first Azure document. Start from the Get Started button in the Azure Documenter module.
Create a document
Creating a document launches a wizard that collects Service principal credentials, document details, filters, and publish settings in a single flow.
- Click Get Started to launch the setup wizard.
- Enter a Friendly name to identify this Service principal configuration later.
- Fill out the Service principal details, or enable Use existing Service principal and select one from the dropdown.
- Once validation succeeds, go to Document details and select the document type and date range.
- Optionally, go to Filters and click + Add filter to scope the document to specific resources or criteria. Filters are optional; skip this step to include all resources in scope.
- Go to Publish settings and choose a destination:
- Publish document to Azure Storage account: generates the document as a PDF, Word, or Excel file and stores it in Turbo360's built-in storage account (Use existing Azure Storage account), or in your own (Add new Azure Storage account).
- Publish document to Document360: automatically generates and publishes the document directly to your Document360 project.
- Optionally choose notification channels.
Email notification is enabled by default.
- Click Generate. A link to the completed document is displayed once generation finishes.
Configuration
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Billing date range | Last 7 Days, Last week, Week before last, Last 30 Days, This month, Last month, This quarter, or Custom (max 90 days) |
| Filters | Optional; scope the document to specific resources or criteria |
| Publish destination | Azure Storage account (PDF, Word, or Excel), or Document360 |
| Storage account (Azure Storage account destination) | Turbo360's built-in storage account, or your own Azure Storage account |
Limitations
- Custom billing date ranges are limited to a maximum of 90 days.
Troubleshooting
-
Document generation fails with a Service principal error
Cause: The Service principal credentials entered in the wizard are incorrect, the client secret has expired, or the Service principal does not have Reader access to the target subscription.
Fix: Verify the Application (client) ID, Directory (tenant) ID, and client secret in the Azure portal. Ensure the Service principal has Reader access to the subscription. See Service principal setup. -
The Documentation tab is not visible for a custom role user
Cause: The custom role has not been granted the Documentation feature permission, or the permission is set below the required level.
Fix: Edit the custom role in User management > Roles and enable the Documentation toggle. Set it to Read for view-only access or Manage for full access. -
Publish to Document360 fails
Cause: The Document360 API token is missing, lacks required request methods, or the user email is not added as a project member.
Fix: Confirm the API token has GET/POST/PUT/DELETE enabled and that the Azure Documenter user email is listed as a project member. See Prerequisites. -
Generated document does not appear in Azure Storage
Cause: The Azure Storage connection string is incorrect or the storage account cannot be reached from Turbo360.
Fix: Verify the connection string and storage account network settings. Use Turbo360's built-in storage account as a fallback while troubleshooting. -
No subscriptions are available in the wizard
Cause: No document group has been configured with access to the required subscriptions, or the Service principal does not cover those subscriptions.
Fix: Confirm that the document group includes the target subscriptions via scope selection, and that the Service principal has Reader access to those subscriptions.