---
title: "Creating your first document"
slug: "creating-your-first-document"
updated: 2026-09-18T05:57:05Z
published: 2026-09-18T05:57:05Z
canonical: "docs.turbo360.com/creating-your-first-document"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.turbo360.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Creating your first document

## 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 |

              Note:

              

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

              Note:

              

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.

1. Click **Get Started** to launch the setup wizard.
2. Enter a **Friendly name** to identify this Service principal configuration later.
3. Fill out the **Service principal details**, or enable **Use existing Service principal** and select one from the dropdown.
4. Once validation succeeds, go to **Document details** and select the document type and date range.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Optionally choose notification channels.

              Note:

              

Email notification is enabled by default.

1. 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

1. **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](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/service-principal-setup-2).
2. **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.
3. **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](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/prerequisites).
4. **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.
5. **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.

## Related articles

- [Prerequisites](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/prerequisites)
- [Service principal setup](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/service-principal-setup-2)
- [Managing document groups](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/managing-document-groups-1)