Overview
Azure Documenter generates structured reports about your Azure environment. When you create a document configuration, you select a document type — this determines what data the report covers, how it is organized, and what output you receive.
Azure Documenter supports 17 document types grouped into five areas: cost and billing, resource inventory and auditing, governance and compliance, carbon and sustainability, and Microsoft 365 licensing.
Business value
Each document type is purpose-built for a specific reporting need. Rather than exporting raw Azure data and formatting it manually, you configure the document type once and generate a consistent, structured report on demand or on a schedule. The result is less time on data gathering and more time acting on the output — whether that means sharing a cost breakdown with finance, sending a compliance summary to a security team, or auditing license assignments before a renewal.
How it works
You select a document type when you create a document configuration using the Configure your document wizard (Step 1 — Basics > Choose document type). The document type is fixed for the lifetime of that configuration — to generate a different document type, create a new configuration.
Documents are generated as PDF, DOCX, or XLS files. Once generation is complete, a hyperlink is generated and the document can be downloaded using the same.
The 17 available document types are described below.
Cost and billing
These document types report on Azure spend and cost optimization opportunities.
1. Executive summary
A high-level, chart-driven snapshot of subscription cost and resource configuration for a billing period. Designed for stakeholders who need spend visibility without a full detailed report.
2. Billing details
A detailed breakdown of costs incurred per resource, resource group, location, and resource type for a specified billing period, up to 90 days. Optionally includes pie charts for each cost dimension.
3. Cost comparison
A side-by-side comparison of Azure spend across two billing periods. Useful for tracking spend changes month over month or quarter over quarter.
4. Rightsizing recommendations
A report listing virtual machines and other resources that are underutilized, with recommendations for downsizing to reduce cost.
5. Reservation recommendations
A report of Azure Reserved Instance recommendations based on your subscription's usage patterns, helping you identify where commitment pricing would reduce spend.
Resource inventory and auditing
These document types cover what is deployed across your Azure subscriptions.
6. Resource details
A comprehensive inventory of all resources across selected subscriptions, grouped by resource type. Includes app registration data from Microsoft Entra ID, optional full resource properties, and optional built-in network diagrams for supported resource types.
7. Resource auditing
An audit-focused report covering resource configuration details, suitable for change management, handovers, and periodic inventory reviews.
8. Network topology diagram
A visual diagram of the network topology across your Azure subscriptions, showing how resources and network components connect.
9. Workload diagram
A visual diagram representing the workloads deployed within your Azure environment, useful for architecture reviews and documentation.
Governance and compliance
These document types support security reviews, access audits, and compliance reporting.
10. Security compliance
A report summarizing the security posture of your Azure subscriptions, including compliance findings and security recommendations.
11. Access details - By subscription
A report of role assignments and access permissions across your Azure subscriptions, organized by subscription. Use this to review who has access to which subscriptions.
12. Access details - By type
A report of role assignments and access permissions organized by resource type rather than by subscription. Use this to audit access patterns across a specific type of resource.
Carbon and sustainability
These document types surface data on the environmental impact of your Azure usage.
13. Carbon summary
A summary of the carbon emissions associated with your Azure resource usage across selected subscriptions. Helps teams track and report on their Azure carbon footprint.
14. Carbon optimizations
A report of recommendations for reducing the carbon footprint of your Azure subscriptions, identifying resources and configurations where changes would have environmental impact.
Microsoft 365 licensing
These document types cover M365 license usage and assignment data. They require additional Microsoft Entra ID application permissions (Organization.Read.All and User.Read.All) to be granted before generation.
15. License consumption
A report of Microsoft 365 license usage across your tenant, showing assigned licenses, active usage, and underutilized or unassigned license seats.
16. License optimizations
A report identifying optimization opportunities in your Microsoft 365 license estate — for example, users with assigned licenses who have no recent activity.
17. Service plan matrix
A cross-reference table of Microsoft 365 license SKUs and the service plans included in each. Helps administrators understand plan overlap across SKUs and rationalize multi-SKU assignments.