Monitoring change history

Overview

Change history is a tab in the Monitoring section of a cost management group in Cost Analyzer. It lists the configuration changes that users made to the group's group budget, anomaly detection, custom monitors, and Budget planner, newest first. Each entry shows what changed, who changed it, and when, and you can open the entry to compare the old and new settings.

The Monitoring tab strip reads Overview, Group budget, Anomaly detection, Custom monitors, Budget planner, Incidents, and Change history. Change history is the last tab.

Business value

Monitoring settings decide when your team is alerted about Azure spend. When an alert stops firing or starts firing too often, the first question is usually what changed. Change history answers it in one place, so you can audit who changed a budget, an anomaly configuration, or a monitor without searching through general activity logs.

Prerequisites

You need access to the Monitoring tab of the cost management group whose changes you want to review.

Required permissions

Change history has no permission of its own. It appears whenever the Monitoring tab appears, and the entries you see depend on your Read permissions for the four monitoring sources.

When you assign a custom role, enable Monitoring under Specify feature permissions. Then turn on Read for each source under Specify monitoring tab permissions. Manage permission is not required to view Change history.

How it works

Change history is a read-only view of the user activity that Cost Analyzer records for the group's Monitoring section. It shows changes for the selected cost management group only. Changes made to its subgroups are not included.

Entries are grouped by day by default. Each day header reads Today, Yesterday, or the date, followed by the number of changes, for example "2 changes". Each entry has a description such as "Updated - Monitor settings for group budget monitor in Cost Management Group Contoso", the user who made the change, a relative time, a timestamp, and a Details link.

Cost Analyzer records the following changes:

• Group budget: adding a group budget monitor and updating its settings.
• Anomaly detection: the first configuration of automatic anomaly detection and later updates to it.
• Custom monitors: adding, updating, and removing a monitor, enabling or disabling monitoring, and changing a monitor's name or description.
• Budget planner: saving the budget planning configuration.

Click Details to open the User activity details blade, which has the Summary, JSON, and Changes tabs. The Changes tab compares the old and new values and appears for entries that recorded the previous settings. Use Expand view on the Changes tab to open a larger comparison.

The source tabs and the Group by list appear after the first load completes. The source tabs show All plus the sources you have Read permission for. Entries from a source you cannot read are hidden, including under All. The list loads 50 entries at a time, and Load more fetches the next 50.

Steps

Use these steps to review, filter, and export the changes recorded for a cost management group. Open Cost Analyzer, select the cost management group, and select the Monitoring tab to get started.

Review changes

Reviewing changes shows who changed the monitoring configuration of the group and when.

1. Select the Change history tab, the last tab in the Monitoring tab strip.
2. Select a source tab such as Group budget to show only the changes from that source, or stay on All.
3. Review the entries under each day header.
4. Click Load more at the end of the list to fetch older entries.

Filter changes

Filtering narrows the list to a source, a period, or specific users.

1. Open the Group by list and select Day or User to change how entries are grouped.
2. Click Date and select 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days. The preset applies immediately. Alternatively, select Select custom date, choose the From and To dates, and click Apply.
3. Click User, search for a user, and select one or more users.
4. Click Clear in the Date or User filter to reset it.

View the details of a change

Viewing the details shows exactly which settings changed.

1. Click Details on an entry to open the User activity details blade.
2. Review the Summary tab for the activity, the user, and the time.
3. Open the JSON tab to see the recorded details, or open the Changes tab to compare the old and new values.
4. Click Expand view on the Changes tab to open a larger comparison.

Export and refresh the list

Exporting gives you an offline record of the entries you are viewing, and refreshing reloads the list.

1. Click Export logs at the top right to download an Excel file of the entries currently visible. The file has the columns Activity type, Description, Performed by, Detail, Category type, Feature type, and Logged At.
2. Click the refresh button next to Export logs to reload the list. The refresh button also resets the Date and User filters.

Configuration

The Change history filters apply only while you view the tab. Cost Analyzer does not save them.

Permission behavior

What you see in Change history depends on your Read permissions for the four monitoring sources.

Change history has no Manage actions. Export logs is available to everyone who can open the tab, and it exports only the entries you can see.

Example scenario

A FinOps lead has Read permission for Group budget and Anomaly detection, but not for Custom monitors or Budget planner. The lead opens the Retail-Prod cost management group, selects Monitoring, and then selects Change history.

The source tabs show All, Group budget, and Anomaly detection. Under Today, the lead sees "Updated - Monitor settings for group budget monitor in Cost Management Group Retail-Prod" made by a colleague. Under Yesterday, the lead sees "Updated - Automatic anomaly detection configuration for Cost Management Group Retail-Prod". Changes to custom monitors and Budget planner in the same period are not listed, not even under All.

The lead clicks Details on the group budget entry and opens the Changes tab to compare the old and new monitor settings. The lead then selects 7 days in the Date filter, changes Group by to User, and clicks Export logs to keep a record of the entries on screen.

Limitations

• Change history shows the selected cost management group only. It does not include changes made to its subgroups.
• Change history shows the last 30 days of changes, so you cannot review older changes.
• Changes made through the exposed API and incident status changes are not recorded. See Managing monitoring incidents for the incident history of an alert.
• Changes to Reservation and Savings plan monitors are not shown here. Review them in Cost Analyzer user activities.
• Older entries may appear only under All.
• You cannot filter the list to a single monitor. Use the Custom monitors source tab and read the entry descriptions, which include the monitor name.
• Change history is read-only. You cannot undo or restore a previous setting from it.

Troubleshooting

1. The Change history tab is not visible
   Cause: Change history appears only when the Monitoring tab appears. Your role has no Read permission for Group budget, Anomaly detection, Custom monitors, or Budget planner on this group.
   Fix: Ask your administrator to enable Monitoring and turn on Read for at least one row under Specify monitoring tab permissions in your role.

2. A source tab, such as Budget planner, is missing from Change history
   Cause: You do not have Read permission for that source, so Cost Analyzer hides its tab and its entries.
   Fix: Ask your administrator to turn on Read for that row under Specify monitoring tab permissions in your role.

3. The list shows "No user activities found"
   Cause: No changes were recorded in the selected period, the changes are older than 30 days, or the selected source has no entries you can see.
   Fix: Select All, widen the Date filter, clear the User filter, and confirm that your role has Read permission for the source you expect.

4. A change you made is missing, although it is within 30 days
   Cause: The change was made through the exposed API, it was an incident status change, or it was made in a subgroup. These changes do not appear in the selected group's Change history.
   Fix: Open the Monitoring tab of the group where you made the change, or review incident actions from the Incidents tab.

5. The Apply button in the Date filter is disabled
   Cause: The custom From date is later than the To date.
   Fix: Correct the dates, or select a preset such as 7 days.

FAQs

1. How far back can I review changes?
   You can review up to 30 days. Change history does not keep older changes, and the custom From and To dates are limited to the last 30 days.

2. Does Change history show changes made to subgroups?
   No. It shows the changes recorded for the selected cost management group only. Select the subgroup to review its own changes.

3. Does exporting or viewing Change history create an entry?
   No. Viewing, filtering, and exporting do not create entries. Export logs exports only the entries currently visible to you.

Related articles

• Monitoring overview
• Group budget monitoring
• Automatic anomaly detection
• Custom monitoring
• Budget planner
• Roles and permissions in Cost Analyzer