Overview
This tutorial walks you through creating a document configuration with a recurring generation schedule and email notifications. By the end, you will have a configuration that automatically generates and delivers a document on a weekly or monthly cadence without manual action.
Business value
Automated document generation eliminates the manual overhead of recurring reports, ensures stakeholders receive up-to-date Azure documentation on a predictable schedule, and prevents missed reporting cycles caused by human oversight.
Prerequisites
- A Turbo360 account with access to Azure Documenter
- A Service principal configured in Azure Documenter with Reader access to the target subscriptions. See Service principal setup.
- A recipient email address for delivery notifications
Required permissions
| Role | Access |
|---|---|
| Account owner, Owner, Contributor | Full access by default |
| Custom role | Requires the Documentation permission set to Manage |
Steps
This tutorial creates a new document configuration with scheduling and notifications configured from the start. Navigate to Azure Documenter in Turbo360 to get started.
Step 1: Open the Add configuration wizard
Opening the wizard starts the configuration process where you will set the document type, subscription scope, and recurring schedule in a single flow.
- In the document configurations list, click + New configuration. The Add configuration wizard opens at the Basics step.
Step 2: Complete Basics, Service principal, and Branding
Complete the first three steps of the wizard as you would for any document configuration. See Creating your first document for detailed guidance on each step.
Key decision for a scheduled configuration: use a name that signals the cadence and scope — for example, Monthly – Executive summary – Production. This makes the configuration easy to identify in the document configurations list at a glance.
Click Next to advance to the Publish settings step.
Step 3: Configure publish settings for recurring delivery
Choosing the right publish destination for a scheduled report ensures the document is accessible to recipients as soon as each run completes.
- Choose a publish destination:
- Azure Storage account — delivers each run to a storage container. Useful for archiving a series of reports or feeding them into downstream tools.
- Document360 — publishes each run to a knowledge base project. Useful when stakeholders access reports through a documentation portal.
- Configure the destination details.
- Click Next to proceed to the Schedule step.
Step 4: Configure the schedule
The Schedule step sets the day and time Azure Documenter will automatically generate the document on a recurring basis.
- Enable the schedule toggle.
- Set Frequency to Weekly or Monthly based on how often stakeholders need updated data. See Scheduling recommendations for guidance on matching frequency to document type.
- Set the Day and Time for the recurring run. Choose an off-peak time — for example, 06:00 — so the document is ready when the business day begins.
- To add a second schedule (for example, a monthly executive cadence in addition to a weekly operational one), click + Add schedule and configure the additional frequency, day, and time.
- Click Next.
Step 5: Configure notifications
Setting up notifications ensures the right team is alerted immediately when each scheduled generation completes or fails, without requiring anyone to check the document configurations list manually.
- Enable Download report from notifications if you want recipients to be able to download the generated document directly from the notification email.
- Enter the Recipient email address for the team or individual responsible for acting on the report.
- Select an Email template for the notification format.
- Optionally configure additional notification channels.
- Click Next to proceed to the Review step.
Step 6: Review and generate
The Review step confirms all settings before saving. Generating immediately also validates the entire configuration end-to-end before the first scheduled run.
- Review the configuration summary — verify the document type, subscriptions, schedule settings, and notification recipients.
- Click Preview document to inspect the document content before committing.
- Click Generate to save the configuration and trigger an immediate generation.
Step 7: Validate the setup
Confirming the initial generation was successful means the configuration is ready to run unattended on schedule.
- Check that the document was published to the configured destination — verify the Azure Storage container or Document360 project.
- Confirm the notification was received at the configured email address.
- If either check fails, edit the configuration from the Actions menu and correct the publish settings or notification configuration before relying on the schedule. See Document generation failures.
The configuration is now active. Future generations run automatically at the scheduled day and time.
Troubleshooting
-
The configuration is not saved after completing the wizard
Cause: the wizard was closed before clicking Generate in the Review step. No settings are persisted until that final action.
Fix: open the Add configuration wizard again, complete all steps, and click Generate in the Review step to save and generate. -
No notification received after the initial generation
Cause: the recipient email address was not entered in the Notifications step, or the notification channel is misconfigured.
Fix: edit the configuration from the Actions menu, navigate to the Notifications step, and verify the recipient email address. Trigger a new on-demand generation to test delivery. -
Scheduled generation fails silently after a period of working correctly
Cause: the client secret for the Service principal used in the configuration has expired. All configurations using that Service principal stop generating silently.
Fix: rotate the client secret in the Azure portal and update it in Azure Documenter. See Service principal permission errors.