User guide
How to connect a cloud account, read the numbers you get back, and turn a one-off saving into a recurring one.
Getting started
Four steps, and the dashboard tracks which you have done:
- Connect a cloud account. Sign in with Microsoft and we read the Azure subscriptions your account can see. If you signed in with Microsoft, this is already done.
- Run your first scan. Open AI SCAN and start it. We read your resources and your actual bill.
- Review the recommendations under Resources, and accept the ones you want.
- Automate a saving under Schedules, so it repeats every month instead of happening once.
Permissions you need
This is the most common reason a scan comes back empty or without figures. CloudSave360 uses your Azure permissions — it has none of its own — so what it can see is exactly what you can see.
| Azure role | What it enables | Needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Reader | Seeing your resources at all | Required |
| Cost Management Reader | Reading your real costs, which is what lets us price savings against your actual bill instead of guessing | Strongly recommended |
| Contributor | Starting and stopping resources on a schedule | Only if you use automation |
Without Cost Management Reader you will still get recommendations, but many will show no rupee figure — see how to read the savings figures.
If your organisation blocks sign-in
Some organisations require an administrator to approve new applications. If yours does, you will see a Microsoft screen saying "Need admin approval". Nothing is wrong at your end and it is a one-time approval for your whole organisation.
Back out of that screen and CloudSave360 gives you a link to send your IT administrator, along with a short note explaining what is being granted. You can also leave your email there and we will help.
For the administrator: CloudSave360 requests delegated access to Azure Resource Manager. Delegated means it acts as the signed-in person and inherits exactly their permissions — it never holds rights of its own. Approving it grants no more than the employee already has.
Running a scan
A scan reads your resource inventory (virtual machines, scale sets, AKS clusters, disks, storage accounts, databases, public IPs, load balancers), pulls your costs from the Azure Cost Management and Billing APIs, and looks for spending you can remove.
It changes nothing. A scan is read-only, always.
Re-run it whenever you like — monthly, after a big deployment, or before a budget review. Each run is kept, so you can see what changed.
How to read the savings figures
Every figure traces back to real data. Where it can't, we show no figure rather than an invented one. Each recommendation is in one of three states:
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Precise | Based on what this exact resource actually cost you, taken from your bill. The most reliable figure we produce. |
| Priced | No observed cost exists yet — a new resource, or one whose spend is billed elsewhere (an AKS cluster's real cost sits on its node pool, not the cluster). The figure uses Azure's live retail price: real pricing, just not an observed actual. |
| Unquantified | Neither exists, or the advice has no defensible percentage attached — "review this cluster's usage", "tag this resource". Shown with no figure at all. |
An unquantified recommendation is not a bug or a failure. It is the honest answer when the data to price it isn't there. Most tools show an estimate anyway; we would rather you trust the numbers that do appear.
Totals are shown in rupees. Where a figure comes from Azure's pricing API it is converted from US dollars; where it comes from your bill it is already in your billing currency.
Acting on recommendations
Each recommendation is one of two kinds:
- One-time — delete an unattached disk, change a storage tier, release an unused public IP. You apply it once and keep the saving forever.
- Automated — a saving that only recurs if something acts on a timetable, such as shutting development machines down overnight. These are what schedules are for.
Accept, dismiss or snooze each one. Your decision is remembered, so a dismissed recommendation does not reappear at every scan.
Automating savings with schedules
A schedule stops and starts a specific resource at times you choose. Azure virtual machines, scale sets and AKS clusters are supported.
Setting one up
- Shutdown and startup times — in 24-hour form, e.g.
19:00and08:00. - Days —
Daily,Mon-Fri,Sat-Sun, or an explicit list such asMon,Wed,Fri. - Time zone — times are interpreted in the zone you pick, not UTC. Pick your own; daylight-saving changes are handled for you.
Before you enable one: a schedule will stop the resource you named, at the time you chose. Make sure it isn't something someone depends on overnight. Start with development or staging machines.
Checking it worked
Every attempt is logged, successful or not. Each schedule shows a status — Running, Failed, Not run yet, Paused, or Access revoked — and View history shows the last attempts with the reason for any failure. A status badge means the action really completed; we wait for Azure to confirm rather than assuming.
If a schedule fails, it retries once the following day rather than hammering Azure every minute. You can also fire one manually to test it.
Uploading a bill
If your Azure permissions restrict Cost Management access, you can upload an exported bill
instead — either an .xlsx export or the Billing_invoice_transactions.csv
file. We use it to fill in the billing totals we could not read directly, so savings are still
priced against real spend.
You can also enter your actual monthly bill by hand when running an analysis, and everything is rescaled against that figure.
Security and access
- We never read inside your resources. Not the contents of virtual machines, not the data in databases, not the objects in storage accounts. Only what Azure reports about them.
- We only change something when you have told us to — by creating a schedule, or running one manually. We never act on a recommendation by ourselves.
- You can revoke access at any time, from Settings → Cloud Connections, or from the Azure portal for your whole organisation. Either stops everything immediately.
- Colleagues signing up with the same email domain join the same customer account. Personal mailbox domains are excluded, so strangers are never grouped together.
Full detail in the privacy statement.
Troubleshooting
The scan found no subscriptions
Your Azure account can't see any, or lacks Reader on them. Ask whoever administers your Azure subscription to grant it. Being signed in to Microsoft is not the same as having access to a subscription.
Recommendations have no rupee figures
Usually missing Cost Management Reader. Add it and re-scan, or upload a bill.
A connection says "Reconnect"
Our access was withdrawn, or the token expired from disuse. Sign in with Microsoft again and it resets immediately. Schedules on that subscription are paused until you do — they are not deleted.
"This is a shared read-only demo"
You are on the public demo account, which everyone shares, so it cannot run a real scan or save changes. Connect your own account to use it properly.
A schedule shows "Paused"
Automation is disabled on your account — usually an unpaid subscription invoice. See below.
Plans and invoices
Billing is handled through a conversation, not a plan picker. We agree a price and issue an invoice; you can pay by bank transfer or an online payment link. Annual prepay is discounted.
Paying a subscription invoice is what keeps automation running. One-time recommendations you have already applied stay applied regardless — you keep those savings whatever happens to your subscription.
Your invoices are under Settings → Billing & Plan.
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