Release Notes

Monthly updates on features and improvements

Upcoming release 2021 Version: TBD

New Features

1. Usage+ Quota Improvements

  • Stamp filter and pagination added in the usage and quota overview grid

  • Monthly summary now gives an aggregated report of all the subscriptions in a stamp.

  • Trend report includes aggregated view of all subscription in a stamp and includes new filters that toggles between days and months.

2.Tool Command for Subscription mapper

  • The Billing resource provider syncs all the subscriptions across stamps and creates new Cloud Assert Billing subscriptions or maps it against subscriptions of the users in the stamp where the billing resource provider is deployed by default.

  • If the operator prefers, each subscriptions can be manually mapped from the admin extensions. (Mapping Subscriptions)

  • New billing tool command has been introduced that will enable the operators to automatically map all subscriptions of each users in stamps in which the billing resource provider is not installed against subscriptions of the same users in the stamp in which the billing resource provider is installed.

3. Tool command for collecting usage status

  • New billing tool command is introduced to monitor the health of Billing background process.

4. Tool for collecting logs

  • Collecting all necessary logs during troubleshooting is made easier by the newly introduced billing tool command.

5. Updating the Billing Resource provider displays summary report

  • The scripts used for updating the Billing resource provider will now give a complete summary of what is updated and it's progress status.

Bug Fixes :

  1. [Admin/Tenant] Usage + Quota – Downloading the monthly summary as a csv did not honor the selected filters.

  2. In the Admin extension User Credits page the remaining user credits values are displayed incorrectly.

  3. Overview page in the Tenant extension are loading with internal server error.

  4. Cost displayed in the "cost by metered resource" donut of Usage History page is formatted to International Numeric values (K,M,B)

  5. In Tenant Overview and Usage History page the currency code filter data is fetched from pricing profile of selected subscriptions.

  6. In the Tenant extension Overview and Usage History pages, the Subscription Id and Names are not sortable.

  7. In Cloud Assert Cost management database, when there is a difference in table structure between staging and actual tables, the cost management service will recreate the staging table to fit with the actual table.

March 2021 Version: 1.2103.3.0

New Features

Quota Consumption reports across stamps

Admin and Tenants will be able to view quota consumption for tenant subscriptions across stamps.

  • The end users can view different reports on what resources are created and what quota allocated to their subscriptions remain.

  • The user has to delegate access for each subscription across stamps from the 'Manage Subscription' menu to view the quota usage.

  • The operator can view the quota consumption for all the subscriptions of the users from the Billing admin extension.

General

  • The Admin Dashboard charts are replaced with a single 'Monthly Summary' chart.

  • The 'Billing Accounts' menu in the admin portal is removed.

Enhancements

Usage Cost Reports across stamps for Tenants

Tenants will now be able to view usage costs across multiple stamps that honor Azure Stack RBAC.

  • The operators no longer have to map the subscriptions and Billing accounts of the end-user manually from the admin extension for the user to view the costs of subscriptions across stamps.

  • A new menu 'Manage Subscriptions' is introduced in the tenant Billing extension.

  • By delegating access for the subscriptions across stamps under the 'Manage Subscriptions' menu, the users can now view their costs incurred for the subscription across stamps.

January 2021

  • 6 Month history chart in HYBR Billing

  • Performance Improvement for Azure Stack Billing Usage Reports

  • Bug Fixes

December 2020

  • Support to override base Metered Resource Price in the child profile

    • Ability to apply mark up in the child profile

    • Ability to apply discount percentage in the child profile

    • Ability to override unit price in the child profile

  • API support for posting external usage data into the billing system

  • Bug fixes and Performance improvement

November 2020

  • CSP

    • Support for configuring meter pricing for software subscription

    • Support to convert trial subscription to paid

  • Support for individual Mark UP for Azure Reserved Instance and Software Subscription

  • Bug fixes and Performance improvement

  • Installer Improvement

October 2020

  • Billing Accounts

    • Ability to add user roles for billing accounts

    • In the tenant portal, usage costs can be viewed by users who have access to the billing account.

  • Support for Monthly Fixed Cost irrespective of the number of days in a month

  • Performance improvements for Microsoft CSP workflows

September 2020

  • Configure additional email recipients for Tenant Invoices

  • Tenant user can view subscription usage and costs that are managed by them

  • The tax settings are now moved from Invoice settings to General Settings

August 2020

  • Invoice

    • Ability to generate invoices in multiple languages

    • Support for a customized invoice through HTML templates

  • Report APIs

    • Cost Report and Subscription APIs for external system integration

  • Support for operators to reset cost from UI and tool

  • Improvements

    • Rate of exchange

July 2020

  • Multi Stamp Management

    • Ability to map subscriptions across different Azure Stack stamps with billing subscription.

    • Aggregated dashboard for subscriptions across stamps.

    • Monitoring usage, costs, and invoicing subscriptions across stamps.

  • Exchange Rates: Ability to define prices in one currency and charge customers in multiple currencies through exchange rates. This feature is particularly useful for Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers as the price list from the Partner center is not available in all currencies.

  • Support for usage collection and billing for VCenter Snapshot disks in addition to other VM metrics

  • Performance Improvement fixes for Pricing Profiles

  • Bug fixes and Improvements

    • Support for pagination in Pricing Profile Meters

    • Fix for cloned meters not being visible in UI

  • Deployment

    • Support for deploying Billing resource provider in a multi-tenant enabled environment.

    • Support for deploying in a completely disconnected environment

June 2020

  • CSP

    • Improvements to CSP Office 365 License data collection

    • Improvements to reseller price calculations for Office 365 Licenses

  • Azure Stack Hub

    • Improvements to Usage Data collection in Multi-Stamp environments

  • The ability for admin to copy email notifications to other users

  • Email notification settings for billing subscription changes

  • Bug fixes and improvements

May 2020

  • Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP):

    • Ongoing cost reports and forecast is now supported for Office 365 Licenses, Azure Usage, Software Subscriptions & Reserved Instances.

    • Office 365 cost split-ups based on license count in a billing cycle

  • More control on customer invoices: Admin would now be able to mandate approvals before the invoice is available for the customer. This makes it easier for admin to review and make any changes if required.

  • Resource Level cost in Admin and Tenant Reports for Azure Stack Hub

  • Bug fixes and improvements

April 2020

  • Support for Azure Stack Hub Version 2002

  • Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP):

    • Azure Plan: Ability to charge Reserved Instances and Software Subscriptions (Visual Studio, Microsoft SQL, etc.,)

    • Licenses: Improvements to recurring cost calculation for licenses

  • Invoice:

    • New default layout for invoice: Going forward the improved invoice is the default option for the customers, this includes costs grouped by resource provider, invoice summary page and other improvements. If customer needs to see old invoice IsV2InvoiceEnabled in AppSettings should be set to false

    • Azure Subscription Id and other external Ids from the source to be shown in customer invoices

  • Ability to display usage history with costs for pre-existing data: This is controlled through IgnoreSubscriptionCreatedTimeInHistory in AppSettings; default value is false.

Last updated