In this chapter, you will learn how to use the Administration dashboard to:
- Add and manage users
- Add and manage cloud service provider environment
- Manage thresholds for generating alerts for customers
Note: For using the Aquila Clouds BillOps platform, configure only the Manage Users, Manage Environment and Manage Thresholds tabs.
Adding and managing users
You can add users with BillOps user role to define rate cards, define or import rate packs, account for managed services, define managed discounts, generate monthly bills and approve monthly bills.
Note:
- Only users with Admin user role can add new users.
- For using the Aquila Clouds BillOps platform for managing bills for cloud resource usage, assign only BillOps user roles to the users.
- Add a new user
- On the top bar, select > Administration.
- On the Administration page, select the Manage Users tab.
- Click Add User.
Figure 1: ADD USER SCREEN
- Enter the following details.
- Active: Toggle on to set the user to active user.
- Email: Type the email address for the required user.
- Password: Type the required password for the new user
- Confirm Password: Type the required password again to confirm.
- Role: Select any one of the following roles for the new user:
- BillOps Admin: A user with this role can define rate cards, define or import rate packs, account for managed services, define managed discounts, generate monthly bills, approve the bill.
- BillOps Operator: A user with this role can import rate packs, account for managed services, define managed discounts, generate finalized monthly bills and send it for approval to BillOps Admin or BillOps Reviewer users.
- BillOps Reviewer: A user with this role can access all views and can change the state of the bill to Internal Approved.
- Authentication: Select the required authentication mode for the new user.
- LOCAL: Select this option to use the local authentication mode used in your organization.
- OKTA: Select this option select any one of the available Okta configurations for user authentication.
- Azure Accounts: Select one or more Azure accounts from the list to which this new user has access permissions.
- Azure Stack Accounts: Select one or more Azure Stack accounts from the list to which this new user has access permissions.
- Azure Customers: Select one or more Azure customers from the list for which this new user can generate or approve the bill.
- Azure Stack Subscriptions: Select one or more Azure Stack subscriptions from the list to which this new user can generate or approve the bill.
- Click Apply.
The new user is created in Aquila Clouds BillOps with the defined permissions for the selected accounts and customers to generate or approve the bill for the resources used.
Adding and managing cloud service provider environment
This tab enables you to add and manage a cloud service provider environment to the Aquila Clouds BillOps platform. For more details about adding and managing cloud service provider environments, see Aquila Clouds BillOps Getting Started Guide.
Managing thresholds for generating alerts for customers
You can manage thresholds for cloud resources to enable generation of email-based alerts for the customers to indicate that they have few months of subscription remaining or only limited balance is available in their account. This would enable customers to take timely action and avoid discontinuation of services.
You can set threshold values for Critical or Severe metrics to generate alerts.
- Manage thresholds for a cloud resource
- On the top bar, select > Administration.
- On the Administration page, select the Manage Thresholds tab.
- Select the Billops Alerts tab.
- Click Edit Thresholds.
Figure 2: EDIT THRESHOLDS SCREEN
- Enter the following details:
- Metric list: Select the required metric from list.
- ThresholdA: Set the value for the number of months after which an alert will be triggered for the customer. For instance, for Critical metric for ThresholdA, you can set it to 1 to generate an alert for customers when one month of purchase order is remaining.
- ThresholdB: Set the value for percentage of the total balance available, below which an alert will be triggered for the customer. For instance, for Critical metric for ThresholdB, you can set to 10 to generate alert for customers when only 10% of total purchase order balance is remaining.
- Click Apply.
Aquila Clouds BillOps updates the threshold for the selected metric.
Managing login authentication
You can manage login authentication to add OKTA configuration that can be used for user authentication on the Aquila Clouds BillOps platform.
- Adding OKTA login authentication
- On the top bar, select > Administration.
- On the Administration page, select the Manage Login Authentication tab.
- Click Add OKTA Instance.
Figure 3: ADD OKTA INSTANCE SCREEN
- Enter the following details:
- Status: Toggle on to set the OKTA configuration to active.
- Name: Type the name of the OKTA instance.
- Client Id: Type the client ID for the OKTA instance.
- Okta Domain: Type the domain of the OKTA instance.
- Click Apply.
Aquila Clouds BillOps adds the OKTA instance.