Use the Azure portal

The Azure Portal has a lot of features and services available; let's look at some of the more common areas you'll tend to use. First, take a moment to hover your mouse pointer over each of the icons in the top menu bar for a few seconds each. You should see a tooltip label pop up for each one. This is the name of the menu item. You will use these icons later.

Services blade

1. In the left-hand pane, click All services. Take a couple of minutes to scroll down the list to see how many services Azure offers.
   
2. You can search for services through the filter box.
3. Select Virtual machines. If you don't see it, use the filter box. The Virtual Machines blade appears. There is nothing currently showing because you have not defined any virtual machines.
4. Click the + Add button. The Create a virtual machine blade appears, as in the previous exercise.
5. Click the X in the top right-hand corner to close the Create a virtual machine blade.
6. Click the X in the top right-hand corner to close the Virtual machines blade.
7. You should now be back at the Dashboard page. If not, you can always click on Dashboard in the left-most pane.

Notifications blade

1. On the icon bar menu bar, click the Notifications (bell) icon. This will list any pending notifications.
   
2. If any notifications appear, hover your mouse over one of them. Click the X that appears in that notification to dismiss it.
3. To the right of Dismiss, click All. You should have no notifications showing.
4. Click the X in the top right-hand corner to close the Notifications pane.

Azure Cloud Shell

The Azure Cloud Shell allows you to use a command-line interface (CLI) to execute commands in your Azure subscription. You can access it by clicking the (>_) icon in the toolbar. However, it isn't available in the Sandbox environment - so you will only be able to do this in your own active subscriptions. You can also navigate to https://shell.azure.com to launch a Cloud Shell in the browser independent of the portal.

When you launch the shell, you will see a Welcome window. You can choose either a Bash or PowerShell environment, depending on your personal preferences. You can also change the shell at anytime through the language drop-down on the left side of the shell.

Finally, there are a variety of management and programming tools included in the created environment.

• Azure command-line tools (Azure CLI, AzCopy, etc.)
• Languages / Frameworks including .NET Core, Python, and Java
• Container management support for Docker, Kubernetes, etc.
• Code editors such as vim, emacs, code, and nano
• Build tools (make, maven, npm, etc.)
• Database query tools such as sqlcmd

Settings

1. Click the Settings (cog) icon to open the Portal settings pane.
2. Drop down the Log me out when inactive setting, and select After one hour.
3. Under Choose a theme, select the different colored themes and observe the changes to the portal UI. Leave it set to the one you like the best.
4. Under High contrast theme, try the three different options.
5. Disable Toast notifications. This means notifications will not appear as pop-up "toast"-style notifications, but will still show up in the Notifications (bell) icon as always.
6. Note the Allow double-click on dashboard to change theme setting, enabled by default. When enabled, you can use the mouse to cycle through the various color themes without opening this Settings menu by double-clicking the left mouse button in the Dashboard view's background area. Disable this option to avoid accidentally changing your color theme.
7. Click Apply to accept your changes.
8. Click the Settings (cog) icon in the top menu bar and, under Language, select Español, and then click the Refreshbutton. If a Translate this page dialog box appears, close the box. Note that the whole portal is now in Spanish.
9. Click the Settings (cog) icon in the top menu bar and, under Language, select English. Click the Actualizar button. The portal returns to English.

Feedback blade

1. Click the Feedback (smiley face) icon to open the Send us feedback blade.
2. Type your impressions of Azure in the Tell us about your experience box, click the box that says Microsoft can email you about your feedback, and click Submit Feedback.
3. A Feedback sent message will appear, and then close. You should now be back at the Dashboard.

Help blade

1. Click the Help (?) icon to show the Help blade.
2. Click the Help + Support button.
3. In the Help + Support blade, under Support, click New support request. To create a new support request, you would fill in the information in each of the following sections, and then click Create to lodge the issue.
   • Basics: the issue type
   • Problem: severity of the problem, a summary and description, and any additional information
   • Contact information: preferred contact method and the information associated with this contact method
4. You can view the status of your support requests by clicking on All support requests.

 Note

Support requests can only be created using an active paid subscription. Creating support requests from a free Microsoft Learn sandbox is not supported.

What's new and other information

1. Click the Help icon and click What's new.
2. Review the features that have recently been released. Also note and explore the other Help menu options, such as:

• Azure roadmap
• Launch guided tour
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Show diagnostics
• Privacy + terms

1. Click the X in the top right-hand corner to close the Help blade.
2. Close the What's new blade. You should now be back to the Dashboard.

Directory and subscription

1. Click the Directory + Subscription (book and filter) icon to show the Directory + subscription blade.
   This is where you can switch between multiple subscriptions or directories. You should see the Concierge subscription here, and if you have an Azure account tied to the same email address, your own subscription.
   There is also a link to learn more about directories and subscriptions.
2. Click the X in the top right-hand corner to close the Directory + subscription blade.

Profile settings

1. Click on your name in the top right-hand corner of the portal. Options include:
   • Sign in with another account, or sign out entirely
   • View your account profile, where you can change your password
   • Submit an idea
   • Check your permissions
   • View your bill
   • Update your contact information
   Note that some items do not appear unless you click the "..." icon.
2. Click "..." then View my bill to navigate to the Cost Management + Billing - Invoices page, which helps you analyze where Azure is generating costs.
3. If you're using your own account and not sandbox, you can select a subscription from the drop-down list.
4. Click a billing period.
5. Note the service costs and check them against what you expect for your current subscription.
6. Click the X in the top right-hand corner to close the Costs by service blade.
7. Click the X in the top right-hand corner to close the Cost Management + Billing - Invoices page.
8. You should now be back at the Dashboard.

Now that we've explored all the main areas of the Azure portal, let's look at one of the most useful features - Dashboards.