Azure Tag Compliance Workbook

Overview

📊 Azure Tag Compliance Dashboard (by CloudCostChefs) is ready-made Azure Monitor workbook that gives you real-time insights into your tagging hygiene. Instantly spot untagged or mis-tagged resources groups, track compliance trends across subscriptions, and serve up accountability—no YAML prep required.

🍽️ Tag Your Tech Like a Pro. This workbook zeroes in on four essential tags—the core ingredients of any cost-optimized cloud recipe:

• Environment 🏗️ – Know if it’s cooking in Prod, Dev, or Test
• Owner 👨‍🍳 – Who’s the chef accountable for this resource?
• CostCenter 💸 – Follow the money, tie it to your budget
• Project 🗂️ – Every resource needs a reason; this is it

Key Features

Installation

🛠️ Installing the Tag Compliance Workbook: Fast & Frictionless

Import from JSON

1. Sign in to the Azure Portal
2. Navigate to Azure Monitor in the left navigation
3. Select Workbooks from the left menu
4. Click + New to create a new workbook
5. Click the Edit button in the toolbar
6. Click the Advanced Editor button (looks like </>)
7. Replace all content with the JSON from our workbook
8. Click Apply
9. Click Save, give your workbook a name (e.g., "Tag Compliance Dashboard"), select a subscription and resource group to save it in, and click Apply

Using the Workbook

Once installed, using the Tag Compliance Workbook is straightforward:

Accessing the Workbook

1. Navigate to Azure Monitor in the Azure Portal
2. Select Workbooks from the left menu
3. Find your saved "Tag Compliance Dashboard" in the list and click on it
4. The workbook will load and begin querying your Azure environment

Selecting Subscriptions

At the top of the workbook, you'll find a subscription selector that allows you to choose which subscriptions to include in the analysis:

• By default, all subscriptions are selected
• You can select specific subscriptions to focus your analysis
• After changing the selection, the workbook will automatically refresh with the new data

Interpreting the Results

The workbook provides several visualizations to help you understand your tagging compliance:

• Overall Compliance Score - This percentage shows how many of your resource groups have all four required tags
• Status Indicator - A visual indicator (✅ Excellent, 🟡 Good, 🟠 Needs Improvement, 🔴 Critical) based on your compliance score
• Missing Tags Chart - Shows which tags are most commonly missing
• Non-Compliant Resources - Lists resource groups that are missing one or more tags
• Bottom 20 Table - Shows the resource groups with the lowest compliance rates

Taking Action

The Tag Compliance Workbook is designed to help you identify and fix tagging issues:

Fixing Missing Tags

The "Non-Compliant Resource Groups - Action Required" section provides a detailed list of resource groups that are missing tags, along with which specific tags are missing. You can use this information to:

1. Prioritize which resource groups to fix first
2. Export the list to Excel for tracking or assigning to team members
3. Click directly on a resource group name to navigate to it in the Azure Portal
4. Add the missing tags through the Azure Portal UI or using automation

Automation Options

For larger environments, consider automating the tagging process:

• Use our automated tagging tools to apply tags at scale
• Set up Azure Policy to enforce tagging on new resources
• Schedule regular reviews of the Tag Compliance Workbook to track progress

Customizing the Workbook

You can customize the Tag Compliance Workbook to better fit your organization's needs:

Modifying Tracked Tags

If your organization uses different tag names or wants to track additional tags:

1. Open the workbook in edit mode by clicking the "Edit" button
2. For each query, click the "Edit" button (pencil icon)
3. Modify the KQL queries to reference your organization's tag names
4. Update the compliance score calculation to include your tags
5. Click "Done Editing" and save your changes

Example Query Modification

To change the tracked tags from Environment, Owner, CostCenter, and Project to a different set:

// Original query
                resourcecontainers
                | where type == "microsoft.resources/subscriptions/resourcegroups"
                | extend hasEnvironment = isnotnull(tags['Environment'])
                | extend hasOwner = isnotnull(tags['Owner'])
                | extend hasCostCenter = isnotnull(tags['CostCenter'])
                | extend hasProject = isnotnull(tags['Project'])
                | extend complianceScore = toint(hasEnvironment) + toint(hasOwner) + toint(hasCostCenter) + toint(hasProject)

                // Modified query for different tags
                resourcecontainers
                | where type == "microsoft.resources/subscriptions/resourcegroups"
                | extend hasDepartment = isnotnull(tags['Department'])
                | extend hasApplication = isnotnull(tags['Application'])
                | extend hasBusinessUnit = isnotnull(tags['BusinessUnit'])
                | extend hasCreatedBy = isnotnull(tags['CreatedBy'])
                | extend complianceScore = toint(hasDepartment) + toint(hasApplication) + toint(hasBusinessUnit) + toint(hasCreatedBy)

Adding New Visualizations

You can also add new visualizations to the workbook:

1. Click the "Edit" button to enter edit mode
2. Click the "Add" button at the bottom of the workbook
3. Select the type of visualization you want to add (Query, Text, etc.)
4. Configure your new visualization
5. Click "Done Editing" and save your changes

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

Next Steps

After implementing the Tag Compliance Workbook, consider these next steps to further enhance your tagging strategy: