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How to Use the Azure Portal

In this tutorial, we’ll be examining the first point that you land on when you login to the Azure account known as Azure portal. Now let us have a glimpse of what the Azure portal will look like before heading to the actual tool.

What is Azure Portal?

The Azure portal is a web-based, unified console that lets you create and manage all your Azure resources. You can utilize a graphical user interface to manage your Azure membership with the Azure portal. The portal allows you to create, oversee, and manage anything from basic web applications to intricate cloud deployments. You may, for instance, analyze your monthly expenses, expand the processing capacity of your virtual machines, and set up a new database. All of the resources that are available can be evaluated, and new resources can be created using guided wizards.

The Azure portal is built to be resilient and always available. Each and every Azure datacenter has it.

Elements of Azure Portal

The portal menu and page header are global elements that are always present in the Azure portal. These persistent features are the “shell” for the user interface associated with each individual service or feature. The header provides access to global controls.

The working pane for a resource or service may also have a service menu with commands specific to that area.

The illustration below labels the basic elements of the Azure portal:

Azure Portal
Azure Portal

Here’s a brief explanation of all the different elements of the Azure Portal:

1- Portal menu: This global element can help you to navigate between services. Here, the portal menu is in flyout mode, so it’s hidden until you select the menu icon.

2- Breadcrumb: Use the breadcrumb links to move back a level in your workflow.

3- Page header: Appears at the top of every portal page and holds global elements.

4- Global search: Use the search bar in the page header to quickly find a specific resource, a service, or documentation.

5- Copilot: Provides quick access to Microsoft Copilot in Azure (preview).

6- Global controls: These controls for common tasks persist in the page header: Cloud Shell, Notifications, Settings, Support + Troubleshooting, and Feedback.

7- Your account: View information about your account, switch directories, sign out, or sign in with a different account.

8- Command bar: A group of controls that are contextual to your current focus.

9- Service menu: A menu with commands that are contextual to the service or resource that you’re working with. Sometimes referred to as the resource menu.

10- Working pane: Displays details about the resource or service that’s currently in focus.

Portal menu

The Azure portal menu lets you quickly get to key functionality and resource types. It’s available from anywhere in the Azure portal.

azure-portal-menu
azure-portal-menu

Useful commands in the portal menu include:

  • Create a resource. An easy way to get started creating a new resource in the current subscription.
  • Favorites. Your list of favorite Azure services. To learn how to customize this list, see Add, remove, and sort favorites.

In your portal settings, you can choose a default mode for the portal menu: flyout or docked.

When the portal menu is in flyout mode, it’s hidden until you need it. Select the menu icon to open or close the menu.

azure-portal-overview-portal-menu-flyout
azure-portal-overview-portal-menu-flyout

Service menu

The service menu appears when you’re working with an Azure service or resource. Commands in this menu are contextual to the service or resource that you’re working with. You can use the search box at the top of the service menu to quickly find commands.

By default, menu items appear collapsed within menu groups. If you prefer to have all menu items expanded by default, you can set Service menu behavior to Expanded in your portal settings.

When you’re working within a service, you can select any top-level menu item to expand it and see the available commands within that menu group. Select that top-level item again to collapse that menu group.

To toggle all folders in a service menu between collapsed and expanded, select the expand/collapse icon near the service icon search box.

service-menu-toggle
service-menu-toggle

Dashboard

Dashboards provide a focused view of the resources in your subscription that matter most to you. We give you a default dashboard to get you started. You can customize this dashboard to bring resources you use frequently into a single view, or to display other information.

Dashboard
Dashboard

You can create other dashboards for your own use, or publish customized dashboards and share them with other users in your organization. For more information, see Create and share dashboards in the Azure portal.

As noted earlier, you can set your startup page to Dashboard if you want to see your most recently used dashboard when you sign in to the Azure portal.

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