CMS v2 Usage Manual
Overview
CMS v2 is the CloudAxis management portal for relationships, subscriptions, platform regions, catalogue data, usage, billing, invoicing, alerts, jobs, settings, and updates.
This manual is written for platform administrators, platform readers, distributor and partner administrators, tenant administrators, support users, and technical operators. It describes how to use the portal and where operational boundaries apply.
Core Operating Model
CMS is organised around these records:
| Area | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Distributors | Top-level commercial or operational grouping for partners and tenants. |
| Partners | Partner organisations under distributors. |
| Tenants | Customer organisations that own subscriptions, users, documents, invoices, and quota state. |
| Regions | Platform hosting boundaries for Azure Stack, Azure Local, Public Azure, and CloudStack. |
| Subscriptions | Tenant billing and platform-resource boundaries. |
| Catalogue | Platform items that can be priced, such as meters, SKUs, offers, templates, and images. |
| Pricing | Region or tenant rate cards used by billing and calculator workflows. |
| Usage and billing | Usage collection, billing generation, billing grids, charts, invoices, and commissions. |
Navigation
| Navigation item | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Review scoped KPIs, region health, current invoices, consumption, and projected billing. |
| Billing | Review billing rows, billing status, invoices, commissions, and invoice generation actions. |
| Documents | View or accept tenant documents and terms. |
| Regions | Configure infrastructure regions and run region operations. Platform roles only. |
| Relationships | Manage distributors, partners, and tenants. Platform, distributor, and partner roles. |
| Notifications | Review alerts and messages. |
| Pricing | Manage pricing, currencies, catalogue pricing, and Azure categories. Platform roles only. |
| Subscriptions | Browse and manage subscriptions and quota operations. |
| Catalogue | Manage Azure, Azure Stack, Azure Local, and CloudStack catalogue items. Platform roles only. |
| Users | Manage users and role assignment inside the caller's permitted scope. |
| Settings | Manage platform settings, themes, backups, notifications, jobs, and updates. Platform roles only. |
User Roles
CMS uses server-side authorization policies. Portal visibility is only a convenience layer.
| Role family | Main capabilities |
|---|---|
| PlatformAdministrator | Full platform administration, mutation actions, billing generation, invoice generation, jobs, settings, updates, and cross-scope reads. |
| PlatformReader | Read-only platform areas and platform-scoped data. Mutation actions remain restricted. |
| PlatformService | Service-level automation where explicitly allowed, such as billing, usage, invoice, and alert workers. |
| DistributorAdministrator | Manage distributor-scoped partners, tenants, users, subscriptions, billing visibility, and delegated actions where enabled. |
| DistributorUser | Read distributor-scoped data where enabled. |
| PartnerAdministrator | Manage partner-scoped tenants, users, subscriptions, billing visibility, and delegated actions where enabled. |
| PartnerUser | Read partner-scoped data where enabled. |
| TenantAdministrator | Manage tenant-scoped users, subscriptions, documents, billing visibility, and delegated actions where enabled. |
| TenantUser | Read tenant-scoped data and complete required document acceptance. |
Security and Scoping
CMS data access is scoped by role and by the related distributor, partner, tenant, region, subscription, or platform relationship. Sensitive configuration values are masked or withheld from non-platform users.
For scoped users, API routes must validate access on the server before returning records or applying changes. Do not rely on grid filters or hidden buttons as the security boundary.
Common Empty States
Many v2 pages intentionally show a short alert and loading skeleton instead of empty grids when prerequisite data is missing. Common examples are:
- Create a region before subscription, pricing, quota, or usage workflows can run.
- Create a distributor before creating partners.
- Create a partner before creating tenants.
- Create a subscription before invoice, billing-status, or commission data has useful scope.
Related Pages
- Authentication and Users
- Relationships
- Regions and Platforms
- Subscriptions and Resource Groups
- Catalogue, Pricing, and Calculator
- Usage, Billing, and Invoicing
- Quotas
- Alerts, Jobs, and Updates
- Settings and Operations