Enabling Custom Price Sheet Downloads

Background

For Azure Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers whose cost export uses the legacy FOCUS format, the SkuID field contains Microsoft part numbers rather than standard Azure SKU identifiers. This is a known issue with Microsoft's legacy EA cost export pipeline that affects a subset of EA customers.

To address this, Archera has built a custom pricing solution that uses the customer's EA price sheet to translate those part numbers into actual contracted rates. This enables Archera to produce accurate savings recommendations based on what the customer actually pays rather than public list prices.

To download the price sheet, Azure requires the OAuth user who originally authorized the Archera app to have Billing Account Reader at the billing account scope. This is a Microsoft platform constraint — the price sheet API only accepts delegated user credentials and cannot be accessed via a service principal or application token.

Onboarding cannot be completed until this permission is granted.

Prerequisites

• Access to an EA Administrator account on your Azure tenant
• The email address of the user who completed the Authorize Archera App step during onboarding — if you are unsure who this was, contact your Archera representative and they can identify the correct account

Steps

1. Sign in to Azure as an EA Administrator

The person making the role assignment must be an EA Administrator, not just a subscription owner.

2. Navigate to the Billing Account

• Go to Cost Management + Billing
• Select the Billing Account (not a subscription or management group)

3. Open Access Control

• Click Access control (IAM) in the left nav
• Click Add → Add role assignment

4. Assign the role

• Role: Billing Account Reader
• Assign access to: User
• Select the user who completed the Authorize Archera App step during onboarding

5. Save and notify Archera

Once saved, notify your Archera representative. No further action is required — Archera will complete the remaining onboarding steps automatically.

Troubleshooting

• Wrong scope — the role must be assigned at the billing account level, not a subscription or management group; subscription-level permissions are insufficient for this API
• Wrong account — the role must be assigned to the user who completed onboarding, not an application or service principal; this is a Microsoft platform constraint Archera cannot work around
• Insufficient permissions — only EA Administrators can manage billing account-level IAM; subscription owners and Billing Contributors cannot make this change
• Unsure who completed onboarding — contact your Archera representative and they can identify the correct account