Quick Start: Run Your First Scan
Kick off your first scan and watch StratoLens populate your tenant.
Before you start
This guide assumes StratoLens is already installed, registered, and the Terms of Service are accepted. If not, complete the Installation Guide first — it walks through the full deployment, including Marketplace provisioning, the setup script, admin consent, and registration.
1Open Scans → Overview
From the StratoLens left sidebar, navigate to Scans → Overview.
2Click Start New Scan
StratoLens verifies the scanner managed identity has enough access to read your tenant. In most installations this passes silently — the setup script granted Reader at the tenant root during installation.
If you see Limited Azure Access Detected
The managed identity is missing Reader on one or more scopes. Click Go Back, grant Reader to id-{company}-stratolens-scanner at the tenant root (or on the management groups and subscriptions you want scanned), then try again. Continue Anyway runs the scan with partial data.
3Watch it run (or don't)
The Scan Controls tile flips to Scan in Progress, and a live progress panel appears with per-stage counters (Resource Graph Changes, Subscription Batches, Total Changes Collected) and percent complete.
How long does a scan take?
Scan time is highly dependent on environment size, but typically completes in anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.
Leave the page if you want
Scans run in the background. Navigate anywhere in StratoLens — the progress display catches up when you come back. First scans take longer than later ones because they seed the historical backfill queues.
4Acknowledge the backfill modal
When the first scan completes, a Background Data Collection Started modal appears. StratoLens automatically backfills historical data:
- Activity Log — up to 80 days of historical Azure activity events
- Cost Data — up to ~6 months of historical cost and usage data
- Resource Graph Changes — up to 14 days of change history
Click Close or View Scan History. Backfills run asynchronously in the background; you can keep using StratoLens while they complete.
How long does the backfill take?
Backfill time depends on environment size, but typically finishes within a few hours. It's fully automatic and runs in the background — you can track its progress from the Scan History page.
That's it — you're scanning
Your environment is now indexed. Head to the Dashboard to see resource counts, cost trends, and recommendations as data lands, or open Scans → Overview to enable a recurring schedule.
Where to next
Set a recurring schedule
Default cadence is every 8 hours. Change it under Settings → Schedules.
Scanner deep-dive
Phases, dialogs, troubleshooting, and first-scan behavior in detail.
Browse scan history
See past scans, durations, and the data each one collected.
Explore all features
Cost anomalies, RBAC optimization, change tracking, and more.