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Review Checklists: Best-Practice Coverage

Overview​

Review Checklists in Spotto scan selected Azure subscriptions for best-practice coverage and surface the gaps that matter. They combine automated checks with effort estimates, clear business context, and manual verification so you can run consistent reviews across teams and environments.

Why use this? (Jobs, pains, gains)​

Jobs to be done​

  • When I need a WAF or landing-zone review, I want a repeatable checklist that shows coverage across subscriptions, so I can report on readiness and risk.
  • When I see an open item, I want to know the likely effort and why it matters, so I can prioritize work.
  • When checks cannot be automated, I want a place to document manual verification, so the review is still auditable.

Common pains​

  • Reviews get trapped in spreadsheets and never stay consistent across subscriptions.
  • Best-practice guidance is scattered across docs, and context is missing when you need it.
  • Manual checks are hard to track and easy to lose.

What you gain​

  • A single review flow that aggregates findings across subscriptions.
  • Status, severity, and coverage charts that show progress at a glance.
  • Effort estimates and rationale so review items come with context, not just a label.

Key capabilities​

Where to find it​

In the Spotto Portal, open your company and navigate to Investigate -> Review Checklists.

Choose a checklist and subscriptions​

Pick a checklist from the catalogue and select one or more subscriptions. Spotto runs the review per subscription and aggregates results into a single view.

Run scans and track coverage​

Use Scan All to queue checks for the selected subscriptions. The summary shows per-subscription status and the last run time, so you can see coverage and progress without guesswork.

Review items and statuses​

Results are aggregated by checklist item and can be searched, filtered by Category and Status, and sorted by fields like Pillar, Service, or Severity.

Status values include:

  • Open
  • Not Verified
  • Fulfilled
  • Not Required

Effort and business context​

Each item can include an effort estimate (hours) and a short explanation of what drives that effort. In business view, Spotto surfaces plain-language summaries to make stakeholder reviews less painful.

Manual verification and comments​

Some checks require human validation. For those items, the detail view flags manual verification and lets you update status and comments across the selected subscriptions.

Resource lists and export​

Item details list compliant and non-compliant resources, with search and direct links to resource details. You can also export results to CSV for audit trails or follow-up work.

When available, each item links to supporting documentation or training modules so reviewers can jump straight to guidance.

Common starting points include:

  • Well-Architected Framework (WAF)
  • Azure Landing Zone
  • Cost Optimization
  • AKS
  • API Management
  • Front Door

The full catalogue includes additional platform and workload-specific checklists.

Technical reference​

ComponentDetails
InputsChecklist catalogue, Spotto review scans per subscription, and resource metadata for compliant/non-compliant items.
OutputsAggregated checklist results, coverage charts by status and severity, per-item details with resource lists, and CSV export.
DefaultsItems without a result are treated as Not Verified until a scan or manual update is recorded.

How it differs from cloud-native reviews​

Cloud-native assessments often live in separate portals or spreadsheets. Spotto keeps the review in one place and adds:

  • Cross-subscription coverage and rollups.
  • Effort estimates and rationale to support prioritization.
  • Manual verification and comments as first-class data, not a footnote.

How it works (high level)​

  • You select a checklist and subscriptions.
  • Spotto queues a scan per subscription and stores a review document for each.
  • Results are aggregated by checklist item so you see a single checklist view.
  • Detail pages show context, effort, status, and linked resources, with manual updates when needed.

Limitations (honest, boring, useful)​

  • Not real-time: results appear after a scan completes and data syncs.
  • Single cloud account per scan: subscriptions must belong to the same cloud account to run a scan.
  • Some items are manual: not every best practice can be automated, and those items require verification.

Troubleshooting​

Scan button is disabled​

What you're seeing: Scan All is disabled. Likely causes:

  • No checklist selected.
  • No subscriptions selected.
  • Selected subscriptions belong to multiple cloud accounts.
  • Your role lacks scan permissions. How to fix:
  1. Select a checklist from the catalogue.
  2. Select subscriptions from a single cloud account.
  3. Ensure you have Company Admin or Cloud Account Admin access.

No results yet​

What you're seeing: The page shows an empty state or pending scan banner. Likely causes:

  • A scan has not been run yet.
  • The scan is still processing. How to fix:
  1. Run Scan All and wait a few minutes.
  2. Check the per-subscription status summary to confirm progress.
  3. Refresh the page after the scan completes.

Manual verification required​

What you're seeing: A checklist item says manual verification is required. Likely causes:

  • No automated check exists for that item. How to fix:
  1. Verify the item manually.
  2. Update status and comments in the detail view.
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