Recommendation Management: Prioritize and Share

Overview

Recommendation Management in Spotto is the workflow layer on top of cloud optimization: it helps you triage, prioritise, document, and share recommendations in a way that survives contact with real teams. It covers Spotto recommendations and enhanced provider recommendations (for example Azure Advisor recommendations), but adds the missing “so what?” signals and collaboration tools.

If you’re looking for the list/table view and filtering basics, start with: Recommendations.

Feature overview

Recommendation Management is how you take “we should probably do this” and turn it into a decision: prioritise vs dismiss, capture the rationale, and push it to the right channel (email, Jira, Halo, ConnectWise, Slack/Teams). The UI is deliberately inbox-like (Outlook style): a fast triage view with a detail view that provides context and actions.

Why use this? (Jobs, pains, gains)

Jobs to be done

• When I’m building an optimization backlog, I want to prioritise recommendations and add context, so the work is actionable and doesn’t get re-litigated next week.
• When a recommendation is noise (or not worth it right now), I want to dismiss it with a reason (and optionally a time window), so it stops distracting everyone but stays auditable.
• When a recommendation needs an owner, I want to share it into the team’s workflow (ticketing or chat), so it turns into work instead of a dashboard screenshot.
• When stakeholders need a decision, I want the risk/effort/benefit context on the same page, so we can say “yes/no/not yet” without a separate meeting.

Common pains

• Provider-native recommendations are often correct but not backlog-ready: limited context, scattered across subscriptions, and hard to route.
• “Why did we ignore this?” gets lost when decisions live in Slack threads or someone’s notes.
• Low-value recommendations crowd out high-value work unless you can filter, prioritise, and record intent.

What you gain

• A repeatable triage workflow: filter → decide → document → route.
• Better decision signals than “High/Medium/Low”: effort, risk, cost impact, performance impact, confidence, and considerations when available.
• An audit trail (history + comments) so recommendation status changes are explainable, not mysterious.

Key capabilities

Inbox-style triage (Outlook interface)

Recommendations are designed to behave like an inbox:

• A fast list/table view optimized for scanning and sorting.
• A detail view that answers “what is this, why does it matter, what do we do next?”.
• Defaults that bias toward impact-first triage (higher impact, lower effort, cost-first categories).

Filtering for triage

Recommendation Management is only useful if you can cut through noise quickly. The Recommendations view supports filtering/slicing by common routing and prioritisation signals, including:

• Category (Cost, Performance, Security, Reliability, Operational Excellence)
• Impact and effort
• Resource type, location, and tags (ownership slicing)
• Created window (for “what’s new?” triage)
• Thresholds like minimum cost and minimum affected resource count
• A “From Spotto” filter for Spotto-generated recommendations

Prioritise, dismiss, and restore (with rationale)

From the recommendation detail view you can:

• Prioritise a recommendation to mark it as backlog-worthy.
• Dismiss a recommendation (and capture why you dismissed it).
• Restore previously dismissed recommendations when circumstances change.
• Choose scope for actions when relevant (for example: a specific affected resource vs all resources under the recommendation).

note

Recommendation status in Spotto is a workflow signal. It doesn’t change your cloud resources by itself.

Comments and rationale

Recommendation Management supports collaboration where it matters (and keeps “why did we do/ignore this?” from turning into archaeology):

• Add comments to capture business context, constraints, and decisions.
• Pin a comment when there’s one “source of truth” note you want everyone to read first.
• See who said what and when, without grepping through old chat logs.

History (audit trail)

The detail view can show a recommendation’s history: actions taken (prioritised, dismissed, restored) plus the actor and any captured reason. It’s intentionally boring — which is exactly what you want when someone asks “why is this dismissed?” six weeks later.

Share to the tools teams actually use

You can share a recommendation via channels configured for your company:

• Email (always available)
• Slack and Microsoft Teams
• Ticketing systems: Jira, Halo, ConnectWise

Sharing supports a message + recipients, and (when configured) can create a ticket from the recommendation.

Tickets created via Jira/Halo/ConnectWise are recorded under Manage → Tickets so you can review history and status later.

If you use Spotto in an MSP / parent-child company setup, Spotto can also surface parent company share channels when the customer tenant doesn’t have an integration configured.

Better signals than provider-native recommendations

Provider recommendations like Azure Advisor are a useful starting point, but they tend to be lightweight. Spotto enhances recommendations with additional context when available, such as:

• Savings range and/or cost context
• Effort (sometimes with an approximate hours hint)
• Risk and “why this risk” reasoning
• Cost impact, performance impact, and confidence signals
• Considerations (tradeoffs, prerequisites, “check this before you touch prod”)
• Resource-level context like relevant settings notes/warnings when Spotto has enough configuration data to call them out

For stakeholder alignment, use the Business & Technical Toggle on the detail view to switch between decision-ready and implementation-ready language.

Technical reference

Component	Details
Inputs	Provider recommendations (for example Azure Advisor), Spotto-generated recommendations, and Spotto resource context (type, location, tags, spend) plus any available impact/effort/risk metadata.
Outputs	Recommendation status (prioritised/dismissed/restored), comments (including pinned comment), history entries, and share actions to email/chat/ticketing integrations.
Defaults	Recommendations are de-duplicated by recommendation ID across selected subscriptions. Default sorting favours higher impact, lower effort, and cost-first categories.
Limitations	Sharing beyond email depends on integration configuration and permissions. Savings/impact/effort/risk fields may be missing or “unknown” depending on data source; treat them as prioritisation inputs, not guarantees.

How it differs from Azure Advisor (and similar tools)

Azure Advisor tells you what it thinks you should do for a subscription.

Recommendation Management in Spotto focuses on making recommendations usable across a real organisation:

• Cross-subscription triage with de-duplication (one recommendation, many affected resources).
• Extra decision context (risk, effort, savings ranges, considerations) when available.
• Workflow support: prioritise/dismiss/restore with rationale, comments, history, and sharing into ticketing/chat.

It’s not a replacement for validating changes. It’s the missing layer that turns recommendations into a backlog you can execute.

How it works (high level)

1. Select one or more subscriptions in Recommendations.
2. Filter to the right slice (category, impact/effort, tags, min cost, etc.).
3. Open a recommendation to view details, affected resources, and decision context.
4. Take an action:
   • Prioritise to flag it for backlog.
   • Dismiss with a reason (and optionally a time window), and choose scope if relevant.
   • Restore when it’s worth revisiting.
5. Add comments (and pin the “read this first” comment if you need a single source of truth).
6. Share it to the right place (email/chat/ticketing) so it becomes work, not a screenshot.

Troubleshooting

I only see Email as a share option

What you’re seeing: The share dialog only offers Email (or ticketing/chat options are disabled). Likely causes:

• Jira/Halo/ConnectWise/Slack/Teams integrations aren’t configured for the company.
• You don’t have permission to view company integration settings (some environments return 403 Forbidden for integration detail reads). How to fix:

1. Confirm the integration is configured (see: Jira Integration, Halo Integration, ConnectWise Integration).
2. If you expect an integration to be available but it isn’t, contact your Spotto admin/support and include the company name and the channel you’re trying to use.

I can’t prioritise, dismiss, or restore a recommendation

What you’re seeing: Actions fail, or the status doesn’t update. Likely causes:

• Your Spotto role doesn’t have permission to manage recommendation state (you may see 403 Forbidden / “Permission denied”).
• Temporary API error. How to fix:

1. Refresh and try again (it’s not glamorous, but it’s effective).
2. If you keep seeing 403 Forbidden, ask your Spotto admin to confirm your role/permissions for that company.
3. If you’re trying to apply provider-side changes (outside of “management” state), review the Portal write-permissions guide: Advisor Recommendations.

Savings / impact / risk fields are blank or inconsistent

What you’re seeing: Some recommendations show rich context; others show -/empty. Likely causes: Data quality depends on the source recommendation and available resource context; not every recommendation has savings, confidence, or risk signals. How to fix: Use the fields you do have to prioritise, then validate changes against resource-level cost and your operational constraints before implementing.

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