Open the resource list in the Azure portal and you cannot sort by creation date, and there is no column for who created a resource. Both are among the longest-standing requests on the Azure feedback forum, across several ideas with hundreds of combined votes. Without them, cost allocation, cleanup, and audit questions like "who spun this up and when?" are hard to answer.
Why Azure cannot tell you this out of the box
- Resources have no built-in
CreatedByorCreatedOnproperty. The metadata simply is not attached to the resource. - The Activity Log has the answer, but only for about 90 days. Every create operation records the caller and timestamp, but the log ages out and the data lives in the log, not on the resource, so you cannot filter or report on it in the resource list.
- Azure Resource Graph exposes
createdTimefor some resource types but not consistently across all of them, so it is an incomplete answer.
The DIY approach: read the Activity Log, write tags
The durable fix is to capture the creator and timestamp while they are still in the Activity Log and stamp them onto the resource as tags, which do persist and can be shown as columns:
- Run a scheduled job (a Function on a timer or an Automation runbook) that reads the subscription Activity Log for recent write / create operations.
- For each new resource, pull the caller (the user or service principal) and the event timestamp.
- Write them as tags, for example
CreatedByandCreatedOn, onto the resource. - In the portal, use Manage view → Edit columns to add those tags as columns, and you get the sortable creator and creation-date view the resource list is missing.
The catch is timing: because the Activity Log only retains about 90 days, the job has to run regularly (a resource created and never swept within the window loses its attribution forever).
A ready-made option: Auto Tagger
Auto Tagger is that pattern packaged. It reads the subscription Activity Log every 15 minutes and
stamps CreatedBy and CreatedOn tags on every new resource, so you get
creator and creation-date attribution you can sort, filter, add as portal columns, and use for cost
allocation. It runs entirely in your own subscription with Reader and Tag Contributor permissions
only, so it writes tags and nothing else.
Key facts
- Native creator / created-date property: none on Azure resources.
- Activity Log: has the data, retained about 90 days, not shown on the resource.
- Durable fix: copy that data into tags, then show tags as columns.
- Least privilege: reading the log and writing tags needs Reader plus Tag Contributor.
Related reading: find orphaned Azure resources still costing you money.
Written by the team at Katabarwa Labs. We build small, single-purpose Azure tools that run entirely inside your own tenant. Questions: abaho@llmgraph.ai.