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Current version: GD UG CE 23.3.1 - October 15, 2023

Preface

About This Guide

Thank you for selecting CloudAlly for Google Shared Drives. Relax! All your Google Shared Drives data is now securely protected with easy recovery from data loss. CloudAlly comprehensively backs up your data on industry-leading AWS S3 storage. Our product’s ethos is to provide feature-rich backup and recovery with security, ease of use, and flexibility woven in.

CloudAlly is cloud-native, a full cloud-to-cloud solution. No installation is required, the setup is hassle-free, backup is easy, and there are flexible recovery and export options. Read on for instructions about how to activate and manage your backups, restore your data by keyword, from any point-in-time, and at any granular/hierarchical level, export your backups to your own storage, activate summary/exception reporting, and set up MFA and other helpful features.

Questions or comments? Please contact us at support@cloudally.com or search our Knowledge Base at https://support.cloudally.com/hc/en-us.

Audience

This guide is intended for individuals who administer CloudAlly for Google Shared Drives.

What’s in this Guide

This guide is organized to help you find the information you need to manage CloudAlly for Google Shared Drives. It is divided into functional parts intended to support you as you manage your environment: 

• Creating and Accessing Your Backup Account
• Backing Up Your Data
• Recovering Your Backed Up Data
• Filtering and Viewing Drill-Down Details
• Managing Your Account
• Managing Subscriptions and Payments

Creating and Accessing Your Backup Account

Prerequisites

To administer backups for the Google Shared Drives environment, the following is required:

Sign Up/Sign In from the CloudAlly Home Page

• In your Internet browser, open cloudally.com and click Login.
• Click Customers. The Sign In page is displayed.

• If you don’t have an account yet, click Free Trial. The Sign Up page is displayed.

• Complete the form, and then click Sign up.

Note:    CloudAlly gives you the choice of numerous AWS data centers available in the dropdown menu “Location.” These include locations in Australia, Canada, EU (France, Germany, and Ireland), US, UK, and Japan. The ability to choose from a wide range of data centers helps our customers comply with local data sovereignty laws that regulate the physical location and movement of data. In addition, we also offer a “Bring Your Own Storage” (BYOS) option on request. This allows you to backup sensitive data in your own AWS S3 buckets, S3 compatible storage service, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. Please contact support@cloudally.com for more information.

• Your trial account is created, and an email containing your activation link is sent to your email address. Click on the activation link contained in the email you received to activate your account. If you sign up with Google, Azure, or Okta, the activation link will not be sent to you.
• Once your account is activated, you are redirected to the CloudAlly login page. Enter your email address/password and click Sign In to login and access your account.

You can also enable Two-Factor authentication to provide additional security. For more information, see "Two-Factor Authentication".

Resetting Your Password

If you do not remember your password, you can easily reset it using the Password Reset function.

• On the sign-in page, click Forgot your password? to start the process of resetting your password.

• The Password Reset page will appear.

• In the Email field, enter the email address that you used to sign up.
• Click Reset, and the Password Reset window will appear.

The email will look as follows:

• In the email, click ResetCloudAllyPassword to confirm the password reset, and the Change Your Password window will appear.

• Enter your new password in the New Password field and again in the Confirm New Password field, and click Save.

After resetting the password, you will be directed back to the Sign In to your Account.

Backing Up Your Google Shared Drives Data

Creating a New Backup Task

To create a new backup task:

• Sign in to your account, or if you are already signed in, click the Homepage option in the Navigation Panel.
• On the Homepage, click + Add Backup Task.

• Click Google Shared Drives. The following screen appears.

• You will be redirected to the Backup Settings page, where you can adjust the settings of the backup.

On this page, you can adjust the backup settings and activate backups for the Google Shared Drives users. See the sections below for the detailed procedures.

The set of options on this screen enables you to select the backup settings for the drive.

• You can change the name of the backup task by clicking .
• The icon to the right of the Google Shared Drives logo displays whether the application was able to connect to the specified Google Shared Drives account. If the authentication token granted for the application becomes invalid (e.g., it expires due to inactivity because you put the backup task on pause for a long time), the green Connected icon changes to the red Disconnected. To grant the application a new token, click on the icon to open the authentication dialog, and repeat the authentication process.
• By default, the “Index all data for Search” option is selected, which enables CloudAlly to provide you with its granular search and restore functionality. In the process, your data is temporarily decrypted for a brief period of time, and then re-encrypted once the index is built. If this goes against your company policy and you would like to disable automatic indexing, please contact support@cloudally.com.
• The Automatically activate new drives option instructs the system to detect new drives, and activate them automatically.
• Backups are automatically archived when an entire site is deleted. The Retain auto-archived backups option allows you to retain them for a specified number of days, after which they will be deleted. Otherwise, the backups will be retained indefinitely.

Note:    The Backup Data Center and Retention Period fields are “display only,” and their values can’t be changed here.

• The Backup Data Center field displays the Data Center location you selected when you signed up with your registration.
  
  The Retention Period field displays whether a retention period has been set up. By default, we provide unlimited retention of your daily backups for as long as you maintain your account subscription. You can override this default and specify a retention period in days, months, or years by contacting CloudAlly support. Backups older than the retention period specified will be automatically deleted.

• Backup Frequency and Backup Hour
  • Click the drop-down list adjacent to the Backup Frequency field and select how often you would like the backups to occur. The available options include:
    • Daily
    • Every 3 days
    • Weekly
  • Click the drop-down list adjacent to the Backup Hour (UTC) field and select the backup hour. Click Save.

Note:    Adding more frequent backups is possible via a support request.

Activating Your Backups

Once you have configured your backup settings, you need to Activate them, in order for them to begin backing up your data.

• Scroll down to the bottom of the screen where all of your drives are listed.

• Select one or more drive(s).
• Click Action > Activate. The status of your backups will now be "Scheduled." This means that they will be backed up at the time that you selected on the Configuration screen.

• Alternatively, if you prefer to perform an immediate, on-demand backup, click Action > Backup Now.

Removing a Backup Task

To remove a backup task for a service, on the Homepage, click Menu > Delete Backup adjacent to the backup task you want to remove.

The Confirm Delete pop-up window is displayed with a warning message.

Click Delete. The selected backup service is removed from your account.

To prevent mistaken deletions, there is a grace period of 7 days after your backup is deleted.

Removing an Individual drive

To remove an individual drive:

• Click the backup task from which you want to remove the drive. The backup task settings page is displayed.
• Add a check next to the drive that you want to remove. Click Delete in the Actions menu.

• A pop-up window is displayed with a list of drives selected for removal. Click Delete. The selected drives are removed from your account.

To prevent mistaken deletions, there is a grace period of 7 days after your backup is deleted.

Usage Reports

In order to provide greater clarity to you about which drives CloudAlly is backing up, you can export a CSV file that lists all of the entities that were backed up, including the status of each entity (active, inactive, or archived).

To export a usage report, click the Export button on the top-right side of the Homepage, next to Add Backup Task. The report will be sent to you via email.

Modifying the Settings of an Existing Backup

To modify an existing backup task:

• Click the Homepage option from the Navigation Panel. The Homepage screen appears.

• Click the Google Shared Drives icon from the list or enter a keyword in the Search field to find a specific task. The Google Shared Drives Backup page is displayed.
• Click Settings on the top-right section of the screen to see the backup settings.

From here, it is possible to modify the fields described in Configuring Backup Settings.

Recovering Your Backed Up Data

Using the Recovery Menu

The Recovery Menu provides you with options at a fine granularity for selecting which drive to restore or export.

To recover your backed up data:

• Click Recovery from the Navigation Panel. The Restore & Download page is displayed with all your active-backup account details.

• Click the Google Shared Drives backup task from which you wish to recover the data.
• The Restore or Download Google Shared Drives page is displayed.

This page displays all your Google Shared Drives domains backed up with the details such as drive name, First Backup date, Last Backup date, and available Actions. Your backed-up data is ready for download, from this page.

• You can filter the list using the following options:
  • Filter by statuses such as All, Active, In Process, Not Active, Scheduled, Paused, Backed-up in another task, or Archived, from the drop-down list.
  • Or: search by part or all of the drive name.
• Click the arrow icon at the end of the line of the drive which you want to restore or export (download).

The Restore or download Google Shared Drivespage is displayed.

• Select the radio button for your preferred restore method:
  • Via Snapshot (see Via Snapshot)
  • Via Item Search (see Via Item Search)

Restore or Download Via Snapshot

• Enter the date range that you would like to restore using the Data changed from and To fields, and press Continue.
• The list of backup snapshots within that date range is displayed. Select the snapshot you want to recover.

• Alternatively, you can click in the Action column to drill down into the snapshot and view the structure of the backed up data. There you can select one or more items for recovery.
• Once you select a snapshot (if you wish to recover all the data in the backup), or one or more items (if you wish to recover only selected items), the Restore and Download buttons become available.

Restore

If you click Restore, the restore confirmation window appears, asking you about the following:

• Do you want to restore to another folder or account? If so, provide the new location information.
• Do you want to restore the data with the original sharing settings, or without them?

The backup data that you selected will be restored to the location that you specified. When the recovery process is complete, a summary will be sent to your email.

You can also check the Jobs page to see the progress of your task. See "Tracking Recovery Tasks on the Jobs Page."

Export/Download

• If you click Download, the following confirmation window appears.

• Click the drop-down list and select one of the following storage locations:

• If you select options other than “for download,” you may be asked for additional credentials and/or access tokens for the selected storage locations.
• Click OK. The download instructions are sent to your registered email address. The download link is only valid for 72 hours.
• Or, you can check the Jobs page. (See "Tracking Recovery Tasks on the Jobs Page.") When the task is completed, the Download Results button will be active.

• Click Download Results, and a page will open, where you can access your backup file.

Restore or Download Via Item Search

• Select Via Item Search, and enter a word or phrase to search on.

• Click Continue. The Restore or download page is displayed, showing the search results with details such as . The details columns are different for different types of restored items.
• Select items you would like to restore or download. When at least one item is selected, Restore and Download become available.
• Follow the instructions in the Restore or Export/Download sections to complete the recovery process.

From the Navigation pane, click Jobs.

High-Level Summary

• The top portion of the Jobs dashboard summarizes how many of your jobs are in progress, how many have successfully completed, and how many have partially succeeded or failed over the past 7 days.

To see a list of jobs that have any of these 3 statuses, click on the status, and your results will be filtered accordingly

• Status: Filter by one of the following:
  • In progress
  • Succeeded
  • Partially succeeded
  • Failed
  • Pending
  • Canceled

• Search by Task: Filter by a task, such as:
  • Box
  • Dropbox
  • Google Workspace
  • Salesforce

If you choose to filter using a particular service, then you can focus on a specific item in the search bar. You can also order by:

• Latest First
• Oldest First

Description of Each Job

• The rest of the screen provides a detailed description of each individual job that you ran.
  • Type of Job: Export, or Restore – this appears as a large title within each job description.
  • Name, Service, and Account of the job.
  • Start date, backup date, initiator, destination, total items backed up or restored, and the size of the file(s).
• Cancel enables you to stop a job that is in progress.
• Download Results enables you to download a zip file with your recovery data.
• View Log redirects you to the System Activity page, which displays your account activity with details such as Activity, Date and Time, Service, Sub-Service, Status, Task Name, and Item.

This page enables you to filter and search the list of backup tasks, export the list as a CSV file, and view more details on any backup task.

The latter can be achieved by clicking    in the Activity column. The Info pop-up displays the backup execution time, the size of the stored data, and the number of entities, and the summary of the backup execution.

 

Filtering and Viewing Drill-Down Details

This section explains the process of finding the exact backup data you are looking for using filtering.

Filtering by drive

• Click the Homepage option from the Navigation Panel. The Homepage screen appears.

• Click the Google Shared Drives icon from the list or enter a keyword in the Search field to find a specific task. The Google Shared Drives Backup page is displayed.
• The Google Shared Drives Backup page displays all the Google Shared Drivesdrives available for the administrator account you are using. The page displays the details such as Drive, Status, Backup Size and Last Backup date. It also provides the means to filter the drives and control the associated backup tasks.

Filtering Using Tags

CloudAlly provides you with the means to add extra metadata to your backed up data in the form of "tags." For example, you might want to denote all drive that belong to Managers, or all those that belong to the Sales Team.

You can use tags to quickly filter your list of drives.

The Tags option is used to search for existing tags. By default, it is not active. To activate Tags:

• Select at least one drive.
• Click Tags, and the following screen appears.

• To search your existing tags, enter a tag name in the Search tags field.

Creating a New Tag

2. Enter a new tag name and click Create.

 

To apply tags to your drives:

• Select at least one drive.
• Click Tag.
• Choose the desired tag for your drive s.
• Click Apply.

Filtering by Tag

In the Filter by tag field, enter a tag name. The accounts, teams or sites with those tags will appear.

Actions

To perform actions on a drive, select at least one of them on the list, and the Action button will be enabled. Click Action to see the following drop-down menu:

• Activate enables backup in all the selected drives.
• Pause halts the backup procedures on the selected drives.
• Backup now starts the backup immediately. The backup in this case starts as soon as a backup processing machine is available, which may take several minutes.
• Delete removes the backup task and backup data for the selected drives.

Viewing Backup Statistics with the Drill-down Feature

Select an account, team or site, and click the button on the right-hand side of the row. This option enables you to drill down to the backup history dashboard.

When you drill down, you can find a diagram describing past backups, and a brief summary of the backup outcomes.

The summary tiles below the chart provide at-a-glance information about the backup: for each sub-service, they display the total number of items in the backup, the date of the last backup, and the outcome.

Managing Your Account

This section guides you through the processes of managing your Account activity, account settings, password, setting up two-factor authentication, and managing users.

Viewing Account Activity

The Activity menu enables you to view your account activity, including System Activity and Security Audit. Click Activity on the navigation pane.

System Activity

Click System Activity.

The System Activity page displays your account activity, with details such as Activity, Date and Time, Service, Sub-Service, Status, Task Name, and Item.

Security Audit

The Security Audit page provides information about all the security-related actions that have happened in your account. The user activity that is displayed includes:

• Backup deleted
• User deactivated
• Settings changed
• Sign-in success or failure
• Permissions changed
• Notifications.

The page includes the date of the event, the type of activity, the service involved, the status of the activity, the account performing the activity, and the description.

The Security audit table can be exported as a CSV file by clicking Export.

Managing Your Account Settings

The Settings page provides you with tools to control both your account and the accounts of users whose external credentials are linked to your account. The Settings section consists of the following sub-sections:

• Account
• User Management
• Security
• Notifications

You can find more details on each of the Settings pages below.

Account Settings

This page allows you to change the name of your account and the email address. You can only change the Data Center Location by contacting CloudAlly support. Finally, this page also allows you to terminate your account.

You can update the Account Name and/or Email.

Note:    If you change your email address, you will receive an email sent to your new address for confirmation. The new address will not become active until it is confirmed.

Click SAVE. The following screen will appear. If you did not receive the confirmation email, click Resend Email Confirmation.

Canceling Your Subscription

To cancel your subscription:

• Select the check adjacent to the "I approve the removal of my data from CloudAlly" field and click REMOVE ACCOUNT.
• The Are you sure? pop-up window is displayed with a confirmation request.
• Click YES to confirm the cancellation.

Note:    To prevent mistaken deletions, there is a grace period of 7 days after your account is terminated. After the grace period, if your account is not reactivated, all data from all your backups will be deleted.

Click + Add new user to create a new user and start the configuration procedure for that user, or to edit an existing user’s settings. The settings include the operations permitted to the user and the list of available services:

Note:     Selecting the role “Administrator” enables permissions to all services and operations.

To save changes, scroll to the bottom of the page and click SAVE.

You will be returned to the Settings page. To complete the process, the user must confirm their email address using the link sent via email. This is a security measure, which ensures that the user's email address is valid.

The link is valid for 24 hours. If they did not confirm within this time period, or did not receive the confirmation email, click Resend Email Confirmation.

• Update your password
• Set up two-factor authentication

The bottom section allows you to enforce certain security policies for your users’ accounts.

• With the Enforce Two-Factor Authentication option, you can make two-factor authentication mandatory for all the users in your account.
• By setting the Password Expiration, you can enable the password expiration option for all your users – you will be also be asked for the number of days before the users’ passwords expire.

Changing Your Password for Credential-Based Authorization

You can change your existing account password by performing the following procedure:

• From the Settings >Security page, in the Personal Password Policies panel, click Change Password.
• The Change password pop-up is displayed.

• Enter the current password in the Current Password field.
• Enter the new password in the New Password field.
• Re-enter the new password in the Confirm New Password field.
• Click SAVE. You can now use this password to access your account.

Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication provides additional security to your account and your backup data.

To enable two-factor authentication:

• Click Activate 2FA. The Two-Factor Authentication page is displayed.

• Download an Authenticator app, depending on your platform.
• Open the Authenticator app and add your account by scanning the QR code provided in the web application.
• If you cannot use a QR code, then enter the text code provided in the web application.
• A six-digit code is generated.
• Click NEXT.
• Enter the 6-digit code that the application generated.
• Click ENABLE to complete the process of activating the Two-factor authentication.

From now on, every time you sign in to your Account, you are asked to enter a 6-digit code from your authentication app, after you click SIGN IN. Click VERIFY to verify the code and access the application.

SAML

The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is an open federation standard that allows an identity provider (IdP) to authenticate users and then pass an authentication token to another application known as a service provider (SP).

CloudAlly supports Okta as its SAML provider.

There are two steps to setting up Okta so that you can use it to log in to CloudAlly:

• Setting up Okta in the CloudAlly application
• Setting up CloudAlly in the Okta Application

Setting up CloudAlly in the Okta Application

• In the Okta application, click Applications > Applications > Browse App Catalog.

• In the search bar, enter CloudAlly.

• Click the triangle next to CloudAlly SAML 2.0, and Assign to Users or to Groups.

• Click CloudAlly SAML 2.0, and on the next page, click the General tab.

• Scroll down until you see the App Embed Link section. Copy the URL that is displayed - you will need this to set up Okta in the CloudAlly app.

Setting Up Okta in the CloudAlly Application

• From the Homepage, click Settings in the Navigation panel.

• On the Settings page, click Security.

• Click the SAML tab.

• Paste the URL that you copied from the Okta site.

• Click Activate.
• Read the text in the next window, and click Confirm.

After clicking Confirm, the Activate state (top right corner of the screen) changes from Email & Password: Active to SAML: Active.

IP Restrictions

Need fine-grained access control of your endpoints? You can restrict access to the Portal based on the users' IP addresses. This is especially helpful to enforce security policies and prevent unauthorized access by limiting backup/restore requests to company-approved IP addresses, such as an office IP, or a particular VPN.

Setting Up IP Restrictions

To enable IP restrictions in your account, first create the list of trusted IP addresses.

It is strongly recommended to use this feature only if you have a static IP address, to prevent users from being locked out.

• In the Settings panel, click Security, and then IP Restrictions.

• Click + Add IP Address.
• Enter one or more IP addresses:
  • Enter individual addresses separated by commas, and an optional description.
  
  • Or, enter a one or more ranges of contiguous addresses, and an optional description. Multiple ranges could be used to accomodate VPN and internal networks.
  
• Once you enter at least one address, the Trusted IP Addresses toggle will be turned on. You can always return to disable IP restrictions later on.

You can edit your list of addresses by clicking , or delete ones that you no longer want on your trusted list by clicking .

Note:    If you forget to include your own IP address on the trusted list, IP restrictions cannot be enabled.

Your CloudAlly account is now protected from access by users who are not on your list.

Blocking Access

If a user tries to access your CloudAlly account from an untrusted IP address, the following "access denied" error message will appear:

Email Notifications

Whenever you enable or disable IP restrictions, or modify the addresses, CloudAlly will send you an email notification, letting you know what has changed.

Notifications Settings

This menu option enables you to manage your system notifications.

From the Navigation Panel, click Settings > Notifications.

The following screen will appear:

To set up a new recipient:

• Click + Add new recipient.
• Enter the Email of the recipient and the Display name. The Display name is used in the report email to address the recipient.
• Select the desired notification types:
  • Summary Report
  • Recovery Notification
  • Exceptions Notification
  • Auto Discovery Notification
  • Smart Alerts
• Click SAVE to create the new recipient. You may need to scroll to the bottom of the page to find SAVE.

Managing Subscriptions and Payments

Subscribing to CloudAlly

Once the trial period has ended, you need to subscribe to CloudAlly to access and manage your backups, otherwise your backed up data will be deleted.

To subscribe to a plan:

• Click the Subscribe link displayed in your account. Alternatively, you can click the Billing option of the Navigation Panel.

The Review Billing page is displayed with the option to select either MONTHLY or ANNUAL billing options.

Note:    You can subscribe before the end of the trial period, and the payment period will start after the trial period is over.

• Click MONTHLY or ANNUAL, depending on your preference. 

You are redirected to the Payment Details page. Fill in the billing and credit card details to finish the subscription process. Refer to Payment Details for more information.

Monthly Subscriptions

When you subscribe to a monthly plan, the credit card that you registered in the Billing > Payment Details page will be charged the amount that you owe.

CloudAlly's billing is handled by a PCI-compliant payment processor.

To finalize your subscription, enter your credit card details and general billing information, and then click Subscribe.

The initial payment will be charged at the end of your 2-week trial period.

A receipt will be emailed to you each month after you are charged.

If CloudAlly is unable to charge your credit card (e.g., because it has expired), you will be notified by email.

Additionally, a message will appear in the application that you need to go to the Billing Status page so you can review your billing details, and then update your credit card information if necessary.

Note:    The billing status is usually updated within a few minutes after the payment is complete. If the status has not updated after 24 hours, please contact support@cloudally.com.

Note:    The monthly payments are processed automatically once you provide the required information in the Payment Details section, and it has been verified that your credit card is valid. To disable automatic payment processing, please contact CloudAlly support. Instead, you will start receiving monthly invoices for the payments.

Annual Subscriptions

When you subscribe to an annual plan, you will receive a confirmation message that your request has been submitted, and then CloudAlly support will send you an email, asking that you confirm your annual subscription request.

Once you have confirmed, CloudAlly will email an invoice to you, payable in 30 days by credit card, PayPal, or bank transfer.

After the initial payment, CloudAlly will send you an invoice 30 days before your payment is due, in 11 months. You will also be reminded that your annual subscription is due online:

Note:    The billing status is usually updated within a few minutes after the payment is complete. If the status has not updated after 24 hours, please contact support@cloudally.com.

Should you fail to make your annual payment, you will be reminded with a message like this:

After you finalize your subscription, the Billing > Payment Details page displays additional billing management options and provides a brief summary of the payment information for the current period and the next payment date.

Payment Details

The Payment Details page contains the information used for billing.

Monthly Subscriptions

If you have chosen a monthly payment plan, you can update your credit card and billing details here:

Add New Card

The ADD NEW CARD option enables you to define your card information for a monthly subscription payment.

The new card information is saved and activated, and you can use this card.

The details section displays billing information such as Currency, Title, Name, and Billing email.

• Scroll down for more fields in the Billing details section. The Company Tax ID field indicates your company tax ID. (This is mandatory for Israeli companies.)

Note:    Due to Value-added tax (VAT), Israeli companies must include their Tax ID. Therefore, the Company Tax ID field is mandatory for Israel, and if this field is not completed, our company will not be able to provide you with backup services.

 

• Update the required fields. The fields marked with the * symbol are mandatory.
• Click UPDATE BILLING DETAILS.
• The updates are saved.

At the bottom of the page, you can choose whether you want to receive the Invoices or Receipts as a link or as an attachment to the email.

Note:     You can change the billing currency by contacting CloudAlly support.

Annual Subscriptions

If you have chosen an annual payment plan, you can update your billing details here. When you are done, click SAVE.

Billing Status

Annual Subscription

When you have paid your annual subscription, this page displays the next payment forecast for the upcoming payment date. The details include Service type and backup name, Quantity, Unit Price, and the Total Amount.

When your subscription amount becomes due, the Billing Status page displays the following information:

• Issue date - the date the invoice was issued
• Status - Paid, Due or Overdue
• Due Date - the date by which the invoice must be paid.
• Effective Date - the date the subscription period begins.
• Total Amount - amount owed.
• Download Invoice - Click this to download a PDF copy of your invoice.
• Email Invoice - Click this to send an invoice to your email address.
• Pay Invoice - Click this to directly pay the amount owed online.

You can click Pay Invoice, and you will be directed to the following screen, where you can pay your invoice via PayPal or by credit card:

From here, click Update credit card details and provide the new information.

History

This page displays the history of payments.

By clicking on the reference number, you can download the receipt, which provides details about the number of backed-up accounts or the amount of stored data, and the total amount paid. It also displays the payment method used.

An example of a receipt is displayed below.

Billing Notification Messages