Referring to the previous post, let’s stay on the subject of data processing and storage. In today’s Out Of The Box Business Central series, I’ll show you how to configure a hosted Azure service, Application Insights, with Business Central Online.
In a nutshell, this service collects telemetry data for analysis and presentation. With it, you can monitor a given system live. It automatically detects performance anomalies and includes advanced analytical tools to help diagnose problems. It allows you to view data to see what and when users are actually doing with the application. I invite you to read the Microsoft documentation on this topic, the issue is really extensive.
Going back to the essence, i.e. the configuration itself, let’s start by creating an Application Insights resource. To do this, access to Microsoft Azure is required. After creating your account and logging in, you should see the home page:
To initiate the creation of an Application Insights resource, expand the list on the left, and then select: All services> Category: Monitor> Application Insights> New.
On the newly opened page, fill in all the required fields according to the instructions and proceed to the next stage via the field: Viewing + creating.
After verification of the entered data, we can create the service by clicking the button: Create.
Once the deployment is complete, go to the resource and copy the instrumentation key to then match Application Insights to Business Central Online.
In the tab: Overview, on the right there is the instrumentation key.
This is where the process in Microsoft Azure ends. With the key copied above, go to the Business Central system, and more specifically to the Admin Center:
On the next page, select the environment to be monitored.
The next step is to paste the key and commit the changes.
At this point, Application Insights setup with Business Central Online is complete. The service from then on receives telemetry data issued by BC. On the example of user monitoring it can be seen:
The world of monitoring with all the additions is open to the user. This is just the beginning, I encourage you to check the documentation about the capabilities of Application Insights.
