Scheduled performance profiler overview
In some cases, many different business processes can interfere with each other, which can cause some of them to take longer than expected. Diagnosing these issues becomes more challenging because they can be transient as they depend on specific users' workflows or even happen outside of business hours. An example could be when scheduled jobs are run at the same time.
Your administrator can use the Profiler Schedules page in Business Central to set up schedules for when snapshots of the processes should be recorded. A schedule defines the time slots and filters for which activity should be recorded for a particular user. While recording, the profiler monitors all the activities that match the filters and produces individual profiles for each of them separately. They allow for retroactive investigation on individual user interactions or system processes by providing a view of what processes were running on the system during the defined time slots. Identifying where the holdup is, can make it easier to go to the correct support organization or, if you have developers in-house, fix the problem yourself.
Setting up a profiler schedule
To get started working with the Profiler Schedules page, follow these steps:
- In Business Central, choose the
icon, enter Profiler Schedules, and then choose the related link.
Note
You can also access the Profiler Schedules page from under Help & Support, under Analyze Performance with scheduled profiler.
- Create a new schedule by choosing the New action. This opens the Profiler Schedule card page.
- Here you can set up the different parameters of the schedule. Start by selecting a start and end time, the user whose activity is recorded and the type of activity to be recorded.
Tip
To get the most accurate results and limit the amount of data produced, choose the shortest possible time slot that will be appropriate to investigate the performance issues.
- Add a description for your schedule, which makes it easy for you to identify it in the future.
Tip
A short description of the investigated issue is a good candidate.
- Close the card page. Business Central now automatically records any activity that matches your configuration and happens in the time frame that you configured.
Types of activity, which can be recorded
Profiler schedules are supported for the following types of activities:
- Activity in the browser - A user logs into Business Central and uses the product.
- Background Tasks - Scheduled jobs or sessions created from AL code for background processing.
- Web Service Calls - Incoming OData or SOAP API calls.
Permissions for creating a schedule
Administrator users can create schedules for themselves and other users. Other users can create schedules for themselves to record their workflow.
How to turn off a schedule
A schedule can be turned off by navigating to it via the Profiler Schedules page and toggling off the Enabled field.
Note
Profiles might still be generated for a short duration as the setting propagates across the system.
Viewing and analyzing the profiles from a schedule
The profiles generated from a specific schedule can be accessed by selecting it in the Profiler Schedules page and clicking on the Open Profiles action. This opens the Performance Profiles page. In the list, each profile corresponds to an activity within Business Central. The Activity Description column describes what kind of activity happened in order to correlate these with user interactions, jobs, or web service calls. Various aggregate performance metrics are provided for each activity. Analysis mode can be used to perform a high-level investigation of what processes take the most time here. Learn more in Learn more about data analysis mode.
Tip
The Correlation ID column can be provided to customer support when reporting a performance issue to identify a specific interaction.
Each activity is associated with a performance profile, which contains a snapshot of the AL code that was executed as part of it. By clicking on the row or using the Open Profile action, an overview of the profile opens in the Performance Profiler page. This overview is the same as the one created for the in-client performance profiler. Learn more about how to analyze this data in Analyzing high-level results and Viewing advanced results.
The profiles can also be analyzed via the AL profiler in Visual Studio Code after downloading them. Learn more in AL Profiler overview.
An overview of the fields of the Performance Profiles page can be found below:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Start Time | When the profile started- |
| User Name | The name of the user associated with the activity. |
| Activity Type | The type of activity for which the schedule is created. |
| Activity Description | A system generated description of the activity. |
| Activity Duration | The duration of the recorded activity, not including idle time. |
| AL Execution Duration | The duration of the executed AL code in the recorded activity, not including idle time. |
| Correlation ID | An ID used to correlate the activity with internal telemetry. |
| Schedule ID | The ID of the associated schedule. |
Downloading performance profiles
If you want to share a recording, for example, if you're in contact with the company that provided an app that you think is slowing down a process, you can share the recording with them. Choose the Share button on the Performance Profiler page, and send the link to the app provider.
You can also download the recording and, for example, copy the file to OneDrive to share it with your colleagues. Choose the Download button on the Performance Profiles page, and then choose Yes in the confirmation dialog. The file is downloaded to your default download location.
Clearing performance profiles
The performance profiles associated to a schedule are deleted when the schedule itself is deleted. The amount of data collected from user sessions can grow quickly and take up storage. For this reason, the maximum retention time of a schedule after it finished is one week and the maximum duration of a schedule itself is also one week.
Advanced Schedule settings
Sampling Frequency
Sampling profiling is used when recording activities via the scheduled performance profiler. In simple terms, the system takes samples of what AL code is being executed in evenly spaced time intervals (for example, every 100 milliseconds). The frequency of the samples is controlled via the Sampling Frequency column in the Profiler Schedule page. This means that code that executes for smaller durations might not be captured in the recordings. Furthermore, the durations, which are recorded are approximate and depend on the sampling frequency that's used.
Activity Duration Threshold
The Activity Duration Threshold is a threshold that allows for filtering out short-lived activities, which wouldn't be helpful when doing an analysis of the profiling results. The threshold refers to the duration of executed AL code.
Scheduled Profiling and Debugging
While scheduled profiling is enabled for a session, it's not possible to attach the debugger to it. This includes launching with debugging, attaching to a session and snapshot debugging via Visual Studio Code.
FAQ
Is scheduled profiling enabled?
The Active Schedule ID field in the Profiler Schedules page contains the active schedule for the current session. It's empty if profiling isn't enabled.
What's the performance impact of running with a profiler schedule? Will the users be affected?
A user whose session, which is being profiled might experience some performance degradation due to the recording. This is because activities need to be recorded and stored for further investigation. The rule of thumb is to limit the duration of the schedules to the minimum required for the investigation and to apply schedules to as few users as possible.
How many profiles are generated from a schedule?
For background jobs and web service calls, one profile is generated for every activity. For users on the web browser the amount depends on their workflow. To ensure that the collected data is useful for investigations and doesn't take up unnecessary storage space, use a high enough value for the Activity Duration Threshold setting and limit the duration of schedules to the shortest timespan possible to record the activities of a user.
Why are profiles appearing with a delay in the Performance Profiles page?
The recorded profiles are processed in the background and might take some time to appear. You can use the Refresh action to see the latest results.
I set up a profile and verified that profiling is enabled for a user, but profiles aren't appearing for an interaction. What went wrong?
First, ensure that the Activity Duration Threshold and Sampling Frequency are set to a low enough value to capture the activities you're trying to record. If the activities are still not being captured, it could be that little time is spent executing AL code but something else is making the execution last longer, such as system functionalities.
I see some profiles in the Performance Profiles page, but I deleted the schedule?
Due to the background processing of profiles, it's possible that some profiles will be processed after their associated schedule is deleted. The system automatically deletes these profiles in a regular interval.
Related information
Performance Profiler overview
Managing technical support
Escalate support issues to Microsoft