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Creating Custom Telemetry Events for Event Log Monitoring

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> APPLIES TO: Business Central on-premises.

This article explains how to create custom telemetry trace events in AL code that will be sent to the Event Log of the Business Central Server machine.

Note

The SENDTRACETAG method is marked as obsolete in Business Central 2020 release wave 2 (v17). You can still use it, but we recommend that you send traces to Application Insights using the LOGMESSAGE method instead. For more information, see Creating Custom Telemetry Traces for Application Insights Monitoring.

Create custom telemetry events

To create a custom telemetry event, you use the SENDTRACETAG method in code. You can use the SENDTRACETAG method in any object, trigger, or method. The SENDTRACETAG method has the following syntax:

SENDTRACETAG(Tag, Category, Verbosity, Message[, DataClassification])

You use the parameters to define the information about the telemetry trace event. This information is can be consumed by event logging tools, and presented in different ways.

Parameter Description
Tag A text string that assigns an identifier to the telemetry trace event. The tag can consist of letters, numbers, and special characters. Business Central system telemetry events use an auto-generated, auto-incremented, 7-character tag that includes numbers and letters, such as 000002Q. and 000013P. Try to make your tags unique from these telemetry event tags by, for example, using at least 8 characters or a prefix, like Cronus-0001 and Cronus-0002.
Category A text string that assigns the telemetry trace event to a category that you define. For example, you could have a category for upgrading, user activity, or reporting.
Verbosity An enumeration that specifies the severity level of the telemetry trace event. The value can be Critical, Error, Warning, Normal, or Verbose. This severity level can be used by Business Central Server to filter out lower-level telemetry trace events from being emitted. See Viewing and collecting telemetry data.
Message A text string that specifies the descriptive message for the telemetry trace event.
DataClassification A DataClassification data type that assigns a classification to the telemetry trace event. For more information, see Data Classifications.

For example, the following code creates simple telemetry trace events for the five different severity levels.

SENDTRACETAG('Cronus-0001', 'Action', VERBOSITY::Critical, 'This is a critical message.', DATACLASSIFICATION::CustomerContent);
SENDTRACETAG('Cronus-0002', 'Action', VERBOSITY::Error, 'This is an error message.',  DATACLASSIFICATION::EndUserIdentifiableInformation);
SENDTRACETAG('Cronus-0003', 'Action', VERBOSITY::Warning, 'This is a warning message.', DATACLASSIFICATION::AccountData);
SENDTRACETAG('Cronus-0004', 'Action', VERBOSITY::Normal, 'This is an informational message.', DATACLASSIFICATION::OrganizationIdentifiableInformation);
SENDTRACETAG('Cronus-0005', 'Action', VERBOSITY::Verbose, 'This is a verbose message.', DATACLASSIFICATION::SystemMetadata);

For a simple test of this code, add it to the OnRun trigger of a codeunit, and then run the codeunit. Of course, you can also call the code from other objects, triggers or functions as well.

View and collect telemetry data

Viewing and collecting telemetry data is done the same way as with other trace events emitted by Business Central, for example, by using tools like Event Viewer, Performance Monitor, PerfView, or logman.

  • In Event Viewer, telemetry trace events can be viewed from Applications and Services Logs, in the Microsoft > DynamicsNAV > Common folder. The custom telemetry trace events are recorded in the Admin folder. You should be aware that only events with severity level of Warning, Error, and Critical will appear.

    For more information, see Monitoring Business Central Server Events Using Event Viewer.

  • With other tools like Performance Monitor, PerfView, and logman, you can collect telemetry data by using Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Common as the event trace provider.

    For more information, see Get Started Monitoring Events.

Important

The Business Central Server instance includes a configuration setting called Diagnostic Trace Level (TraceLevel in the customsettings.config file) that enables you to specify the lowest severity level of telemetry events to be recorded in the event log, or even turn off telemetry event logging altogether. If you do not see the expected events, then verify the Business Central Server instance configuration with an administrator. For information, see Configuring Business Central Server.

See Also

Instrumenting an Application for Telemetry
Monitoring and Analyzing Telemetry
Monitoring Business Central Server Events