Business Central telemetry that tells you what the system is doing

What Business Central telemetry records

Telemetry describes how the system behaves. It does not show what your customers owe. Signals cover long running database queries and AL methods. They also cover page views, report runs and web service calls in and out. They include job queue activity, sign-in attempts, permission changes and extension installs or upgrades. Most releases add new signals.

It does not contain your business records. Microsoft does not send field values from invoices or customer cards. That matters when the security team asks what leaves the tenant. The answer is operational data about performance and usage. It sits in an Azure resource under your own subscription.

Connecting Business Central telemetry to Application Insights

Setup is short. You create an Application Insights resource in your Azure subscription. Then you enter its connection string for each environment in the Business Central admin center. Production and sandbox can share a resource or stay apart. We usually advise keeping them apart. That way, test noise stays out.

Extension publishers can also send signals for their own apps to a resource of theirs. They declare it in the app manifest. For custom extensions we build, that means we see errors in our code as well as you. We also add custom events at the points that matter.

Queries, dashboards and the Power BI apps

You read raw telemetry with Kusto Query Language in the Azure portal. Microsoft also publishes Power BI apps for usage, errors, performance and administration. They sit on top of the same data. So you get a working set of reports without writing a query. You grant access per analyst.

We install those apps. Then we add queries for your own questions. Which report is slowest at month end? Where do integration calls fail? What permission errors do users hit? Also, does anyone open certain pages at all? In fact, the answers often settle arguments that ran on opinion. We save each query for reuse.

Alerts that reach someone who can act

A dashboard nobody opens helps nobody. Azure Monitor alert rules run a query on a schedule. They notify a person or a Teams channel when a threshold is crossed. Examples are a job queue entry in error, a burst of failed sign-ins, an integration returning errors and a spike in lock timeouts.

We keep the alert list short and specific. Each alert has a named owner and a first response. People soon mute noisy alerts. So tuning thresholds after go-live is part of the work. It is not an afterthought. We revisit the list with you as usage changes.

Putting Business Central telemetry to work on real problems

When users say the system is slow, telemetry shows which page, which query and which extension, with timings. That replaces guesswork with a specific fix. It may be an index, a rewritten loop, a filter on a list page or a job moved out of working hours. Afterwards, we measure the change.

Before each release wave, the same data shows which features and extensions people use daily. So testing effort goes where the risk is, for example to the extensions people use most. Data volume carries an Azure charge that depends on usage. We set sampling and a daily cap, so it stays predictable.

Business Central telemetry FAQ

Does Business Central telemetry include our customer or financial data?

No. It carries technical signals such as object names, durations, error messages and counts. Record contents do not leave. Still, it is operational information about your company, so care matters. So limit access to the Application Insights resource to people who need it.

Is telemetry available for on-premises Business Central?

Yes. On-premises servers can send signals to Application Insights through a server setting. The signal set is broadly the same. The Power BI apps and queries work against either. That helps companies that plan to move online later.

Do we need an Azure subscription?

Yes, a small one. Application Insights lives in Azure. Azure bills it by data volume through that subscription. Many Business Central customers already have one through Microsoft 365. We help set the storage period, sampling and a daily cap, to keep the volume sensible.

Who should look at Business Central telemetry day to day?

Usually a system owner or an IT lead does. Your consultant reads it during support work. Alerts cover the urgent cases. A short weekly look at the Power BI apps is enough to spot trends in errors and performance. That is how Business Central telemetry pays off day to day.

Can telemetry explain why a page is slow for one user?

Often, yes. Signals carry a user identifier. So you can filter long running queries and page views to that person's session. Add the in-client performance profiler. That normally pins the cause to a filter, a view or an extension.

Related monitoring and performance pages

Business Central telemetry is the evidence behind tuning, support and background job monitoring. These pages describe the work that uses it. They range from a one-off health check to ongoing optimization. Start with the page closest to your own problem. Then ask our consultants how it fits. For the product detail, see Monitoring and analyzing telemetry in Business Central.