How to Determine Who Uploaded an Extension in Dynamics 365 Business Central

How to Determine Who Uploaded an Extension in Dynamics 365 Business Central

 

Discovering who uploaded or modified an extension in Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC) can indeed be crucial for maintaining system integrity and understanding changes within your environment. While BC doesn't directly display this information in a straightforward table, there is a method to track such activities through the utilization of telemetry.

 

Telemetry in Business Central: Telemetry is a powerful feature that allows administrators to monitor and analyze system operations, including the deployment and modification of extensions. When activated, telemetry collects data on various events and interactions within BC, which can then be analyzed to gather insights, including the identification of users who have uploaded or modified extensions.

 

Activating Telemetry: To leverage telemetry for tracking extension activities, you first need to ensure it's enabled for your BC environment. This involves configuring your BC instance to send telemetry data to an Azure Application Insights resource. The setup process typically involves:

 

1. Creating an Azure Application Insights resource in your Azure portal.

2. Obtaining the Instrumentation Key from the created resource.

3. Configuring Business Central to send telemetry data by setting up the 'Application Insights Key' and 'Application Insights URI' fields in the BC Administration Center.

 

Analyzing Telemetry Data: Once telemetry is activated, you can use tools like Azure Monitor and Kusto Query Language (KQL) in Azure Data Explorer to analyze the collected data. You'll be looking for events related to extension deployment. Specifically, you can filter events by their type or by custom properties that might indicate an extension upload or modification.

 

Key Points to Consider:

 

- The level of detail and the specific events to monitor may vary depending on the version of BC and the specifics of your telemetry setup.

- Telemetry can generate a large amount of data, so it's important to have a clear strategy for filtering and analyzing the data to find the information you need.

- While telemetry provides powerful insights, it also raises considerations around privacy and data handling, so ensure you're compliant with relevant policies and regulations.

 

Conclusion: While Business Central doesn't offer a direct table view for tracking who uploaded or modified an extension, telemetry provides a comprehensive workaround. By activating and configuring telemetry, and then skillfully analyzing the collected data, administrators can effectively track such activities within their BC environment, enhancing governance and operational awareness.

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