PowerShell and AppInsights sample code and binary library

PSAppInsights.ps1

## Requires Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.dll from: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.ApplicationInsights/ ##
## Unzip the .nupkg file and extact the "lib/net452/Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.dll" ##
## Upload the .dll to the same directory as "run.ps1" within the Function App

# Load .dll assembly into PowerShell session
[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile("$PSScriptRoot\Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.dll")

# Instantiate the Telemetry Client configuration
$TelemetryClientConfig = [Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensibility.TelemetryConfiguration]::CreateDefault()

# Set the Application Insights Connection String
$TelemetryClientConfig.ConnectionString = '<AppInsights Connection String>'

# Instantiate a new Telemetry Client using the defined configuration
$TelemetryClient = [Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.TelemetryClient]::new($TelemetryClientConfig)

# Generate a custom event
$TelemetryClient.TrackEvent('This is my custom AppInsights event')
$TelemetryClient.Flush()

# Generate a custom exception
$TelemetryClient.TrackException('This is my custom AppInsights exception')
$TelemetryClient.Flush()

try {
    # Throw an exception
    0/0
} catch {
    # Record the caught exception
    $TelemetryClient.TrackException($_.Exception)
    $TelemetryClient.Flush()
}

Hi! Your blog post and this code is great! I just recently realised however that no operation id is set by the SDK. Have you experienced this also?

Hi! Your blog post and this code is great! I just recently realised however that no operation id is set by the SDK. Have you experienced this also?

Hi @e-karlsson,

The gist is meant to demonstrate the most basic implementation of App Insights telemetry capture using PowerShell. If you dig into the .NET SDK and the available properties/constructors for Requests, Exceptions, Traces, etc. you'll find that you can do a lot more.

To add an Operation ID to your Events, you have to manually inject an operationId value into the Event record by using the EventTelemetry overload for the .TrackEvent() method. You can do so using the sample code below. You can also set a lot more properties within the EventTelemetry object's TelemetryContext.

# Instantiate new Event Telemetry object
$EventTelemetry = [Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.DataContracts.EventTelemetry]::new()

# Set the Event's name (message)
$EventTelemetry.Name = 'This is my custom AppInsights event with an operationId'

# Set the Event's OperationId
$EventTelemetry.Context.Operation.Id = (New-Guid).Guid ## Generate this however you want

# Optionally set the Event's Operation Name and/or Operation ParentId
$EventTelemetry.Context.Operation.Name = 'This is my custom AppInsights operation'
$EventTelemetry.Context.Operation.ParentId = (New-Guid).Guid ## Generate this however you want

# Add the Event to the Telemetry Client and push it to App Insights
$TelemetryClient.TrackEvent($EventTelemetry)
$TelemetryClient.Flush()