Help desk personnel know the typical support call scenario only too well. It often goes something like this…
User: I tried to create an invoice and got an error message.
Help Desk: OK, what was the error message?
User: I don’t remember.
With no additional information, the support technician usually has to set up a shared-screen session to see if they can talk the user through recreating the error. If the error can’t be recreated—almost always the case—they have to wait until it happens again. This creates frustration for both the user and the technician.
Tracking the Health of Your Environment, Applications and Extensions
A great new tool from Microsoft that overcomes this challenge is Telemetry for Business Central. The feature can be turned on from within Business Central to emit telemetry data for various user activities. Monitoring the data gives your IT team a look at the general health of your environment, applications, and extensions so they can diagnose problems faster and analyze operations that affect performance.
Western Computer recently enabled Telemetry for Business Central for one of our 365REMAN customers, a US-based distributor, supplier, and remanufacturer of diesel fuel systems, turbochargers, and engines. The customer relies on 365REMAN—a Business Central ERP solution customized for remanufacturers—to manage inventory, core banking, core returns, bill-of-materials teardowns, and core inspections.
One of the telemetry features the customer values most is the Error Dialog Statistics view as shown below:
This view includes a column showing exact error messages presented to users. In the invoice creation scenario described previously, the technician would not have to worry if the user did not record the error message. The technician can call it up in near real time, and then drill down into other data presented by the Error Dashboard to find out what else was happening in the environment.
Another report this customer appreciates is Incoming Web Service Calls: