What's Cooking in Business Central: Financial Reporting Enhancements (part 2): Telemetry
Demo of new Business Central financial reporting telemetry planned for 2025 release wave 1, viewed through a KQL query on Application Insights traces. It shows lifecycle events for creating financial reports, row definitions and column definitions, each with its definition code logged. Modification, deletion and report-run (usage) events are mentioned but not shown.
- Introduction to Financial Reporting Enhancements
- Demo: Creating and Editing Financial Reports
- Transition to Telemetry Overview
- Application Insights Query Setup
- Telemetry Events for Financial Reporting
- Summary of Telemetry Capabilities
Overview
The video is the second part of a “What’s Cooking” series on financial reporting enhancements. After a short demo of creating and editing financial reports, row definitions and column definitions, it moves to the telemetry those actions produce.
The presenter had telemetry turned on for the demo environment. In Application Insights, they query traces from the last day, filtered on their own user telemetry ID. The results show a financial report created event with the report definition code, similar events for row definitions and column definitions, and a modification event. The presenter also says there are events for modifying and deleting these objects, and for running reports. These were not demonstrated. The target audience is anyone who uses financial reporting and cares about auditing.
Key points
- Creating a financial report logs a ‘financial report created’ event with the report definition code.
- Creating a row definition logs a lifecycle event with the row definition code, visible in custom dimensions.
- Creating a column definition logs a similar lifecycle event with the column definition code.
- Modification and deletion events for reports, row definitions and column definitions are mentioned but not demonstrated.
- Running a financial report produces usage telemetry. This is mentioned but not demonstrated.
- The demo query takes Application Insights traces from the last day, filters on the user’s telemetry ID, and projects timestamp, message, event ID and custom dimensions.
- The presenter turned on telemetry for the demo environment before querying Application Insights.
Features
| Feature | Status | At |
|---|---|---|
| Financial Report Creation Telemetry | status not stated, demoed | 3:00 |
| Row Definition Telemetry | status not stated, demoed | 3:00 |
| Column Definition Telemetry | status not stated, demoed | 3:20 |
| Financial Report Modification Telemetry | status not stated | 3:40 |
| Financial Report Usage Telemetry | status not stated | 3:40 |
AL objects mentioned
As heard in the captions. A name that matches one object page by exact type and name links to it; the others stay as named.
- other “Application Insights” at 1:58
Quotes
- 0:05 “if you use financial reporting and Telemetry and have an interest in auditing let me show you what we are cooking on for the”
- 1:58 “these are all changes to financial reporting why like what’s going on with Telemetry well let because I did turn on Telemetry for this”
- 2:18 “take traces from the last day I’m filtering on my own user telemeter ID this GID is safe you can’t hack me with this”
- 3:00 “we have an event financial report created where we lock the report definition code I also did a modification then I have Telemetry for”
- 3:20 “we have the road def definition code loged there and also similar life cycle events for creating column definitions with the column defition definition”
- 3:40 “modifying a ro column definition you would have seen that deleting a row column or report definition you would have seen that and even”
Disclaimers in the video
- 3:40 preview: now here in version 2025 release wave one