Monitoring Business Central Server Events with PowerShell

Events that occur on the Business Central Server instances are recorded in event logs on the computer that is running Business Central Server. You can view the events by using Windows PowerShell as described in this article.

PowerShell Get-WinEvent Cmdlet

You can use the Get-WinEvent cmdlet of Windows PowerShell to view Business Central Server instance events and trace events in the event logs and event tracing log files on the Business Central Server computer. The Get-WinEvent cmdlet retrieves the same events that can be viewed in Event Viewer under Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > DynamicsNAV (see Monitoring Business Central Server Events Using Event Viewer).

The Get-WinEvent cmdlet includes several parameters that enable you to filter the events that you view and specify how the events are displayed. Windows PowerShell enables you can create scripts that perform complex operations for extracting and displaying specific event data. For more information about the Get-WinEvent cmdlet, see Get-WinEvent.

For more information about installing and getting started with Windows PowerShell, see Getting Started with Windows PowerShell.

To use the Get-WinEvent Cmdlet to view events

1. If you want to view events in a Debug log, ensure that the log is enabled. The Admin and Operational logs are enabled by default.

   For information, see To enable the Business Central Server Debug Log from Windows PowerShell.

2. On the computer that is running Business Central Server, start Window PowerShell.

   For more information, see Starting Windows PowerShell.

3. At the command prompt, enter the Get-WinEvent command. The following table provides some simple example commands.

   To view	Command
   Events in the all DynamicsNAV > Server logs	Get-WinEvent -ProviderName Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server
   Events in the all DynamicsNAV > Common logs	Get-WinEvent -ProviderName Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Common
   Events in the DynamicsNAV > Server > Admin log	Get-WinEvent -LogName Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Admin
   Events in the DynamicsNAV > Common > Admin log	Get-WinEvent -LogName Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Common/Admin
   Events in the Business Central Server Operational log	Get-WinEvent -LogName Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Operational
   Trace events in the Business Central Server Debug log	Get-WinEvent -LogName Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Debug -Oldest

To enable the Debug Logs from Windows PowerShell

There are two debug logs for Business Central: Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Debug and Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Common/Debug.

1. On the computer that is running Business Central Server, start Window PowerShell as an administrator.

2. At the command prompt, run the following commands:

   wevtutil.exe set-log "Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/<Debug>" /q:true /e:true  
   

   wevtutil.exe set-log "Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Common/<Debug>" /q:true /e:true  
   

Tip

You can also enable the Debug log from Event Viewer. For more information, see Enable Analytic and Debug Logs.

Filtering Business Central Server Events

You can filter the events that you view in a Business Central Server log by setting the FilterXpath parameter of the Get-WinEvent cmdlet. The following examples illustrate how you can use the FilterXpath parameter to filter the Business Central Server events.

Example 1

The following example uses the Get-WinEvent cmdlet to view errors in the Business Central Server Admin log for the tenant MyTenant1 on the server instance MyNavServerInstance1.

Get-WinEvent -LogName 'Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Admin' -FilterXPath "*[System[(Level=2)]] and *[EventData[Data[@Name='tenantId'] and (Data = 'MyTenant1')]] and *[EventData[Data[@Name='serverInstanceName'] and Data='MyNavServerInstance1']]" | Format-List -Property Message-  

Example 2

The following is an example of a Windows PowerShell script that you can create and run to view trace events in the Business Central Server Debug log. The script returns the start and stop AL function trace events that take more than four seconds to execute on the tenant MyTenant1 of the server instance MyNavServerInstance1.

$maxAllowedSeconds = 4  
  
$xPath = "*[System[(EventID = 400 or EventID = 401)]] and " +   
         "*[EventData[Data[@Name='tenantId'] and (Data  = 'MyTenant1')]] and " +  
         "*[EventData[Data[@Name='serverInstanceName'] and Data='MyNavServerInstance1']]"  
  
$events = Get-WinEvent -LogName 'Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Debug' -FilterXPath $xPath -Oldest -MaxEvents 10000  
  
Write-Host "List of AL functions that took more than $maxAllowedSeconds  seconds to execute :" -ForegroundColor DarkYellow  
  
for($i = 0; $i -lt  $events.Length; $i+=2)  
{   
   $seconds = ($events[$i + 1].TimeCreated - $events[$i].TimeCreated).Seconds  
  
   if ($seconds -ge $maxAllowedSeconds )  
   {  
     Write-Host $events[$i].Message `r`n -ForegroundColor Magenta  
   }  
}  

You can create the script by using, for example, Notepad or Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE). You save the script as .ps1 file type, and then run it from the Windows PowerShell.

See Also

Monitoring Business Central Server Events
Business Central Server Trace Events
Monitoring Business Central Server
Monitoring Business Central Server Using Performance Counters
Event Viewer