Write code to track requests with Application Insights

To view profiles for your application on the Performance page, Azure Application Insights needs to track requests for your application. Application Insights can automatically track requests for applications that are built on already-instrumented frameworks. Two examples are ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core.

For other applications, such as Azure Cloud Services worker roles and Service Fabric stateless APIs, you need to write code to tell Application Insights where your requests begin and end. After you've written this code, requests telemetry is sent to Application Insights. You can view the telemetry on the Performance page, and profiles are collected for those requests.

To manually track requests, do the following:

1. Early in the application lifetime, add the following code:

   using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensibility;
   ...
   // Replace with your own Application Insights instrumentation key.
   TelemetryConfiguration.Active.InstrumentationKey = "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000";
   

   For more information about this global instrumentation key configuration, see Use Service Fabric with Application Insights.

2. For any piece of code that you want to instrument, add a StartOperation<RequestTelemetry> using statement around it, as shown in the following example:

   using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights;
   using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.DataContracts;
   ...
   var client = new TelemetryClient();
   ...
   using (var operation = client.StartOperation<RequestTelemetry>("Insert_Your_Custom_Event_Unique_Name"))
   {
     // ... Code I want to profile.
   }
   

   Calling StartOperation<RequestTelemetry> within another StartOperation<RequestTelemetry> scope isn't supported. You can use StartOperation<DependencyTelemetry> in the nested scope instead. For example:

   using (var getDetailsOperation = client.StartOperation<RequestTelemetry>("GetProductDetails"))
   {
   try
   {
     ProductDetail details = new ProductDetail() { Id = productId };
     getDetailsOperation.Telemetry.Properties["ProductId"] = productId.ToString();
   
     // By using DependencyTelemetry, 'GetProductPrice' is correctly linked as part of the 'GetProductDetails' request.
     using (var getPriceOperation = client.StartOperation<DependencyTelemetry>("GetProductPrice"))
     {
         double price = await _priceDataBase.GetAsync(productId);
         if (IsTooCheap(price))
         {
             throw new PriceTooLowException(productId);
         }
         details.Price = price;
     }
   
     // Similarly, note how 'GetProductReviews' doesn't establish another RequestTelemetry.
     using (var getReviewsOperation = client.StartOperation<DependencyTelemetry>("GetProductReviews"))
     {
         details.Reviews = await _reviewDataBase.GetAsync(productId);
     }
   
     getDetailsOperation.Telemetry.Success = true;
     return details;
   }
   catch(Exception ex)
   {
     getDetailsOperation.Telemetry.Success = false;
   
     // This exception gets linked to the 'GetProductDetails' request telemetry.
     client.TrackException(ex);
     throw;
   }
   }