Radimaging Ltd - Paul Beck's Technical Working Notes for Microsoft Technology

Thursday, 27 July 2023

Use Postman to get your MFA Bearer token

Short recording to show how to get my Bearer token using my Microsoft AAP account.

I used this post to help me: Authorizing requests overview | Postman Learning Center

Setup access for the Power Platform API using a Service Principal (secret)

Overview: I had a hard time setting up my tenant to use the Power Platform API, so here are my notes.

1. Register a new App that will be the Service Principal (SP)

Open https://portal.azure.com and login, and open your Azure Active Directory (mine is Radimaging Ltd) > Click "App Registrations" > "New registration" > add the registration as shown below:

Click the "All applications" tab and verify that the SP has been created. Click the application to go into it. Mine is called "Power Platform SP".

2. Give the SP permissions to use the Power Platform API's

Click "API permissions" > "Add a permission" > select the tab "API's my organization uses", search for the "Power Platform API" ensure it has the Application(Client Id) of "8578...".

Optional: If the API does not show up, use Power Shell to add it.

Add permissions. These are the permissions I added:

Click the "Grant Admin consent for ..." I did this but not sure if it is needed.

I also change the authentication setting on the SP to "Allow public client flows"

3. Use postman to check you are generating the Access token

Sunday, 25 June 2023

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 8 - Verify logging is going to the correct Log analytics

Overview: If you are using ALM/DTAP environments, I want to ensure all my environments are logging to the correct Log Analytics/App Insights. This needs to cover all services such as Canvas Apps, Functions, Service Bus,...

Canvas Apps: Open the Canvas app in Edit mode, Select "App", and check the instrumentation key points at the correct App Insights instance.

1. Ensure you have setup an application key in each Canvas App you build.

2. Ensure you turn on the logging feature (provides more logging)

3. Write custom logs (here I'm doing it using the Trace Function in a Canvas Power App

Trace("Practice | Info (1) | " & txtMarker.Text,TraceSeverity.Information)

4. Ensure you are in run mode (edit and play mode does not log)

5. Open App Insights or Log Analytics, and check the trace is coming in

Series

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 1 - Series Overview

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 2 - App Insights and Azure Log Analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 3 - Canvas App Logging (Instrumentation key)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 4 - Managed Environment Logging (New 2025-05-09)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 5 - Logging for APIM

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 6 - Power Automate Logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 7 - Monitoring Azure Dashboards

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 8 - Verify logging is going to the correct Log analytics (this post)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 9 - Power Automate Licencing

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 10 - Custom Connector enable logging (this post)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 11 - Custom Connector Behaviour from Canvas Apps Concern

Tuesday, 20 June 2023

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 7 - Monitoring Azure Dashboards

Series

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 1 - Series Overview

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 2 - App Insights and Azure Log Analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 3 - Canvas App Logging (Instrumentation key)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 4 - Managed Environment Logging (New 2025-05-09)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 5 - Logging for APIM

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 6 - Power Automate Logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 7 - Monitoring Azure Dashboards (this post)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 8 - Verify logging is going to the correct Log analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 9 - Power Automate Licencing

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 10 - Custom Connector enable logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 11 - Custom Connector Behaviour from Canvas Apps Concern

Overview: Azure Dashboards are excellent but, if you want beautiful dashboards use the Azure Grafana service or Power BI dashboards.

It's always difficult to identify KPI's and graphs to allow support and stakeholders to quickly digest monitoring information. An option is to have an overview for the PM, PO, Business owners,,, and a separate set of dashboards for support.

Identify What is important? End-to-end testing is always nice especially if running CI to detect abnormalities.

For instance, this Azure Dashboard, fires of a Canvas App recorded Test (done using test studio) and shows the speed (performance) of the run, i then warn the user if the performance is too slow. I also grab the oldest successful run from 7 days ago to check if performance is considerably different.

Power automate has it's own logging, but integrating log entries when a error occurs via Log analytics, allows me to see if any of my workflows have a problem. This is discussed in part 6 of the logging series on Flows.

Azure services are often used when building solutions using the Power Platform. The most common are Functions, App Services, APIM, Service Bus, maybe sendgrid. So we need to know that they are working, and help the user see performance or issues. Here are a couple of examples.

Dashboard to Monitor when one my Canvas App was last Used:

pageViews

| extend

AppName = tostring(customDimensions["ms-appName"]),

Env = tostring(customDimensions["ms-environmentId"]),

LastSuccess = datetime_diff('minute', now(), timestamp)

| extend Env = case(Env == "c9q85552-1qa7-5559", "QA", Env)

| extend Env = case(Env == "p027a9-555pr-518b4f", "Prod", Env)

| extend Env = case(Env == "dd1a5555-7cdv55-32f", "Dev", Env)

| summarize LastSeen_min = min(LastSuccess) by AppName, Env

| extend Status = case(LastSeen_min > 120, "High", "Normal")

| order by AppName, Env

Chart showing Active Sessions per app:

Series

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 1 - Series Overview

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 2 - App Insights and Azure Log Analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 3 - Canvas App Logging (Instrumentation key)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 4 - Model App Logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 5 - Logging for APIM

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 6 - Power Automate Logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 7 - Monitoring Azure Dashboards (this post)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 8 - Verify logging is going to the correct Log analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 9 - Power Automate Licencing

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 10 - Custom Connector enable logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 11 - Custom Connector Behaviour from Canvas Apps Concern

Open Source Software Licencing - Basics (Simple)

Open Source Software Licencing for dummies/me:

1. Public Domain Licence: No restrictions, go for it.

Following are the Permissive licences from most open to most restricted:

2.1 MIT Licence: This is a common permissive (open-to-use) licence. Simple to understand, anyone can reuse and modify code, but the creator is not liable for any future use. MIT is almost identical to a 2.2 BSD licence. It is excellent as you can freely use it, and I would like to offer my code with MIT licencing.

2.3.GNU General Public Licence (GPL): This is a nice open-source licencing you can reuse or modify, but your work must be open-source and available to all. If you use GP, make source code available; anyone can use your derivative.

2.4 Apache and Apache 2: These are also Permissive but more protective than MIT licences.

3. Copyleft: This is more restrictive. Users can reuse, but any derivations are bound by the copyleft licence on the originals.

4. Proprietary: Most restricted, closed source; no change or redistribution is allowed.

Sunday, 18 June 2023

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 6 - Power Automate Logging

Note: Announcement 23 Aug 2023 - integration of Power Automate telemetry data with Azure Application Insights.

Series

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 1 - Series Overview

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 2 - App Insights and Azure Log Analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 3 - Canvas App Logging (Instrumentation key)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 4 - Managed Environment Logging (New 2025-05-09)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 5 - Logging for APIM

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 6 - Power Automate Logging (this post)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 7 - Monitoring Azure Dashboards

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 8 - Verify logging is going to the correct Log analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 9 - Power Automate Licencing

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 10 - Custom Connector enable logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 11 - Custom Connector Behaviour from Canvas Apps Concern

Overview:

Power Automate holds it own set of logs and history. While Power Automate's internal logging is good and useful, it does not push logs into App Insights or Log Analytics for central monitoring.
You can manually export Power Automate logs from Power Platform and import them into Log Analytics, using the "Data Export" option.

You can use the built in action to log directly to Azure Log Analytics with a flow. Here is a 4 min recording outlining the approach in a Power Automate Flow.

Or you can create an Azure Functions that you can use to write to App Insights, below is a simple recording of the function (this is recording aims to remove complexity so there is no VS Code or publishing.

Function to write into App Insights Logs

#r "Newtonsoft.Json"
using System.Net;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Primitives;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
public static async Task<IActionResult> Run(HttpRequest req, ILogger log)
{
    string requestBody = await new StreamReader(req.Body).ReadToEndAsync();
    dynamic data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(requestBody);
    int eventId = data?.eventId;
    string errType = data?.errType;
    string errMsg = data?.errMsg;
    string correlationId = data?.correlationId;
    string workflowId = data?.workflowId;
    string workflowUrl = data?.workflowUrl;
    string flowDisplayName = data?.flowDisplayName;

var custProps = new Dictionary<string, object>()
{
    { "CorrelationId", correlationId},
    { "WorkflowId", workflowId},
    { "WorkflowUrl", workflowUrl},
    { "WorkflowDisplayName", flowDisplayName}
};

using (log.BeginScope(custProps))
{
    if (errType=="Debug")
    {
        log.Log(LogLevel.Debug, eventId, $"{errMsg}");
    }
    else if (errType=="Critical")
    {
        log.Log(LogLevel.Critical, eventId, $"{errMsg}");
    }
    else if (errType=="Warning")
    {
        log.Log(LogLevel.Warning, eventId, $"{errMsg}");
    }
    else if (errType=="Trace")
    {
        log.Log(LogLevel.Trace, eventId, $"{errMsg}");
    }
    else if (errType=="Error")
    {
        log.Log(LogLevel.Error, eventId, $"{errMsg}");
    }
    else
    {
      log.LogInformation($"Event is {eventId}, type is {errType}, and msg is {errMsg}");
    }
};
    string responseMessage = $"This HTTP triggered function executed successfully. {errType} - {errMsg}";
    return new OkObjectResult(responseMessage);
}

Power Platform Admin Centre:

There is nice analytics inside the Power platform Admin Centre as shown below to examine Flows/Power automate:

The flows can also be reviewed on a per environment basis:

Series

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 1 - Series Overview

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 2 - App Insights and Azure Log Analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 3 - Canvas App Logging (Instrumentation key)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 4 - Model App Logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 5 - Logging for APIM

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 6 - Power Automate Logging (this post)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 7 - Monitoring Azure Dashboards

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 8 - Verify logging is going to the correct Log analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 9 - Power Automate Licencing

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 10 - Custom Connector enable logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 11 - Custom Connector Behaviour from Canvas Apps Concern

Monday, 12 June 2023

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 5 - Logging for APIM

Series

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 1 - Series Overview

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 2 - App Insights and Azure Log Analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 3 - Canvas App Logging (Instrumentation key)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 4 - Managed Environment Logging (New 2025-05-09)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 5 - Logging for APIM (this post)

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 6 - Power Automate Logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 7 - Monitoring Azure Dashboards

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 8 - Verify logging is going to the correct Log analytics

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 9 - Power Automate Licencing

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 10 - Custom Connector enable logging

App Insights for Power Platform - Part 11 - Custom Connector Behaviour from Canvas Apps Concern

Overview: APIM is often part of you Power Platform solutions, such as monitoring and controlling all inbound and outbound traffic or to wrap over Azure functions.

Within APIM you can add multiple App Insights Instances. You can send all logging to a single instance an override specific API's to log to different instances. Making the logging nice and granular.

Setup Logging

The diagram below is where i used the operation Parent Id to find a log entry using the Transaction Logs in App Insights I can see the APIM entry and the entry to the backend 3rd party and their http response

You can hook up so you can see the Canvas App Session, then the function call, which calls APIM, and then see the backend call to the gov 3rd party API.