?? The telemetry feature in Business Central is 5 years old this month - what did I learn as a PM driving that thing?

Can you believe it? In Business Central v15, we released the first few telemetry events such as Long Running SQL Queries and Authorization.

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For me personally, the way I evolved and developed go-to-market initiatives for this feature fundamentally changed the way I work with product development and the subsequent uptake with partners/customers. Along the way, I took it upon myself to learn about new technologies and then apply my learnings to this topic. Let me give you some examples.

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When I joined Microsoft in 2016, the use of telemetry internally in my team (the server team) was key in their operations of the managed service. I regularly heard words like Kusto and KQL and had absolutely no idea what that was. So, in a hackathon some years later, I decided to learn what this KQL was all about. I used the telemetry feature as an example and started writing KQL samples to make it easier for partners to get started on this learning journey. This became the starting point of the telemetry part of the BCTech GitHub repository.

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Speaking of GitHub, I had already added some code samples out there in a personal repository back in 2015 when I worked as a data consultant. But the telemetry feature was where I really saw the value of making a repository of code samples and tips and tricks available for consumers of the feature. Whenever I got an idea or saw something, I added it to the BCTech GitHub repository withing minutes or hours. I used that repository again and again when discussing the feature with Microsoft partners. That repository and documentation of the feature.

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Back when we initially released it, the telemetry feature was sparsely documented. We had articles on how to set it up and on the schema of the telemetry events. But the more I presented on the topic and the more questions I got, the more I saw the need for extending that documentation. The process was typically to add content on the BC Tech repo and get an idea of how that worked and could be structured. Then gradually, I would work with our writers to move it to our documentation, where the bar is much higher on the quality of the writing and style must be the same as the rest. Soon, I was pointing so much to the documentation section for telemetry that I created the short link aka.ms/BCtelemetry for the documentation and aka.ms/BCtelemetrySamples for the code samples on BCTech.

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I have since copied this pattern for other features, such as

aka.ms/bcExcelSamples (for the Excel layout feature)

aka.ms/bcPBIsamples (for the Power BI integration to Business Central)

aka.ms/bcWord (for the Word layout feature)

aka.ms/bcDataAnalysis (for the Data Analysis feature aka Analysis Mode)

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But it does not stop there. When I started my role at Microsoft, I had trouble getting feedback from Microsoft Partners. Or actually, my mindset was not so feedback focused. My manager at the time repeatedly asked me "what are our partners saying about that?" but I still didn't involve myself and them 200% in feature feedback. I finally found a way to break this bad pattern with the telemetry feature. In the early years, uptake of the feature was not fantastic. So, I needed to learn why. One day, we had an internal presentation on the Microsoft Partner eco-system and in there, I saw a list of the 50 most active and decided to do something about it. Therefore, I made that list into my own little CRM Excel workbook and started contacting people offering them an hour of my time with their team to help them getting started with telemetry. It was one of these "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" kinda arrangements: they could get kickstarted with using telemetry in their partner practice, and I could help them on their journey and learn about blockers.

Hot tip: if you need others to help you with feedback, consider making it very compelling for them. Eg. by giving something back in that exchange. In my experience, this drastically change your success rate (and the quality of feedback). You scratch my back, I scratch yours...

Along the way, I updated our documentation and GitHub repository with anything that seemed like others could benefit from it. Even though it was hard work getting these meetings booked and completed, I think it was totally worth it. In our telemetry, I could see a difference in usage (yay!) and I learned so many things that needed to be documented for this to truly scale to many thousands of other Microsoft partners out there.

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History of the telemetry feature

If you want to learn about the history of the telemetry feature, back in 2023 I told that story in an episode of the podcast series Dynamics Corner Chair. In that episode we discussed (among many things) the history of the telemetry feature and the design rationale behind what signal we emit (12:00 into the recording).

Jump right in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zskD7KqOeeI&t=12m

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The future of the telemetry feature

I recently got the question

Is Microsoft abandoning the investments in the telemetry feature since you are no longer evangelizing it 24/7?

Nope. Njet. Nej.

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I have moved on to focus on other areas of Business Central (among other things, analytics and reporting is a current focus area for me). But that is because the telemetry feature is more or less complete. We have very good usage with partners, and I hear more and more success stories about how partners used telemetry for helping customers. Having data to back up your claims really helps in (hard) conversations.

Adding new telemetry signal as part of new features is now a natural part of our development practices in the product group and in each release wave, we do add new events. But the topic does not need its own readiness sessions anymore, new signal is just presented as part of the features where they reside.

Another great thing that has happened is that people from the community have taken up the challenge on presenting on the topic at conferences around the world. IMO, this is fantastic, because then I can leave "my baby" in their safe hands. Right now, I am on my way to Texas, where I have two sessions on the topic at the UG Summit conference. The focus in these sessions is on how end users at the customer side can use telemetry. I hope to be able to repeat those at the DUG 2025 conference next year. And then... that's it. Kennie (and the KLF) has left the building (wrt telemetry).

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Signup to the newsletter (and/or spread the word)

Thanks for reading along.

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In the next posts I will dive back into areas of security that I hope you as Business Central / ERP developers will find useful in your daily work.

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Do comment on things that resonated with you when reading the article.

If you are present at the Summit NA 2024 conference this October in San Antonio, TX, then you can hear me presenting on telemetry in two sessions there:

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Microsoft Presents: Business Central telemetry for the IT administrator

Tuesday, October 15 ? 9:15 AM - 10:30 AM CT

https://connect.summitna.com/8_0/sessions/session-details.cfm?scheduleid=2918

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and

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Microsoft Presents: Business Central telemetry for end users

Wednesday, October 16 ? 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM CT

https://connect.summitna.com/8_0/sessions/session-details.cfm?scheduleid=2917

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Stay tuned (and secure) until next post…

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PS.

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https://www.dhirubhai.net/newsletters/6981923051273658368

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