SharePoint based sites and web applications are tremendously popular at the Enterprise level since it’s so easy to get them up and running.  Now with Application Insights, it is also very easy to get quick and powerful insights into the usage and performance of your SharePoint sites. Application Insights works by adding an SDK into your app or client side java script code in your web page, which sends telemetry to the Azure portal. There are different SDKs for the many combinations of platforms, languages and IDEs that are supported.

Get started

First, you’ll need an account in Microsoft Azure. You might already have access to a group account through your organization, or you might want to get a Pay-as-you-go account. (While Application Insights is in Preview, it’s free.)

Get an Application Insights resource in Microsoft Azure

• Sign up to Microsoft Azure, go to the Preview portal, and add an Application Insights ASP.NET resource
• Get Application Insights web client code to add to your SharePoint pages

 

Add Application Insights client code to SharePoint pages

There are two easy ways for you to add in the client code:

1) If you have access to Master pages, then this is preferred, then you’ll get telemetry for all the pages by default.

• Add code to Seattle. Master pages
• Checkout the Master page using SharePoint Designer or any other editor of your choice.
• Insert the code snippet copied from first step, before the closing tag

 

2)  You can add in the Application Insights code snippet to individual pages (if you don’t have access to master pages), by simply inserting a web part and the embedding the code snippet.

Now, you’re ready to view powerful insights about your SharePoint sites!

View SharePoint usage using Application Insights

When you’re ready to review the SharePoint usage, head over to the Preview portal and browse to the Application Insights resource you created in the first step. Application Insights Usage analytics provides a quick snapshot of users, sessions and page views:

Application Insights Diagnostics Search enables you to get to raw data for your page views:

Summary

Application Insights enables you to create your own insights, by slicing and dicing the metrics with different dimensions and All it takes is just inserting a simple piece of code in your master page!

Get started with Application Insights now to analyze your SharePoint sites/applications performance, usage and availability.