Quickstart: Route custom events to an Azure Function with Event Grid

Azure Event Grid is an eventing service for the cloud. Azure Functions is one of the supported event handlers. In this article, you use the Azure portal to create a custom topic, subscribe to the custom topic, and trigger the event to view the result. You send the events to an Azure Function.

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.

Create Azure function app

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

  2. On the left navigational menu, select All services.

  3. Select Compute in the list of Categories.

  4. Hover (not select) the mouse over Function App, and select +.

    Screenshot showing the select of Create link for a Function App.

  5. On the Basics page of the Create Function App wizard, follow these steps:

    1. Select your Azure subscription in which you want to create the function app.

    2. Create a new resource group or select an existing resource group.

    3. Specify a name for the function app.

    4. Select .NET for Runtime stack.

    5. Select the region closest to you.

    6. Select Next: Storage at the bottom of the page.

      Screenshot showing the Basics tab of the Create Function App page.

  6. On the Storage page, create a new storage account or select an existing storage account to be associated with the function app, and then select Review + create at the bottom of the page.

    Screenshot showing the Storage tab of the Create Function App page.

  7. On the Review + create page, review settings, and select Create at the bottom of the page to create the function app.

  8. Once the deployment is successful, select Go to resource to navigate to the home page for the function app.

Create a function

Before subscribing to the custom topic, create a function to handle the events.

  1. On the Function App page, select Create in Azure portal link in the right pane.

    Screenshot showing the selection of Create function link.

  2. On the Create Function page, follow these steps:

    1. In the Select a template section, in the filter or search box, type Azure Event Grid trigger.

    2. Select Azure Event Grid Trigger template in the template list.

    3. In the Template details section in the bottom pane, enter a name for the function. In this example, it's HandleEventsFunc.

    4. Select Create.

      Screenshot showing select Event Grid trigger.

  3. On the Function page for the HandleEventsFunc, select Code + Test on the left navigational menu, replace the code with the following code, and then select Save on the command bar.

    #r "Azure.Messaging.EventGrid"
    #r "System.Memory.Data"
    
    using Azure.Messaging.EventGrid;
    using System;
    
    public static void Run(EventGridEvent eventGridEvent, ILogger log)
    {
        log.LogInformation(eventGridEvent.Data.ToString());
    }        
    

    Image showing the selection Code + Test menu for an Azure function.

  4. Select Monitor on the left menu, and keep this window or tab of the browser open so that you can see the received event information.

    Screenshot showing the Monitor view the Azure function.

Create a custom topic

An Event Grid topic provides a user-defined endpoint that you post your events to.

  1. On a new tab of the web browser window, sign in to Azure portal.

  2. In the search bar at the topic, search for Event Grid Topics, and select Event Grid Topics.

    Image showing the selection of Event Grid topics.

  3. On the Event Grid Topics page, select + Create on the command bar.

    Screenshot showing the Create button to create an Event Grid topic.

  4. On the Create Topic page, follow these steps:

    1. Select your Azure subscription.

    2. Select the same resource group from the previous steps.

    3. Provide a unique name for the custom topic. The topic name must be unique because it's represented by a DNS entry. Don't use the name shown in the image. Instead, create your own name - it must be between 3-50 characters and contain only values a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and "-".

    4. Select a location for the Event Grid topic.

    5. Select Review + create.

      Screenshot showing the Create Topic page.

    6. On the Review + create page, review settings and select Create.

  5. After the custom topic has been created, select Go to resource link to see the following Event Grid topic page for the topic you created.

    Image showing the home page for your Event Grid custom topic.

Subscribe to custom topic

You subscribe to an Event Grid topic to tell Event Grid which events you want to track, and where to send the events.

  1. Now, on the Event Grid Topic page for your custom topic, select + Event Subscription on the toolbar.

    Image showing the selection of Add Event Subscription on the toolbar.

  2. On the Create Event Subscription page, follow these steps:

    1. Enter a name for the event subscription.

    2. Select Azure Function for the Endpoint type.

    3. Choose Configure an endpoint.

      Image showing event subscription values.

    4. For the function endpoint, select the Azure Subscription and Resource Group your Function App is in and then select the Function App and function you created earlier. Select Confirm Selection.

      Image showing the Select Azure Function page showing the selection of function you created earlier.

    5. This step is optional, but recommended for production scenarios. On the Create Event Subscription page, switch to the Advanced Features tab, and set values for Max events per batch and Preferred batch size in kilobytes.

      Batching can give you high-throughput. For Max events per batch, set maximum number of events that a subscription will include in a batch. Preferred batch size sets the preferred upper bound of batch size in kilo bytes, but can be exceeded if a single event is larger than this threshold.

      Image showing batching settings for an event subscription.

    6. On the Create Event Subscription page, select Create.

Send an event to your topic

Now, let's trigger an event to see how Event Grid distributes the message to your endpoint. Use either Azure CLI or PowerShell to send a test event to your custom topic. Typically, an application or Azure service would send the event data.

The first example uses Azure CLI. It gets the URL and key for the custom topic, and sample event data. Use your custom topic name for <topic name>. It creates sample event data. The data element of the JSON is the payload of your event. Any well-formed JSON can go in this field. You can also use the subject field for advanced routing and filtering. CURL is a utility that sends HTTP requests.

Azure CLI

  1. In the Azure portal, select Cloud Shell. Select Bash in the top-left corner of the Cloud Shell window.

    Image showing Cloud Shell - Bash window

  2. Set the topicname and resourcegroupname variables that will be used in the commands.

    Replace TOPICNAME with the name of your Event Grid topic.

    topicname="TOPICNAME"
    

    Replace RESOURCEGROUPNAME with the name of the Azure resource group that contains the Event Grid topic.

    resourcegroupname="RESOURCEGROUPNAME"
    
  3. Run the following command to get the endpoint for the topic: After you copy and paste the command, update the topic name and resource group name before you run the command.

    endpoint=$(az eventgrid topic show --name $topicname -g $resourcegroupname --query "endpoint" --output tsv)
    
  4. Run the following command to get the key for the custom topic: After you copy and paste the command, update the topic name and resource group name before you run the command.

    key=$(az eventgrid topic key list --name $topicname -g $resourcegroupname --query "key1" --output tsv)
    
  5. Copy the following statement with the event definition, and press ENTER.

    event='[ {"id": "'"$RANDOM"'", "eventType": "recordInserted", "subject": "myapp/vehicles/motorcycles", "eventTime": "'`date +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z`'", "data":{ "make": "Ducati", "model": "Monster"},"dataVersion": "1.0"} ]'
    
  6. Run the following Curl command to post the event:

    curl -X POST -H "aeg-sas-key: $key" -d "$event" $endpoint
    

Azure PowerShell

The second example uses PowerShell to perform similar steps.

  1. In the Azure portal, select Cloud Shell (alternatively go to https://shell.azure.com/). Select PowerShell in the top-left corner of the Cloud Shell window. See the sample Cloud Shell window image in the Azure CLI section.

  2. Set the following variables. After you copy and paste each command, update the topic name and resource group name before you run the command:

    $resourceGroupName = "RESOURCEGROUPNAME"
    
    $topicName = "TOPICNAME"
    
  3. Run the following commands to get the endpoint and the keys for the topic:

    $endpoint = (Get-AzEventGridTopic -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Name $topicName).Endpoint
    $keys = Get-AzEventGridTopicKey -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Name $topicName
    
  4. Prepare the event. Copy and run the statements in the Cloud Shell window.

    $eventID = Get-Random 99999
    
    #Date format should be SortableDateTimePattern (ISO 8601)
    $eventDate = Get-Date -Format s
    
    #Construct body using Hashtable
    $htbody = @{
        id= $eventID
        eventType="recordInserted"
        subject="myapp/vehicles/motorcycles"
        eventTime= $eventDate   
        data= @{
            make="Ducati"
            model="Monster"
        }
        dataVersion="1.0"
    }
    
    #Use ConvertTo-Json to convert event body from Hashtable to JSON Object
    #Append square brackets to the converted JSON payload since they are expected in the event's JSON payload syntax
    $body = "["+(ConvertTo-Json $htbody)+"]"
    
  5. Use the Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet to send the event.

    Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $endpoint -Method POST -Body $body -Headers @{"aeg-sas-key" = $keys.Key1}
    

Verify that function received the event

You've triggered the event, and Event Grid sent the message to the endpoint you configured when subscribing.

  1. On the Monitor page for your Azure function, you see an invocation.

    Screenshot showing the Invocations tab of the Monitor page.

  2. Select the invocation to see the details.

    Screenshot showing the Invocation details.

  3. You can also use the Logs tab in the right pane to see the logged messages when you post events to the topic's endpoint.

    Image showing the Monitor view of the Azure function with a log.

Clean up resources

If you plan to continue working with this event, don't clean up the resources created in this article. Otherwise, delete the resources you created in this article.

  1. Select Resource Groups on the left menu. If you don't see it on the left menu, select All Services on the left menu, and select Resource Groups.

  2. Select the resource group to launch the Resource Group page.

  3. Select Delete resource group on the toolbar.

  4. Confirm deletion by entering the name of the resource group, and select Delete.

    Resource groups

    The other resource group you see in the image was created and used by the Cloud Shell window. Delete it if you don't plan to use the Cloud Shell window later.

Next steps

Now that you know how to create topics and event subscriptions, learn more about what Event Grid can help you do:

See the following samples to learn about publishing events to and consuming events from Event Grid using different programming languages.