Use Monitor to troubleshoot app start performance issues

  • 3 minutes

Microsoft Azure Monitor is a tool that you can launch from Microsoft Power Apps Studio to help you troubleshoot problems and improve the quality of your apps. Key elements that you can identify by using Monitor include:

  • Errors in using connectors

  • Extensive data being sent/received

  • Slow response from connectors

  • Duplicated data actions

When Monitor is activated, it captures and allows you to view a stream of events from your running app. These events include user interaction with controls and the use of data sources. Generating this log as the app starts and then analyzing it can help you understand how your app is spending its load time.

Screenshot of a Power Apps Monitor window containing a captured log from an app session.

The captured data includes all necessary context information so that you can identify problems. Similar information is also available from your browser's developer tools. However, those tools lack app context information like the control name and formula.

Screenshot of a Power Apps Monitor window that shows a captured event log from an app session.

By using the event details, you can make changes in the app to correct identified problems and then retest without leaving Power Apps Studio or Monitor.

In addition to the events being automatically captured, you can also log custom messages by using the Trace() function. The custom messages can be helpful in marking the start or end of OnStart or OnVisible logic. The following example shows the process of adding a Trace() function before and after data is preloaded from Microsoft Dataverse.

Trace("Start of OnStart");

ClearCollect(colDesks,Desks);

Trace("End of OnStart");

Screenshot of the App.OnStart formula containing the following formula: Trace("Start of OnStart"); ClearCollect(colDesks,Desks); Trace("End of OnStart");

When Monitor is run for the app, you can now view the beginning and end of the OnStart processing by looking for the trace messages in the event log.

Screenshot of the event log showing the events that were captured during the app start process.

When using Monitor to evaluate the startup time of your app, make sure that you run your app from a cold start and that you don't manually rerun OnStart or OnVisible from within Power Apps Studio. The cold start ensures that the events that you capture are not influenced by data caching that can occur when you rerun the OnStart or OnVisible method logic. The cold start can be ensured by following these steps:

  1. Enable the Debug published app setting.

  2. Save the app.

  3. Publish the app.

  4. Launch Monitor from make.powerapps.com.

The following video demonstrates how to activate Monitor and review the data that is captured during the startup of your app.