Durable Functions Monitor

The Durable Functions Monitor is a semi-official tool designed for providing a monitoring interface for Durable Functions. This makes debugging jobs inside the engine much easier than otherwise poking around inside the Functions resource and App Insights, and much cheaper than paying for the Durable Task Scheduler.

The Git repo can be found here.

It is hosted for each environment at the following URLs:

Environment	URL
Development	https://func-proven2-durablefuncmonitor-dev-001.azurewebsites.net
Test	https://func-proven2-durablefuncmonitor-test-001.azurewebsites.net
Production	https://func-proven2-durablefuncmonitor-prod-001.azurewebsites.net

Note

The DTS is secured behind OAuth using the built-in Azure authentication, and not the application’s own authentication configuration. This causes the DFM to display you logged in as “Anonymous” - don’t worry, it is still authenticated.

Usage

Most of the time, you will want to use the engine task hub (funcproven2engine{env}001) to view activity inside the engine.

The top bar offers filtering controls to find jobs, and an auto-refresh feature which can be enabled to watch jobs as they are processed. It is often helpful to filter for Name == JobHandler, to view only the top-level orchestration function instances.

The table can be sorted by a column by clicking its header (once for ascending, twice for descending).

Each row in the table shows another Durable Functions (sub)orchestration instance. Clicking on certain fields will allow you to see more information about that instance:

• Clicking the instanceId field will open the instance details in a new tab.
• Clicking the input, output or customStatus fields will show the full JSON data.

Viewing an instance’s details most usefully shows its execution history, which includes every sub-orchestration and activity function called with their inputs/outputs. You can drill down further into each sub-orchestrator as necessary.

In the case of a job failure, it is possible to drill down to the point of error and view the full exception stack trace. This is invaluable for debugging.

The below image shows an error in the TemplateProvider_apply activity, followed by a release of the tenant lock, and the error details in the activity/orchestration completion.