Microsoft Application Insights for Laravel 5

A simple Laravel implementation for Microsoft Application Insights, _(*1)

Installation

Update the require section of your application's composer.json file:, _(*2)

"require": {
    ...
    "marchie/ms-application-insights-laravel": "^0.2",
    ...
}

Instrumentation Key

The package will check your application's .env file for your Instrumentation Key., _(*3)

Add the following to your .env file:, _(*4)

...
MS_INSTRUMENTATION_KEY=<your instrumentation key>
...

You can find your instrumentation key on the Microsoft Azure Portal., _(*5)

Navigate to:, _(*6)

Microsoft Azure > Browse > Application Insights > (Application Name) > Settings > Properties, _(*7)

On Laravel versions without Auto-Discovery (< 5.5):

Service Provider

Add the service provider to the providers array in your application's config/app.php file:, _(*8)

'providers' => [
    ...
    Marchie\MSApplicationInsightsLaravel\Providers\MSApplicationInsightsServiceProvider::class,
    ...
]

Facade

Add the facades to the aliases array in your application's config/app.php file:, _(*9)

'aliases' => [
    ...
    'AIClient' => Marchie\MSApplicationInsightsLaravel\Facades\MSApplicationInsightsClientFacade::class,
    'AIServer' => Marchie\MSApplicationInsightsLaravel\Facades\MSApplicationInsightsServerFacade::class,
    ...
]

Usage

Request Tracking Middleware

To monitor your application's performance with request tracking, add the middleware to your in your application, found in app/Http/Kernel.php. It has to be added after the StartSession middleware has been added., _(*10)


protected $middleware = [
    ...
    'MSApplicationInsightsMiddleware',
    ...
]

The request will send the following additional properties to Application Insights:, _(*11)

ajax (boolean): true if the request is an AJAX request
ip (string): The client's IP address
pjax (boolean): true if the request is a PJAX request
secure (boolean): true if the request was sent over HTTPS
route (string): The name of the route, if applicable
user (integer): The ID of the logged in user, if applicable
referer (string): The HTTP_REFERER value from the request, if available

The middleware is also used to estimate the time that a user has spent on a particular page. This is sent as a trace event named browse_duration., _(*12)

Exception Handler

To report exceptions that occur in your application, use the provided exception handler. Replace the following line in your application's app/Handlers/Exception.php file:, _(*13)

...

# Delete this line
use Illuminate\Foundation\Exceptions\Handler as ExceptionHandler;

# Insert this line
use Marchie\MSApplicationInsightsLaravel\Handlers\MSApplicationInsightsExceptionHandler as ExceptionHandler;

...

The exception handler will send additional properties to Application Insights, as above., _(*14)

Client Side

In order to register page view information from the client with Application Insights, simply insert the following code into your Blade views:, _(*15)

{!! AIClient::javascript() !!}

NOTE: Microsoft recommend that you put the script in the <head> section of your pages, in order to calculate the fullest extent of page load time on the client., _(*16)

Custom

If you want to use any of the underlying ApplicationInsights-PHP functionality, you can call the methods directly from the server facade:, _(*17)

...
AIServer::trackEvent('Test event');
AIServer::flush();
...

See the ApplicationInsights-PHP page for more information on the available methods., _(*18)

Version History

0.2.4

Added try/catch blocks when flushing data to prevent RequestExceptions from killing the application if there is a problem connecting to Application Insights.