Is there a way to set appName in Application Insights custom events?

Question

I noticed that App Insights has a field called appName (and appId) when querying in the analytics tool (see below), however I don't see a way of setting this in the client library. Can this be set?

I'm trying to log related items to app insights, though the log source may be different. Using that field seems like a nice way to handle that scenario, though I'm open to different scenarios.

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Answer 1

There is a preview where you can set the application name. This is done in the following way:

• enable the preview Application Map
• set the ITelemetry.Context.Cloud.RoleName (this is the application name)

Enable preview: Go to the portal -> the application insights -> previews -> Enable Multi-role Application Map

Set the application name:

This is done by adding an interceptor:

public class ServiceNameInitializer : ITelemetryInitializer
{
    public void Initialize(ITelemetry telemetry)
    {
        telemetry.Context.Cloud.RoleName = "MyProcessName";
        // RoleInstance property modifies the app name in the telmetry dashboard
        telemetry.Context.Cloud.RoleInstance = "MyAppInstanceName";
    }
}

Add the interceptor to the application insights configuration in startup.cs:

private void ConfigureAppInsights(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddApplicationInsightsTelemetry(Configuration);
    TelemetryConfiguration.Active.TelemetryInitializers
       .Add(new ServiceNameInitializer());
}

Read more at: cross-process-application-insights-with-multi-role-application-map

Answer 2

Those values are populated in the backend and specify Application Insights resource details and thus cannot be changed.

What your're looking for is custom dimensions.

For example, to send the telemetry:

EventTelemetry telemetry = new EventTelemetry("my custom event");
telemetry.Properties.Add("MyApp", "HelloWorld");
telemetryClient.TrackEvent(telemetry);

To query those custom dimensions:

customEvents
| where customDimensions['MyApp'] == "HelloWorld"