Business Activity Monitoring

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) can be used by functional administrators and managers as it can provide a complete overview of the business processes across the environment. BAM is a collection of tools that monitor business milestones and key metrics throughout a process in the BizTalk Server environment. The business users can set up specific data points during the business process that will give them an insight into what is happening during the process. The key aspect of BAM is that it can help you to view the business information in almost as real-time as possible. This is referred to as 'Zero latency'.

Advantages of BAM:

1. Gain insight into the status of different business processes.

2. Up-to-date information available through portal/alerts.

3. Streamline business operations - escalate issues at the earliest.

BizTalk360 comes with an integrated BAM portal that allows business users to query BAM views, perform Activity Searches, view the user permissions that are configured in BAM, and the Activities Time Window. If BAM is implemented in your BizTalk environment, BizTalk360 automatically picks up the configuration and displays the BAM data in the portal. The reason BizTalk360 incorporates the BAM portal is to give seamless access to all information for the support people and minimize their efforts to jump between multiple tools to get different data related to the same application/environment.

BAM Views

A BAM activity represents a specific business process in the business, say, for example, handling a purchase order. As a business user, you can create BAM activities to define the information that you want to monitor in the business process with BAM. Business users can use the BAM Excel add-in to define the data that BAM needs to collect. BAM View is a representation of the data that is tracked in the BAM activity.

BizTalk360 lists all the BAM views configured in the environment under the BAM Views tab. When the BAM View is clicked, the drop-down in the Build Query Expression section will display the list of BAM Activities. A BAM View can have one or more BAM Activities. When the BAM activity is selected from the drop-down, the available columns in the BAM activity are automatically populated under the 'Available Columns' section. You have the option to move the items from the available columns section to the Selected Columns list. Once the items are moved from the available columns section to the selected columns section, you can optionally move them to the Order By section to tell the query builder how to sort the results and display them in the Query Results section.

1. Select Query - Select the BAM Activity from the drop-down. All the activities associated with the BAM view will be listed.

2. Max Matches - Select the number of records to be fetched. Ex. 10, 25, 50, 100, ...

3. Add a Filter - To filter the results based on different parameters. Once the filter criteria are selected, you will automatically see the values for the filter listed in the drop-down.

4. Run Query - Once all the values are selected, click Run Query to view the query results.

5. Column Options - All the available columns will be listed in "Available Column ", from the list you can select the columns that you wish to list in the grid, by using the right/left arrow you can move the columns to the selected list. Order by option allows you to list the results based on selected column order (ascending by default).

6. Run - Once all the values are selected, click Run to view the query results.

Performing an activity search

The integrated BAM portal comes with a powerful query builder that allows the support people to query the BAM data seamlessly. Follow the steps as shown below to build a query and perform the activity search:

1. Log in to the BizTalk360 application.

2. Select an environment from the environmental panel.

3. Click the Administration tab in the navigation panel.

4. Click the expand button against the BizTalk Services tab and select the Business Activity Monitoring link.

5. On the BAM Portal page, click on the BAM View Name.

6. In the Activity Search tab, select the BAM Activity name from the drop-down under the Build Query Expression section.

7. Depending on the BAM Activity name selected, the Available Columns section will be populated with the column information.

8. Once the columns are set, select the Max Matches value from the drop-down to filter the number of results in the Build Query Expression section

9. Click 'Add Filter' and select the required options if you wish to add complex filter criteria while building the query expression

10. Once the query is built, click 'Run Query' to run the query and generate the results. The Query Results section will display the results based on the values selected in the Selected Column, Order By, and the filter criteria applied in the Build Query Expression section

Viewing BAM Database information in BizTalk360

The BAM databases screen displays the list of BAM databases for the environment and some properties of the database such as data file size, log file size, and so on. The BAM database information will be useful to the BizTalk Administrator to get an insight into the database information. From a monitoring perspective, it is important to keep an eye on the size of database data and log files. BizTalk360 eases this process by displaying them on the home screen under the BAM Databases tab.

• Log in to the BizTalk360 application

• Select an environment from the environmental panel

• Click the Administration tab in the navigation panel

• Click the expand button next to the BizTalk Services tab and select the Business Activity Monitoring.

• On the BAM Portal page, click on the BAM Databases tab

• The BAM databases section displays the following information:

  1. Database Name

  2. Server Name

  3. Instance Name

  4. Auto Growth (Data)

  5. Auto Growth (Log)

  6. Data File Size (MB)

  7. Log File Size (MB)

BAM Time Zone

In many BAM implementations, not all datetime columns in a view come from the same source system or region. For example:

• OrderReceived_Time may come from a system in UTC+12.

• OrderShipped_Time may come from a warehouse system operating in UTC+9.

To handle such scenarios, BizTalk360 provides the ability to configure the time zone at column level.

The BAM view activities are shown in BizTalk360 UI by converting the configured BAM time zone into the user profile time zone.This ensures that datetime values captured in BAM views are accurately displayed, regardless of differences between the BAM database time zone, and each user’s profile time zone.

Example Scenario

Consider a BAM activity that tracks order processing in a retail system. The activity is displayed in a BAM view called BAMOrderTracking, which contains a datetime column named  OrderReceived_Time.

• The BAM database stores the OrderReceived_Time in UTC+12 (e.g., an order is received at 7:00 AM, UTC+12).

• If your BizTalk360 user profile is configured to UTC+11, the same value will appear as 6:00 AM in BizTalk360.

Steps

• Select the respective BAM view

• If all datetime columns in the view use the same time zone, you can configure a global BAM Time Zone for the entire view.

• If datetime columns use different time zones, open the Activities Time Window, which lists all datetime-type columns. From here, use Configure Time Zone to set the appropriate time zone for each column individually.

NOTE : Only Super can configure BAM TimeZone .

Daylight Saving

BizTalk360 does not perform any manual conversion for daylight saving adjustments. Instead, it relies on the configuration of your BAM server and SQL Server.

Consider New Zealand, where the base time zone is UTC+12.

• During daylight saving, the time zone selection in BAM remains as UTC+12.

• datetimeoffset does carry a time zone offset, but SQL Server still doesn’t apply DST rules.

  If BAM data is insert as 2025-09-27 12:00 PM +12:00 and 2025-09-30 12:00 PM +13:00,  When querying the data after DST kicks, it interprets   2025-09-27 1:00 PM +13:00  and 2025-09-30 12:00 PM +13:00  respectively.

• BizTalk360 then converts this stored value to match the user profile time zone during display.

  Viewing BAM related activities and documents in BizTalk360

BAM-related activities represent the atomic information of the Business milestones and Business Data. These activities can be accessed in BizTalk360 from the Activities Search screen under the BAM Views. Business milestones are the specific data that represent the state of the business processes and the data that represents data types are the Business Data. Being able to get to the activities and documents within the BizTalk360 application reduces the considerable time for BizTalk administrators.

BAM holds the concepts of Continuations and Relationships which are used to enhance the relational activity model. A Relationships model is used when the activity file contains more than one activity, i.e., in a real-time scenario, there may be multiple responses received for one order.

To view the BAM related activities and documents in BizTalk360:

1. Log in to the BizTalk360 application.

2. Select an environment from the environmental panel.

3. Click the Administration tab in the navigation panel.

4. Click the expand button against the BizTalk services tab and select the Business Activity Monitoring link.

5. On the BAM Portal page, click on the BAM View Name.

6. In the Activity Search tab, select the BAM Activity name from the drop-down under the Build Query Expression section.

7. Depending on the BAM Activity name selected, the Available Columns section will be populated with the column information.

8. Once the columns are set, select the Max Matches value from the drop-down to filter the number of results in the Build Query Expression section.

9. If you wish to add complex filter criteria while building the query expression, click Add Filter and select the required options.

10. Once the query is built, run the query and generate the results. The Query Results section will display the results based on the values selected in the Selected Column, Order By, and the filter criteria applied in the Build Query Expression section.

11. Click on the query result row to view the detailed information of the transaction, related activities, and related documents.

12. In the Related Activities tab, click the eye icon to view the Related Activities details.

13. In the Related document tab,

    1. You can click on copy icon to copy the file path.

    2. You can click on eye icon to view the related document.

    3. You can click on download icon to download the Related Document.

BAM UAP

BAM User Access Policy in BizTalk360 controls who can view BAM views and dashboards data within the BizTalk360. Using this policy, administrators can grant restricted / full access to specific BAM views and Dashboards based on user roles. It ensures that sensitive business activity data is visible only to authorized users, aligned with organizational security needs.

In a real-time business scenario, an organization may have separate teams for Order Processing and Finance. Using BAM User Access Policy in BizTalk360, the administrator grants the Order Processing team access only to Order-related BAM views and related dashboards, while restricting access to financial BAM data. Once this UAP is applied, users can view only the BAM data relevant to their role, ensuring secure and role-based monitoring of live business activities.

BAM Views UAP

For a user/group to see a BAM view in BizTalk360 UI, it is required to add the user/group name to the corresponding BAM view.

bm.exe add-account -AccountName:Domain/Username -View:BAMViewName