Bien Le
Optimizely
Bien Le  -  DXP
Aug 31, 2020
visibility 6175
star star star star star
(1 votes)

Adding Web Job to an existing CMS Web App

This article will show you how to add a WebJob to an existing CMS web app project. The WebJob will access the CMS database and print out the last 15 activity log entries.

First, add a new project to the solution which has the existing CMS web app and choose Azure WebJob template.

Once the project is created, replace the Function.cs file with the content below:
using System.Configuration;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
 
namespace GetLatestActivityLogs
{
    public class Functions
    {
        public static async Task GetLatestActivityLogs(TextWriter log)
        {
            log.WriteLine($"+++ Getting the latest activity logs +++");
 
            using (var dbConnection = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["EPiServerDB"].ConnectionString))
            {
                await dbConnection.OpenAsync().ConfigureAwait(false);
                var selectCommandText = "select top 15 AL.LogData, AL.ChangeDate, AL.ChangedBy from tblActivityLog as AL order by AL.ChangeDate desc";
                using (var command = new SqlCommand(selectCommandText, dbConnection))
                {
                    using (var reader = await command.ExecuteReaderAsync(CommandBehavior.CloseConnection).ConfigureAwait(false))
                    {
                        while (reader.Read())
                        {
                            log.WriteLine($"Data :{reader["LogData"]} - Changed on: {reader["ChangeDate"]} - Changed by: {reader["ChangedBy"]}");
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
And replace the Program.cs file with this content:
using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
 
namespace GetLatestActivityLogs
{
    // To learn more about Microsoft Azure WebJobs SDK, please see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=320976
    class Program
    {
        // Please set the following connection strings in app.config for this WebJob to run:
        // AzureWebJobsDashboard and AzureWebJobsStorage
        static void Main()
        {
            Task.Run(async () =>
            {
                await Functions.GetLatestActivityLogs(Console.Out).ConfigureAwait(false);
            }).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
        }
    }
}

Then add database connection string to the App.config file

<add name="EPiServerDB"
         connectionString="Server=tcp:{dxp_environment_name}.database.windows.net,1433;Initial Catalog=epicms;Persist Security Info=False;User ID={db_user_id};Password={db_password};MultipleActiveResultSets=False;Encrypt=True;TrustServerCertificate=False;Connection Timeout=30;"
         providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

The WebJob project is now ready to add to be deloyed along with the Web App, to do that let's add the project as Azure WebJob to the WebApp

imagebkyx.png

A file named webjobs-list.json added to the web app project

{
  "$schema": "http://schemastore.org/schemas/json/webjobs-list.json",
  "WebJobs": [
    {
      "filePath": "../GetLatestActivityLogs/GetLatestActivityLogs.csproj"
    }
  ]
}

In which the filePath points to path of the WebJob project. And a file added to the project itself, webjob-publish-settings.json, in which defines WebJob name and run mode.

{
  "$schema": "http://schemastore.org/schemas/json/webjob-publish-settings.json",
  "webJobName": "GetLatestActivityLogs",
  "runMode": "Continuous"
}

The solution is now ready publish to DXP environment. Select the web app project and choose publish, and then choose [Azure App Service (Windows)] to deploy the site to:

Uncheck the option [Exclude files from the App_Data folder], and then publish the web app as usual.

Once publish has finished, go to App Service Editor tool in Azure Portal. You can see the Web Jobs and its dependencies are in [app_data] folder.

Run the WebJob and you can check Logs to see the result, it should look like this:

Aug 31, 2020

Comments

error Please login to comment.
Latest blogs
Building UI Extensions for Optimizely SaaS CMS

Introduction Developers have been extending the functionality of Optimizely PaaS CMS for years using addons built in C# and deployed as NuGet...

Mark Stott | Oct 15, 2026

Cheapskate AI Translator: Because Translation Should Not Require a Second Mortgage

There is a particular kind of software project that begins with a detailed architecture document, a product roadmap, and a carefully assembled...

Linh Doan Cuu | Oct 15, 2026

Computed Fields in CMS 13 Content Contracts with Optimizely Graph

Content Contracts in Optimizely CMS 13 allow different content types to share a common structure when querying Optimizely Graph. But what if the...

Mardy | Oct 14, 2026

Opal Workflow Agents And The Graph Webhook Trap

What we did? We built a compliance review workflow agent in Opal. The job was simple: when an editor submits a page for review in Optimizely CMS 13...

Ritu Madan | Oct 14, 2026