Last modified: Sep 18, 2023

Events

How to create custom events for an app.

On this page:

Activate generation of events in your application

To allow generating events for your application it must refer to nuget version >= 1.2.4. See how you update nuget references for your application here.

Generation and storing of events is not enabled by default in applications per 22.10.2020. Because of this, a manual step is required before your application can generate events.

In the file appsettings.json in the folder App the following should be added into the section AppSettings

"RegisterEventsWithEventsComponent": true

Pushing self defined events into your application

The service IEvents is exposed in the application and can be dependency injected into the class where you need to generate a self defined event.

The method AddEvent requires the name of the event type and the instance as input

Code example

In this section you can find an example of how to generate a self defined event by instantiation within the application

The logic is implemented in InstantiationHandler.cs

using Altinn.App.Services.Interface;
using Altinn.App.PlatformServices.Interface;
using Altinn.App.Services.Models.Validation;
using Altinn.Platform.Storage.Interface.Models;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
// using Altinn.App.Models; // Uncomment this line to refer to app model(s)

namespace Altinn.App.AppLogic
{
    public class InstantiationHandler
    {
        private IProfile _profileService;
        private IRegister _registerService;
        private IEvents _eventsService;

        /// <summary>
        /// Set up access to profile and register services
        /// </summary>
        public InstantiationHandler(IProfile profileService, IRegister registerService, IEvents eventsService)
        {
            _profileService = profileService;
            _registerService = registerService;
            _eventsService = eventsService;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Run validations related to instantiation
        /// </summary>
        /// <example>
        /// if ([some condition])
        /// {
        ///     return new ValidationResult("[error message]");
        /// }
        /// return null;
        /// </example>
        /// <param name="instance"></param>
        /// <param name="validationResults"></param>
        /// <returns>The validation result object (null if no errors) </returns>
        public async Task<InstantiationValidationResult> RunInstantiationValidation(Instance instance)
        {
            return await Task.FromResult((InstantiationValidationResult)null);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Run events related to instantiation
        /// </summary>
        /// <remarks>
        /// For example custom prefill.
        /// </remarks>
        /// <param name="instance">Instance information</param>
        /// <param name="data">The data object created</param>
        public async Task DataCreation(Instance instance, object data)
        {
            await _eventsService.AddEvent("app.test.event", instance);
            await Task.CompletedTask;
        }
    }
}
  1. The private variable in the service is included in the class

    private IEvents _eventsService;
    
  2. Namespace for IEvents must be included in the class. Add the line below among the other using statements in the top of the file.

    using Altinn.App.PlatformServices.Interface;
    
  3. The IEvents service is dependency injected into the class. And the private variable is assigned a value.

        public InstantiationHandler(IProfile profileService, IRegister registerService, IEvents eventsService)
        {
            _profileService = profileService;
            _registerService = registerService;
            _eventsService = eventsService;
        }
    
  4. In the method where you need to generate an event you call the service.

    Here the self defined event has received the name app.test.event, in addition the instance is sent. This is used to populate remaining metadata about the event

    await _eventsService.AddEvent("app.test.event", instance);  
    
  5. If you try building the solution at this point, it will fail.

    IEvents will be missing the location where the InstantiationHandler is instantiated. Navigate to App.csand dependency inject the service into App’s constructor.

    Further the service must be added into the call where InstantiationHandler is instantiated as shown below.

    public App(
        IAppResources appResourcesService,
        ILogger<App> logger,
        IData dataService,
        IProcess processService,
        IPDF pdfService,
        IProfile profileService,
        IRegister registerService,
        IPrefill prefillService,
        IEvents eventsService
        ) : base(appResourcesService, logger, dataService, processService, pdfService, prefillService)
    {
        _logger = logger;
        _validationHandler = new ValidationHandler();
        _calculationHandler = new CalculationHandler();
        _instantiationHandler = new InstantiationHandler(profileService, registerService, eventsService);
    }
    
  6. Your application is now ready to generate a self defined event during instantiation. You can test this locally before eventually deploying to a test environment.