Enabling SharePoint Developer Dashboard

SharePoint 2010 introduces a new feature called "Developer toolbar". This toolbar can be useful to administrators as well as developers to identify potential issues at user interface level and resolve them.


The information provided by enabling developer dashboard is very useful for diagnosis of performance, web parts and other interface/web related issues. We can even get ASP.NET trace information from this page if required.

To enable it, we can use stsadm or powershell.

STSADM commands to enable developer dashboard
On Demand (Developer Dashboard only visible when requested)

stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv ondemand

Always On (Dashboard will be displayed on all the pages)

stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv on

Off (Dashboard will not be displayed. This is the default setting)

stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv off

Powershell way to enable Developer Dashboard
- Start SharePoint 2010 Management Shell from Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products menu.
- Run the following powershell script at the prompt

$dashbrd = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings;
$dashbrd.DisplayLevel = 'OnDemand';
$dashbrd.TraceEnabled = $true;
$dashbrd.Update();

Using the above script we are setting the dashboard to be OnDemand. We can set it to "Off" or "On" like the stsadm commands.

Navigate to the site and you will now see an icon near your login/display name near the top right corner. Clicking on this icon will show or hide the dashboard



Happy SharePointing!