Enable Developer Dashboard in SharePoint 2010/2013/2016

SharePoint 2010 introduced the developer dashboard to check bugs in the browser itself.

There are several ways to enable the developer dashboard in SharePoint 2010/2013/2016. I always prefer the PowerShell method, but for the sake of completeness, I will show several options here. We will see how we can enable the developer dashboard using PowerShell, using the object model and using stsadm.

Notice that there are the following options for the Developer Dashboard in SharePoint:

On
SharePoint 2010: The Developer Dashboard will always be rendered at the bottom of each page
SharePoint 2013/2016: The Developer Dashboard icon will always be displayed at the top right corner. It will not be appended to each page.

Off
SharePoint 2010 & 2013: The Developer Dashboard will not be available in SharePoint.

OnDemand
SharePoint 2010: The Developer Dashboard will only be appended to a page after clicking on the icon in the ribbon

SharePoint 2013: This mode is not available in SharePoint 2013 since it reflects the behavior of On now

There are different ways we can enable or disable the developer dashboard in SharePoint 2010/2013/2016.

Enable Developer Dashboard using PowerShell in SharePoint

Below is the PowerShell command to enable the developer dashboard in SharePoint 2010/2013/2016.

$devdashboard =[Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings;
$devdashboard.DisplayLevel = ‘OnDemand’;
$devdashboard.Update()
Write-Host ("Developer Dashboard Level: " + $contentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings.DisplayLevel)

Enable Developer Dashboard using Object Model in SharePoint

We can also SharePoint server object model code to enable the developer dashboard in SharePoint.

SPWebService service = SPWebService.ContentService;
service.DeveloperDashboardSettings.DisplayLevel=Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPDeveloperDashboardLevel.OnDemand;
service.Update();

Enable Developer Dashboard Using STSADM in SharePoint

We can also use the STSADM command to enable the developer dashboard in SharePoint.

STSADM.exe -o setproperty -pn
developer-dashboard -pv OnDemand

You may like following SharePoint PowerShell tutorials:

• PowerShell SharePoint Commands
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• How to change SharePoint authentication from classic mode to claims based mode in SharePoint using PowerShell
• How to activate publishing feature in SharePoint 2013/2016 using PowerShell Script
• 3 Different ways to Change Site Collection URL in SharePoint 2013/2016 using PowerShell
• Bulk SharePoint Online Site Collection Creation using PowerShell
• Delete Hidden Web Application in SharePoint 2013 using PowerShell
• PowerShell Script to deploy WSP Solution in SharePoint 2013
• Change content type recursively using PowerShell SharePoint 2013
• Show hidden features in SharePoint 2013 using PowerShell

The Developer Dashboard can be disabled by setting the display level value to “Off”. As needed the display level can be set to “On”, “Off” or “OnDemand” in the above code snippets. This operation requires a farm administrator permission. Make sure you have farm admin access before enabling/disabling developer dashboard.