Break down activity function - azure-durable-functions

Question

I have an Activity function that reads child elements of a parent in an organization as follows:
[FunctionName("ChildReaderFunction")]
public async Task<List<User>> GetChildren([ActivityTrigger] User parent)
{
var children = await GetChildrenAsync(parent);
return children;
}
public async Task<List<User>> GetChildrenAsync(User parent)
{
var allUsers = new List<User> { parent };
List<User> children = null;
children = await ExecuteQueryAsync("tableName", $"Parent eq '{parent.Id}'");
var taskIndex = 0;
var readTasks = new Task<List<User>>[children.Count(x => x.Childcount > 0)];
foreach (var child in children)
{
if (child.Childcount > 0)
{
readTasks[taskIndex++] = GetChildrenAsync(child);
}
else
{
allUsers.Add(child);
}
}
var validTasks = readTasks.Where(task => task != null).ToList();
if (validTasks.Count > 0)
{
foreach (var result in await Task.WhenAll(validTasks))
{
allUsers.AddRange(result);
}
}
Console.WriteLine($"Got {allUsers.Count} children for {parent.Id}");
return allUsers;
}
This works perfectly when I use premium plan with a timeout of 2 hours. I'm trying to convert this to a consumption plan with a timeout of 10 min. On testing out, I see timeout exception. Is there a way to breakdown this durable function and complete execution in 10 min?
I tried to update this logic by using a queue as follows:
[FunctionName("ChildReaderFunction")]
public async Task<List<User>> GetChildren([ActivityTrigger] User parent)
{
var allUsers = new List<User>();
var directReportEntities = new List<User>();
Queue<User> myQueue = new Queue<Person>();
myQueue.Enqueue(request.Parent);
while (myQueue.Any())
{
var current = myQueue.Dequeue();
if (current.Childcount > 0)
{
var children = await GetChildrenAsync(parent);
foreach (var child in children)
{
myQueue.Enqueue(child);
}
}
allUsers.Add(current);
}
Console.WriteLine($"Got {allUsers.Count} children for {parent.Id}");
return allUsers;
}
public async Task<List<User>> GetChildrenAsync(User parent)
{
return await ExecuteQueryAsync("tableName", $"Parent eq '{parent.Id}'");
}
This also gives a timeout exception. Any suggestions on what other approach I could try?

Answer 1

You might think about trying to figure out which parts of this method are slow. Perhaps it isn't the method itself that is slow but the query to the database. How many rows are you trying to download?
Also, you have a recursive call in your method. That may lead to many queries being executed. Can you think of a different way to grab the data all at once instead of a little bit at a time?