Aria Operations wont accept strings from Telegraf agent when gathering custom metrics

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)
• VMware Aria Operations (formerly vRealize Operations) 8.x

Issue/Introduction

When using Telegraf agents to gather custom metrics with custom scripts, returning data_type = "string does not work. 

Environment

Aria Operations 8.18.x

Cause

This is the current design of the product. 

Resolution

All the scripts that you run using the custom script, must output a single integer value. 

More details on setting up custom scripts with the Telgraf agent can be found here Custom Script