Azure Automation - Cannot process argument transformation on parameter 'ConfigurationFunction'

Today I was working on an Azure project where the deployment of Azure resources needed to be automated.

Problem

You’ll see the following error message: ERROR: New-AzureRmResourceGroupDeployment : 7:27:39 AM - Resource Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/extensions 'test01/dscExtension' failed with message '{ "status": "Failed", "error": { "code": "ResourceDeploymentFailure", "message": "The resource operation completed with terminal provisioning state 'Failed'.", "details": [ { "code": "VMExtensionProvisioningError", "message": "VM has reported a failure when processing extension 'dscExtension'. Error message: \"The DSC Extension failed to execute: **Cannot process argument transformation on parameter 'ConfigurationFunction'**. Cannot convert value to type System.String..\r\nMore information about the failure can be found in the logs located under 'C:\\WindowsAzure\\Logs\\Plugins\\Microsoft.Powershell.DSC\\2.19.0.0' on the VM.\"." } ] } }'

Solution

This issue probably occurs when the ZIP file with the DSC config cannot be found. When you use a program like 7-Zip to zip your PowerShell script, it will create a ZIP file named Yourfile.zip instead of Yourfile.ps1.zip. All of the scripts I’ve found in the Quickstart Repository need a .ps1.zip extension. So don’t forget to check if your file with script has a .ps1.zip extension.