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Monitor user activity

Owned by Helen Gosper
Last updated: Jun 15, 2023 by Denise McGettigan
3 min read

As an administrator you can see individual user activity in Phocas or, if you have permission, you can view user system-wide activity.

The user maintenance form shows you a user's activity over a selected period of days, months or a year, including queries any changes to their permissions, password, user group and so on. You can get activity information from the following three tabs:

Usage 

The Usage tab shows a simple column chart with the number of queries that a user makes each day, which is ideal way to check that a user is using the product. 

Every time a user performs a query on the query screen, the count for that database and that day is increased. This includes whenever a new item (dimension, measure, property, and so on) is selected. Dashboard and chart queries are not counted. 

By default, the chart shows usage across all databases during the past 28 days. You can filter the data by:

  • Database - select the database from the Database menu. 

  • Time period - Select the activity for 28 days, 3 months, 6 months or 12 months from the Period menu.

Query

If the Detailed Logs permission has been enabled on the User tab, every query that a user executes will be recorded.

These details display on the Query Logs tab (you might not have permission to see this tab). The log includes the date/time, the database, mode, dimension, period, any selections made and whether the result was shown as a chart or grid. 

To permanently deletes all recorded events, click the Purge button. 

To re-query the log and reload the page, click the Refresh button.

View system-wide activity

Administrators with permission can access system-wide logs. Not all administrators have access to view all of these logs. 

See View system-wide activity and error logs



Audit 

Only administrators with permission can access this screen.

All significant changes to user accounts are recorded in the Audit screen of the View and change user settings (user maintenance form). This data is recorded automatically and is captured at a database level, so any changes made outside of the application 'through the back door' are also recorded. The date/time of the event is included. The user-related events that are audited are:

  • CREATED: Records details about creation of a new user.

  • UPDATED: Changes to password, administrator, group, territory and profile. For all except password, the old and new values are retained.

  • DATABASE ADDED: Shows the physical database name and the restriction, if any, that applied. 

  • DATABASE UPDATED: Changes to a user's database settings. Records the physical database and the details of the restriction.

  • DATABASE DELETED: Records the database name that was removed from a user. Note: The database isn't deleted; it is just removed from the user's available list of databases. It will still be available to other users.

Details of the 'From' and 'To' fields are truncated at 50 characters; for a detailed view of the change click on the 'From' or 'To' link.