Why you need a WordPress activity monitor

How to add an activity monitor to your WordPress site (in 3 easy steps)

You can easily add monitoring capabilities to your WordPress website by installing the WP Activity Log plugin. This activity log plugin monitors system and user activity and offers native compatibility with many popular 3rd party plugins, such as WooCommerce, Gravity Forms, YoastSEO, MemberPress, and many others.

Step 1: Get WP Activity Log

Purchasing WP Activity Log is easy. With different license tiers available, you can be sure you’ll be able to find what you need to solidly monitor activity on your website. All purchases come with a 30-day money-back guarantee for extra peace of mind. Should you have any questions, whether pre-sales or otherwise, our team is always ready to help.

Step 2: Install and activate the plugin

Once purchased, we’ll email you a download link and your license. We also offer a self-service portal from which you can redownload the plugin at any time, retrieve your license, and check other information regarding your account.

The plugin is downloaded as a .ZIP file, which you’ll need to upload to your WordPress website. Next, install and activate the plugin like you would with any other plugin.

Step 3: Initial setup using the wizard

Once you activate the plugin, the initial setup wizard will kick in to walk you through the plugin’s basic configuration. Keep in mind that WP Activity Log offers way more features and customization options than you’ll see in the setup wizard; however, this will get you up and running in no time at all.

You can find more comprehensive and detailed information about plugin configuration in our knowledge base.

Once configured, the plugin will automatically start monitoring activity on your WordPress website. To adjust the settings configured during the initial configuration wizard head to the Settings page. Here, you’ll find all of the plugin’s settings neatly tabbed for easy and intuitive access.

You can also exclude specific events from being monitored. There are a number of presets that you can choose from. You can also exclude or include specific events individually.

How does a WordPress activity monitor work?

Different plugins may choose different approaches to monitoring WordPress activity. WP Activity Log, however, uses sensors to log user and system activities in the database. As the most feature-rich plugin, WP Activity Log also enables administrators to pick and choose which activities they want to be monitored and included in the WordPress activity logs.

As the first plugin of its kind to reach the market, WP Activity Log benefits from years of experience and optimizations. Because of this, the plugin has negligible effects on the performance of the website. It is fully developed and maintained by the Melapress team

It also includes many additional features that augment the benefits of activity monitoring.

WP Activity Log keeps a WordPress activity log that records different types of activity. You can monitor activities as they happen through the log viewer, which is accessible through the WordPress admin backend, just like any other plugin.

You can choose whether you want to retain exclusive access to the activity log or allow multiple users to access log data records.

The plugin comes with many other useful features, such as the ability to save activity log data records to an external database, email and SMS notifications, reports, and much more.

Using the activity monitor

Using the activity monitor is very straightforward and easy. With the plugin installed, navigate to WP Activity Log > Log Viewer from your WordPress dashboard.

The plugin comes with many other useful features, such as the ability to save activity log data records to an external database, email and SMS notifications, reports, and much more.

Log details

The log viewer includes all of the information you may need to know about a particular activity. This includes:

• The activity’s ID
• The severity of the recorded activity
• The date and time the activity took place
• The user who carried out the activity
• The user’s IP address
• The event type
• Message

You can also click on More details… to get the metadata related to the logged activity.

All of this information can be used to search and filter through the log, making it easy to find specific activity data. This can be very useful when auditing, as it allows you to find what you’re looking for that much easier.

It is also helpful for notifications and reports, which we’ll discuss next.

Notifications and reports

Notifications and reports are two sides of the same coin. Notifications are instant alerts sent to your email whenever a particular activity takes place. WP Activity Log also supports SMS notifications.

WP Activity Log comes with a number of built-in notifications that you can activate at the click of a button. You can also create custom notifications using rules-based triggers for complete control. Notification templates are also fully editable, ensuring notifications sent meet any requirements that you might have.

On the other hand, reports can be run ad-hoc or on a schedule you set – enabling you to monitor key metrics as efficiently as possible.

Like notifications, reports can also be customized and you can also schedule different reports to be sent out on different days to different email addresses. Reports can be generated in a number of different formats and there are whitelabeling options that will even allow you to add your own logo to the reports sent.

Integrations

Data storage is very important, especially for WordPress websites, which are typically installed on servers with limited disk space. WP Activity log offers external storage, archiving, and mirroring solutions, ensuring data can be stored according to the exigencies of each environment.

Setting up any of these integrations is a very straightforward process, with many integrations readily available out of the box.

The Connections Wizard walks you through the entire process, ensuring that even those with minimal technical knowledge can take advantage of this functionality with minimal fuss.

Which activities can you monitor?

WP Activity Log is able to monitor all kinds of events, including native WordPress events, such as logins and logouts, events related to third-party plugins such as WooCommerce and YoastSEO, as well as custom events, thanks to the provided API.

New activities are added regularly thanks to frequent updates that also keep the plugin running as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

WP Activity Log offers a lot of granular control over which activities it monitors. You can enable and disable each individual activity so that you can track user activity and system activity.

User activity

Users generate a lot of activity on WordPress websites. As such, tracking user activity can become increasingly important. Using WP Activity log, you can track all kinds of activity related to user sessions, including:

• User logins and logouts
• Failed login attempts
• New and deleted users

And much more! The user activity log also records the date and time, the IP address, and other valuable data and metadata.

Plugin and theme activity

Plugins and themes often play a crucial role in WordPress websites. Unauthorized and unwanted changes to mission-critical plugins and themes can lead to downtime and revenue loss and may take time to notice and troubleshoot. As such, monitoring activities that affect these vital components is paramount. These include:

• Deleted plugins and themes
• Plugin and theme installation
• Activities specific to popular 3rd party plugins

And much more!

Content activity

Content is at the heart of every WordPress website. Many website owners spend considerable resources ensuring their content helps them put their best foot forward. After all, this is the first thing most customers will encounter. WP Activity Log keeps a record of:

• New and deleted pages
• New, approved, deleted comments
• New, edited, and deleted categories

And much more!

WordPress core activity

The WordPress core is the backbone of every WordPress site. Changes that affect the system and system settings can have major implications for your website. With WP Activity Log you can keep a log of:

• Addition or removal of sites on WordPress multisite networks
• File addition, modification, and deletion
• System settings

Third-party plugin activity

Many websites use 3rd party plugins to add mission-critical functionality to their website. WooCommerce and MemberPress are but two prime examples of such plugins.

Monitoring activity related to these plugins is important for the smooth operations of such websites. From looking out for fraud attempts to abuses and innocent mistakes, tracking activities can help you ensure mistakes, whether deliberate or not, can be caught early enough so that exposure and damage are limited. WP Activity Log tracks:

• WooCommerce product, store, order changes
• Memberpress membership, roles, settings changes
• Yoast SEO settings, metabox changes

And much more! Keeping a log of these activities can help you undertake proactive security measures and speed troubleshooting should the need arise.

User session management

WP Activity Log also comes with a user session management module that enables you to monitor user activities in real time. You can easily track user activities from a dedicated screen for better user management.

It allows you to easily terminate sessions on a user-by-user basis as well as monitor the latest activities for any logged-in user account. Furthermore, you can set session policies to easily see if multiple users have logged in using the same account and whether these sessions are from the same IP address or different ones. This can help you prevent certain abuses, such as account-sharing.

Start monitoring WordPress activity today

If you’re looking to monitor user activity and system activity, WP Activity Log is the tool you need. It logs changes to plugin settings, user profiles, site settings, and much more with little effort across all of your WordPress sites.

The detailed activity log provided by WP Activity Log can not only help you improve site and admin performance but also help you achieve compliance, improve security, and ease troubleshooting processes.