How to monitor WooCommerce product and store changes

Monitoring your WooCommerce store is easier than you might think and comes with many advantages. Through monitoring, you’ll gain unprecedented insights into what goes on beneath the surface of your eCommerce store, enabling you to improve security, tackle fraud, and increase productivity. And it all starts with choosing the right tool for the job.

In this article, we will explore how to monitor WooCommerce activity, including changes to products, the store, and much more, helping you ensure you get the most out of your WooCommerce monitoring.

How to get started with WooCommerce monitoring

Getting started with WooCommerce monitoring is incredibly easy. All you need is an activity log plugin. We’ll be using our very own WP Activity Log to show you how to add tracking capabilities to your store and monitor WooCommerce product and store changes (and much more).

Why choose WP Activity Log?

WP Activity Log is designed to be one of the most comprehensive activity log plugins available, offering extensive support for WooCommerce, including product, store, and order tracking. We’ve developed these features based on feedback from our users to ensure it meets the needs of online store owners.

WP Activity Log comes in both free and premium editions. The free edition offers all monitoring capabilities with no restrictions on what data is collected. The premium edition offers additional features designed to help you improve how you monitor and manage your WooCommerce and WordPress sites. These features include reporting, filtering, notifications, user session management, and integrations, to name a few.

Step 1: Get and install WP Activity Log

Choose the WP Activity Log edition that includes the features you need and install the plugin. If you do opt for a premium edition, your license key and download link will be sent to you via email. Meanwhile, you can download the free edition from our website or the official WordPress repository by navigating to Plugins > Add New Plugin and searching for WP Activity Log.

Install WP Activity Log like you would any other plugin and activate it. Once installed, you’ll find it in the list of installed plugins.

Step 2: Run the initial configuration wizard

To help you get started as quickly as possible, WP Activity Log comes with a configuration wizard that walks you through the initial configuration process. The wizard will start automatically upon plugin activation or license validation – depending on which edition you install.

Once you complete the wizard, the plugin will automatically start collecting WooCommerce activity data, including product and store changes. You can change the settings configured in the wizard and any other setting at any point. Visit the WP Activity Log knowledge base to learn more about how to configure the plugin.

Understanding WooCommerce monitoring logs

WP Activity Log captures extensive tracking information about each event it tracks. This wealth of information makes itself useful in different scenarios, which we will cover later. To view the monitoring logs, navigate to WP Activity Logs > Log Viewer.

For each WooCommerce (and WordPress) event that WP Activity Log tracks, you will find the following information:

• ID: This is the ID of the event that has been logged. Each event has its own ID, making it easier to find all similar events, run reports, set up notifications and exclusions, and much more.
• Severity: Indicated how severe a particular event is. Here, you’ll find several different classifications, which act as a guide to help you monitor WooCommerce more effectively.
• Date: The date and time on which the event took place.
• User: The user that actioned the event. Users must be registered in WordPress (including WooCommerce). You’ll also notice some events list System as they user. Such events are not actioned through a user account but programmatically or events where the user is not avaioable.
• IP: The IP address for the machine from which the activity was actioned. WP Activity Log comes with a special setting for environments that use a proxy or similar service.
• Object: The object that was modified or accessed. Objects make it easier to understand what happened.
• Event type: The nature of the event that took place. Just like Objects, Events make it easier to understand what happened at a glance.
• Message: Here, you’ll find all of the details about the event. For example, if something was modified, you’ll see what was modified, the old values, and the new ones.
• More details: Here you’ll find additional information that is not included in the default Log Viewer view. The information you’ll find here is event-dependent and may change, according to the event in that entry.

You can search for specific activities using the built-in search functions, which makes the whole process a walk in the park. The free edition includes a free-text search option and column sorting. The premium edition, on the other hand, also includes extensive filtering options.

Monitor WooCommerce changes and activities

We can limit what we see in the of Log Viewer to WooCommerce product and store changes by using the available filters.

In this case, we will use the Object filter, highlighted in the screenshot below, to choose WooCommerce Products and WooCommerce Store from the drop-down menu. Once you click on the Add Filter button, these will be added as view filters. Next, click the Search button to filter your Log Viewer view.

You can also save the filtered search to find it ready whenever you need to use it. Of course, you can add additional filters should you wish, enabling you to precisely find the activities you’re looking for.

Which WooCommerce activities can WP Activity Log monitor?

WP Activity Log can monitor a wide range of WooCommerce activities; giving you complete oversight over your eCommerce store. Here you’ll find a wide range of objects and event types, covering the entire gamut of your WooCommerce operations. Let’s look at what activities you can monitor:

• Products: Monitor the addition and deletion of products as well as changes to existing products. Views, changes to stock quantity, and downloads are some of the many other activities that are also monitored and logged.
• Store: Changes to units, currency, attributes, and payment gateways are some of the things that WP Activity Log monitors and tracks when it comes to the WooCommcerce store settings. Other monitored changes include status and policy changes among other activities.
• Users: When it comes to WooCommerce users, WP Activity Log keeps track of changes to the billing address and shipping address; perfect for uncovering some of the most common fraud schemes.
• Orders: New orders, deleted and restored orders, as well as placed orders (checkout) are all monitored and logged separately.
• Categories: Creation and deletion of categories as well as changes to existing categories.
• Coupons: Publishing and deletion of coupons, changes to discount type and amount, and much more.
• Tags: Creation and deletion of tags, as well as changes to existing tags, including name and slug.

WooCommerce monitoring notifications

The Log Viewer allows you to view all activities by logged-in users. It’s accessible straight from the WordPress dashboard and includes an intuitive interface that makes it easy to monitor activities as they happen.

Using WP Activity Log’s notification feature, you can ensure that you’ll be notified immediately whenever an important activity occurs. The plugin supports both email and SMS notifications and comes with several preset notifications, as well as the ability to set up custom notifications.

Example: Notification for when the product’s price is changed

Here is another example of how we can set up an alert for when a specific user changes the price of a product:

• Start by entering a title for the notification, which in this case can read, “Price change.”
• Click on +Add Trigger to add the first trigger.
• Select USERNAME from the first dropdown menu, IS EQUAL from the second, and then enter the username in the Required * field.
• Next, click +Add Trigger button again to add the second trigger.
• We will first choose the AND operand from the first dropdown menu, EVENT ID from the second, IS EQUAL from the third, and enter 9016 in the Required * field (9016 is the Alert ID of a product price change).
• Enter the email address or WordPress username of the email notification recipient in the email address field.
• Enter the mobile phone number of the SMS notification recipient in the phone number field.
• Click Add Notification to save the trigger.

You can add multiple email and SMS recipients by entering each email address or phone number separated by commas.

One thing worth mentioning is that SMS notifications require Twilio integration, which service is responsible for the delivery of SMS.

That’s it; you’re ready to go! You can test the email or SMS notification by clicking the Send Test Email or Send Test SMS button next to the notification, shown in the screenshot below.

Refer to the complete list of WooCommerce events and IDs for more information on the events tracked by WP Activity Log along with their respective IDs.

WooCommerce monitoring reports

WooCommerce monitoring reports are a great way to disseminate information to stakeholders. WP Activity Log’s reports module offers both ad-hoc and periodic reports, which you can easily configure using the available filters.

Here, you’ll also find white labeling options that enable you to alter the look and feel of the reports to match your branding guidelines. Furthermore, you can export reports as either HTML or CSV – making them perfect for sharing or importing into other systems.

WooCommerce monitoring – the gift that keeps on giving

Monitoring your WooCommerce store activities has many benefits. From uncovering fraud attempts and GDPR compliance to improving troubleshooting processes and accountability, activity logs are a must-have tool for your e-commerce store.

Thanks to WP Activity Log, setting up and managing WooCommerce monitoring is a straightforward affair. Its many customization options and features ensure it fits your environment and processes – enabling you to do more for a more efficient organization and happy customers.

However, WP Activity Log does not stop at WooCommerce. It also helps you monitor WordPress changes – from post and page updates to changes in settings, users, and beyond.Get started with WP Activity Log and improve how you manage your WooCommerce websites today.