How to keep a
WordPress login log
Keeping a WordPress login log is great for keeping tabs on how users are interacting with your website. It also helps you improve troubleshooting processes and achieve compliance with regulations such as GDPR.
WordPress, however, does not keep a user login log out of the box. To keep track of who is logging in and logging out, you need to install WP Activity Log.
WP Activity Log goes beyond keeping a simple history log. It tracks user activity across your entire WordPress website, including logins, logouts, and failed logins. Each log entry includes a comprehensive amount of detail about each activity, including:
- Date and time
- User details
- IP address
- Activity ID
- Severity level
- Object
- Event type
Tracking user activity at this level enables you to act confidently, knowing you have a wide and accurate view of user activity. It also allows for better searches, reports, and notifications, thus ensuring the data you need is never more than a few clicks away.
Monitoring users can enable you to achieve more – from encouraging ownership among your users to improving troubleshooting processes, compliance, and security.
All of this, and much more, can easily be achieved with WP Activity Log – the most comprehensive activity log plugin. If you’re looking to keep WordPress login logs and monitor user activity and system activity, WP Activity Log is an activity log plugin you’re going to want in your WordPress security and management toolbox.
Setting up your WordPress login log (in 3 easy steps)
Getting started with WP Activity Log is very easy. The plugin is full of features that will help you keep a record of WordPress user login history and much more. Aside from its ability to accurately track user activity, it also helps you keep your WordPress site safe.
WP Activity Log is also very user-friendly, with a short learning curve. It comes with wizards that’ll help you get set up and running in no time at all.
The plugin will start to monitor user activities, such as user logins, logouts, and failed login attempts, as soon as it is installed and configured. Aside from logins, WP Activity Log can track all kinds of other user activities, enabling you to understand which users accessed what and when across your entire site.
Step 1: Get WP Activity Log
First, you’ll need to download WP Activity Log by choosing the plan that best fits your requirements. The available plans have been designed with simplicity in mind, making it easy to choose the one that best fits your needs.
- Free plan: The free plan includes everything you need to get started with keeping a log of your user login history on your WordPress website. There are no restrictions whatsoever on which activity log data you can collect and no log retention restrictions either.
- Premium plan: The premium plan adds features such as advanced search filters, notifications, reports, and user session management, among other things. Premium is the most popular plan with great features if you have a multi-user website.
- Enterprise plan: The enterprise plan builds upon the premium plan, adding log archiving, log mirroring, and external database support. It also includes priority support – excellent news for those who need to monitor user activity on mission-critical websites.
All plans are available directly from the Melapress website, while the free plan plugin can be downloaded directly from the WordPress admin dashboard.
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Step 2 – Install and activate WP Activity Log
Next, head to the WordPress dashboard and install the plugin just like you would with any other plugin. There are no special configurations required. Activate the plugin and enter your license if required.
Step 3 – Configure WP Activity Log
Upon activation, the plugin will automatically launch the initial setup wizard. The wizard will walk you through the basic settings configuration process required to get the plugin up and running. All settings configured here can be changed at any point from the plugin’s settings screen.
Among other things, the wizard will ask you whether users can log in using pages other than the default WordPress login page. This ensures your user login history log includes logins across your entire website, including custom login pages as well as those for third-party plugins such as WooCommerce and MemeberPress.
The setup wizard also includes an option for user registrations, ensuring any new registrations are included in the user activity log along with logins, logouts, and all the other activities that WP Activity Log tracks.
Once you complete the initial configuration wizard, head to WP Activity Log > Log Viewer. Here, you’ll be able to see all of the system and user activity logs, including logins, logouts, and failed logins.
User login history in-depth
WP Activity Log stores login activities in the activity log. By default, this is saved in the WordPress database; however, you may choose to save the log to an external database, a Log Management System, or any of the other available options. You can access the data through the Log Viewer, which is available through the plugin options in your WordPress dashboard, as previously described.
To help you find what you are looking for quickly, WP Activity Log comes with search and filtering options. These can be used to filter out specific activities, such as those associated with logins.
These advanced filtering options included with this WordPress plugin, available in select plans, make it very easy to find the log entries you are looking for in record time. You can also make use of the notifications and reporting features to get the data you want with even less effort.
WordPress user management
The plugin also comes with a User Sessions Management module that enables you to manage logged-in users.
From here, you can see who is logged in in real-time, as well as how many active and inactive sessions each user has. Sessions can be terminated at the click of a button, and there’s even an option to terminate all sessions in case of an emergency.
Another useful feature included in this module is the user session policies. From here, you can limit multiple sessions and terminate idle ones – useful for improving overall WordPress login logs security and limiting abuses on subscription-based websites.
Failed logins
The plugin also logs failed login attempts, including instances where the wrong password or wrong password and username were supplied. Having such information readily available at your fingertips enables you to improve your security posture and deploy countermeasures to keep your website and users secure.
By tracking failed logins for known and unknown users separately, you can assess threats more accurately and deploy the appropriate countermeasures.
Packed with useful features that can help you monitor your WordPress websites activities.
User login reports and notifications
Keeping an eye on your user log is very easy with WP Activity Log. You can set up notifications for virtually any activity in the user activity log, with preset and custom notifications available. Notifications can be sent via email or SMS, depending on your preferences and workflow.
Setting up notifications
Notifications are easy to set up. First, navigate to WP Activity Log > Email & SMS Notifications from the WordPress dashboard menu. The primary page displays Built-in Notifications, which allows you to quickly set up notifications using the preset notifications. To use any of these notifications, simply tick the appropriate checkbox, enter the email address you would like to send the notification to, and click on Save Notifications to save changes.
You can also set up a custom notification by clicking on the Custom Notifications tab. Click on Add New and then fill in the details as required. In the example below, we have created a screenshot for failed logins where the username is known.
With many different triggers, logics, and events to choose from, notifications can be as broad or as specific as you like.
SMS notifications require a Twilio subscription. Additional delivery fees may apply.
WordPress login reporting
The plugin comes with an extensive reporting module that was recently revamped for a faster and more resource-efficient experience. With extensive filtering options readily available, you’ll be able to automate reports that fit your business’ criteria easily.
Reports can be generated and sent automatically or on the fly, ensuring all of your reporting requirements are easily met. Statistics reports, available within the same module, offer a bird’s eye view of key metrics, perfect for KPI management.
Customizability
WP Activity Log is highly customizable. Individual activities can be switched off from being tracked, while reports can be customized with logos and contact details should you wish.
There is support for popular 3rd party plugins such as WooCommerce, MemberPress, and many other plugins, straight out of the box, ensuring activities related to these plugins are also logged. The plugin also includes an API that lets you add your own custom events to the WordPress activity log. The process is easy and straightforward, and plenty of documentation is provided.
WP Activity Log – a reliable WordPress login log solution
Keeping a log of your user login history on your WordPress website is a smart move that can yield many dividends. From boosting team performance to improving preemptive security, maintaining tabs on your WordPress user login history can give you increased visibility. The dividends increase as your website grows, with multiple users making use of your WordPress site.
As it’s the plugin itself that keeps track of user login history, it is never too early to start. Logs act like an insurance policy that can help you get out of a jam should the worst happen. It also helps you comply with standards and regulations such as PCI-DSS and GDPR.
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