Activity log

Here you see who did what in your organization, and download the log to keep it or hand it to an auditor.

What the log is#

The activity log is a list of actions that changed something in the organization: who did it, when, and to what. The newest are on top. Every row has the time, the person, a sentence saying what happened, and where: the name of the project and of the document, as links when they still exist. If a project or document has been deleted, its id is shown instead, dimmed.

The sentences do not name the person; the Who column does. It shows an email address, or the name and id of a person from embedding. Actions taken by the HotLayout team show as HotLayout, and actions the server did on its own, such as delivering a document, as System. A row written by an older version of the editor that could not prove who made it shows Unverified; point at it to see why.

It is written for every organization, whether or not it has a licence, from the day the organization exists. Rows appear a few seconds after the action, not instantly. They cannot be edited or deleted from the product.

Who can see it#

Only the owner and the admins of the organization. Editors, publishers and viewers do not see the page. People who come through embedding never see it either.

Open Activity log in the menu of the organization.

HotLayout, the company, does not read the logs of its customers. Actions the HotLayout team takes on your organization, such as issuing a licence, appear in your log under the name HotLayout.

What is recorded#

The log is grouped the way the filter shows it.

• Publications and delivery — a document or the theme was published; a published document was delivered to your backend, or the delivery failed; delivery to a backend was set up or turned off. The sentence names the host of the receiver.
• Content — documents and projects were created, renamed, archived, restored or deleted; images were uploaded; the data dictionary was changed, or a project switched to its own dictionary; a draft was edited or replaced. Editing a draft is one row per stretch of work, such as "Edits to the document “Home”: 37 saves, 10:02–10:58", not a row per save. The time of the row is the last save, and the times in the sentence are the first and the last (with dates when the work went past midnight).
• Access and people — people joined, left or were removed; a role was changed (the sentence says from which role to which); an invitation was created, cancelled or declined; the organization was created or renamed; the log was exported.
• Embedding — the allowed domains were changed; the embedding key was created, replaced or turned off; the embedded editor was opened. The sentence about domains says which were added and which removed. People who work through embedding appear under the id of your system, and under their name if your backend passed it. They are marked (host app).
• Licence — a licence was granted, extended, changed or revoked. The sentence says what changed: the term, the number of people, embedding, the activity log.

Exporting the log is recorded too, under Access and people: the log says who downloaded it.

A few rows can carry the note claimed by the client. It means the editor reported the reason for the change itself, for example that a draft was replaced by a rollback, by a JSON import, or by taking the other person's version, and the server could not check it. The reason is in the sentence; the note stands on its own line under it. The fact of the change and the time are always the server's.

What the log does not record#

• The content of edits. The log says who edited which document and when, not which widgets or words changed. What was published is kept in the document's history; open History in the editor to compare.
• Reading. Who opened a draft, the prototype or the log itself is not recorded. Only exporting the log is.
• Signing in to a HotLayout account.
• Anything done outside the product, for example directly in the hosting console.
• Secrets. Keys, webhook secrets, full webhook addresses and data-dictionary samples never get into the log.

Filters#

Above the table choose:

• Period — the last 7, 30, 90 or 365 days. Without the activity log option, only periods up to 30 days are offered.
• Kind of event — all events, or one of the groups above.
• Person — everyone, Unverified (the rows no one could vouch for), or one person. The list has the current members and everyone who appears in the rows you have loaded; a person who has left the organization is marked (not in the organization), so their actions can still be picked out.

If no row matches the filters, the page says so. On a narrow window each row folds into two lines, with no sideways scrolling.

Rows come 50 at a time; press Show more for the next ones. If some entries could not be read, a line says how many.

Without and with the activity log option#

Rows older than the period of keeping are deleted automatically. Without the option you see a line saying that the full log and export come with the plan. To get it, see Trial and licence.

Because rows are recorded for everyone, when you get the option the history of the last 400 days is already there.

Export#

With the activity log option, a section Export appears under the filters. It downloads the log for the period chosen in Period, in one of two formats:

• Download CSV — opens in a spreadsheet. UTF-8, one row per event.
• Download JSON Lines — one record per line, for loading into your own systems, such as a security monitor.

One file covers up to a year and up to 200,000 rows; for more, choose a shorter period. You can export up to ten times an hour. The columns and fields are described in the integration guide, under Activity log export.

If something goes wrong, the page names the reason: the licence is not active or does not include the activity log, the session has ended, there are too many events, or the limit of exports was reached.

Next#

• Team and roles
• Trial and licence