Are you wondering how your colleagues are using Matomo (Piwik)? Would you like to know if an unauthorized user got an access to your installation? Would you like to remember the last actions you performed in Matomo some weeks ago? At InnoCraft, we developed a plugin called “Activity Log”. With this feature you can easily track and check all major changes to your Matomo websites, for example: user permissions, goals, and funnels. In this article we will show you the different ways you can use it and explain why it is an invaluable plugin.
Activity log for better security
The activity log feature has been designed for security. Also referred to as “audit logging” or “audit trail”, with this plugin you will be able to:
- detect any suspicious actions
- detect hacker attacks
- help identify performance problems
- see clearly who did what, and when
- find out how people are using Matomo within your company
1 – detect any suspicious actions
With audit trail you can easily identify if a former employee still has access to your Matomo installation. You will then be able to know when he accessed it for the last time, and what changes she or he performed. If you got hacked, you will be able to find out if the user created, changed, or deleted any website, goals, or did anything else suspicious.
2 – detect hacker attacks
When an unregistered user is trying to access your Matomo, each failed login attempt is registered within the Activity Log report.
3 – help identify performance problems
Activity Log can help you identify performance problems by registering the sequence of each major action a user performed. For example, if a user updated or installed a third party plugin, and suddenly Matomo is getting performance problems, then it is likely that the plugin update caused it.
4 – see clearly who did what, and when
It is always challenging in an organization to know who did what and when. With Activity Log, you will know who were the employee(s) that accessed Matomo, created, updated, or deleted a goal, a funnel, a scheduled report, and much more.
5- find out how people are using Matomo within your company
By having a look at how people are using Matomo you will have an overview of how your colleagues use Matomo. For example, you can see who is creating Custom segments to analyse the audience in more details, who is creating funnels to learn where your users drop off. You will then be able to identify who has the knowledge and who needs training.
Did you know?
You can help the Matomo core team make Matomo even better by sharing anonymously how you use Matomo on a day to day basis. You just need to install the following plugin: http://plugins.matomo.org/AnonymousPiwikUsageMeasurement
What’s in it?
Once downloaded and installed from the marketplace, you will be able to access the activity log from the admin panel within the diagnostic section:
If you are logged as a super user administrator, you will get an overview and a detailed report about who accessed Matomo and which actions they performed.
Those reports are critical as they allow the super user to:
- ensure users are following all documented procedures within your organization such as naming conventions for reports, using the right settings when adding measurables…
- identify suspicious behavior. As those reports are gathering all major Matomo users activities it is easy to identify non conventional behavior.
- replay the sequence some users went through in order to fix any potential issues.
Activity log view report you can access through the admin panel
So you will see in a second if an unusual user got access to Matomo and the different actions the user performed.
It is also a good way to see the features that your users are using and identify potential misuse.
As a regular user or admin, activity log is providing only the historical actions that this user performed:
Actions listed in the log include any changes (add, edit, delete) to the following features (this is a non exhaustive list):
- Annotation
- Custom Alert
- Custom Dimension
- Goal
- Privacy settings
- Scheduled report
- Segment
- User
- Website
- …
This is a ideal to remember the actions they previously performed some weeks/months ago.
Where can I start from here?
Activity log is a premium feature you can acquire through the Matomo marketplace. If you want to experience it before purchasing it, you can try it for free on our cloud infrastructure.
Activity log is just one out of the many great premium features developed by InnoCraft, the company founded by the creators of Matomo. Discover all their special plugins through the premium marketplace.
