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Logs

Logs Overview

ActiveManage maintains several specialised logs in addition to the activity log. Each log captures a particular category of event so you can audit, debug or analyse without scrolling through unrelated noise.

Grid showing the various logs: Activity, Email, SMS, Task, API Client, Error, Stack Trace, with brief description and last-update timestamp for each

The Log Catalogue

  • Activity log: Who did what (covered separately).
  • Email log: Every outbound message — sender, recipient, template, delivery status.
  • SMS log: Every outbound SMS — recipient, cost, gateway response.
  • Task log: Background-task runs (covered in the Tasks section).
  • API client log: Every REST request from registered clients.
  • Error log: Unhandled exceptions and PHP errors.
  • Stack trace capture: Deep diagnostic snapshots for tricky bugs.
  • Push notification log: Mobile and Web Push deliveries.
  • Webhook log: Outgoing webhook calls and their responses.
  • Sign-in log: Successful and failed authentication attempts.

Retention

Default retention is 90 days for verbose logs (API, error, push) and 1 year for higher-value logs (activity, email). Compliance frameworks often require longer — configure per log type in Site Settings → Logs → Retention.

Export

All logs can be exported to CSV or JSON for offline analysis. For continuous offsite logging, configure a syslog or Splunk destination.

Worked Examples

  • Deliverability investigation: Email log shows declining open rates over the last month — drill into provider responses.
  • Cost analysis: SMS log filtered by month and grouped by template — identify big spenders.
  • Bug triage: Error log shows repeated NullReferenceException from a specific endpoint — pull the stack trace and fix.
  • API health: API log filtered to status=5xx — see which endpoints have the worst error rate.

Where Each Log Lives

The various logs are stored in different places depending on their volume, query patterns and retention. Knowing where each one lives helps you when querying, exporting or troubleshooting.

Storage map: Activity Log (DB table), Email Log (DB), SMS Log (DB), API Client Log (DB), Task Log (DB), Error Log (file + DB summary), Stack Trace (file), Webhook Log (DB)

Storage Locations

  • Database tables: Activity, Email, SMS, API client, Task, Webhook. Stored as ordinary rows; queryable via the admin UI; subject to normal DB backup.
  • File-based with DB summary: Error log entries live on disk for full stack traces; a summary row in the DB allows fast browsing.
  • External services (optional): Configure forwarding to syslog, Loki, Splunk, ELK, Datadog for long-term retention and richer search.

Where to Query

  • Admin UI: Most logs have a dedicated viewer at Architect Panel → Logs → ….
  • SQL: DB-stored logs are queryable directly (look at activity-log, email-log, etc. tables).
  • Filesystem: Error log file lives at storage/logs/error.log by default.
  • External: If forwarded, query in your downstream tool.

Worked Examples

  • Quick triage from UI: Most issues solved without leaving the admin UI.
  • Complex SQL query: Cross-join activity and email log to find users who didn't open the welcome email but signed in anyway.
  • Real-time tailing: SSH into the box and tail -f storage/logs/error.log during a deploy.
  • Long-term retention: Forward all logs to Splunk; admin UI keeps 90 days; Splunk keeps 7 years for compliance.
Tip: Backups should include both the DB and the on-disk error log directory. A backup that captures the DB but not the file-based stack traces loses crucial diagnostic information.