This blog post will discuss WooCommerce activity logs, WooCommerce logs, and the System Status Report. Learn more about the key differences between logs and reports in WooCommerce.
WooCommerce uses logs and reports to record errors, warnings, and other notices that may be useful for troubleshooting a store’s problems. Logs serve as a comprehensive record of events that occur within a system, providing crucial insights into what happened and when. They are indispensable tools for troubleshooting and enhancing operational efficiency.
In this article, we will explore the importance of logs and reports in maintaining a robust eCommerce environment in WordPress.
Key Takeaways:
- Logs and reports in WooCommerce are essential for identifying issues, monitoring website activity, and troubleshooting effectively, with logs capturing detailed information about events and user interactions.
- The System Status Report provides a high-level overview of the store’s environment, including server details, database information, and plugin statuses, aiding in performance assessment.
- WP Activity Log plugin will show you detailed activity log information for your WordPress website.
A log is a series of event records that take place on a system. Each log event is recorded along with a timestamp to know what happened and, as importantly, when. Logs can also contain more information such as who instigated the event, from where, and what changed, among other things. The information contained within a log will largely depend on the system that is recording the logs.
As we shall see, WordPress logs contain an abundance of data, ensuring administrators have all the information they need to troubleshoot and improve their websites.
Why You Should Use Logs?
Logs have been in use since the first IT systems broke the light of day. They are an essential tool for troubleshooting administrative and security issues. You can also use logs to improve operations since they provide insight into different activities. Because logs are used retrospectively rather than as a preemptive measure, they do not always get the attention they deserve.
Unlike using CAPTCHA on your WooCommerce forms, which is a preemptive measure, logs are used retrospectively. As such, they do not always get the attention they deserve.
Even so, just like backups, you’ll be glad you have them should something happen – which invariably does.
Reports are a representation of the state of a system over a specific period, providing an overview rather than detailed information about individual events. They are commonly used in various contexts to summarize key metrics or performance indicators. For example, a report might show a system’s uptime as a percentage but may not include details about the causes of any downtime.
Why You Should Use Reports?
Reports are great for providing critical information in a digestible format. Consistent and frequent reports can help us understand if we need to take further action without revealing all of the details – which may be unnecessary.
Logs and reports are often confused due to their close relationship, but understanding their differences is crucial. Logs are highly detailed, resembling a database with extensive records of events or actions within a system. They provide in-depth information about what occurred, making them useful for troubleshooting or analyzing specific issues.
Reports, in contrast, offer a summarized view, presenting the overall status or performance of a system over a certain period. While a report might indicate that a system is down, the logs would contain the detailed events explaining why it happened.
WooCommerce is, more often than not, deployed as a critical system. Without it, the core business might not function properly, leading to a loss of revenue and reputation. Because of this, there are several aspects of WooCommerce that you should monitor and manage.
Store and Products
The store and products are one of the cornerstones of your eCommerce business – a most important one at that. Changes in this department can have severe consequences for your business, and as such, you should monitor them closely. By doing so, you can ensure that you’re able to stay on top of things at all times and catch misconfigurations before they can affect your bottom line.
Customers and Orders
While ideally, every customer interaction starts and ends with smiling faces, disputes inevitably arise. In such situations, having an audit trail of user activity can help you settle disputes and uncover fraudulent activity. Research by PWC has shown that 47% of companies have experienced fraud in 2020. More alarmingly, fraud is in an upward trend which means that getting all of the protection you can is a no-brainer.
Team
Whether you’re a solopreneur or have an entire team, accountability is a must. Rather than pointing fingers and directing blame, accountability means being aware and learning from our mistakes so that we can do better next time. Competition is strife in the eCommerce space, and every opportunity to learn and grow is essential, which is where logs come in handy. With a timestamped record of each step and action taken, understanding what went wrong and when becomes way more straightforward, helping you learn faster and correct mistakes that much quicker.
Application
The application itself – WooCommerce, add-ons, WordPress, and any other ancillary applications can break. And sometimes they do. While both WooCommerce and WordPress do a great job of hiding much of the complexity in the background, all of these moving parts are still very much there. This can make troubleshooting incredibly complex – even for those who have years of experience without something to refer to, such as logs.
WooCommerce comes with reports and logs to help us troubleshoot errors and monitor activities. Now, let’s look at different logs and reports in WooCommerce.
The WooCommerce System Status Report is a built-in report that comes with all WooCommerce installations. Its primary purpose is to help administrators troubleshoot issues with their WooCommerce store.
Who Is It For?
The System Status Report is designed to assist with troubleshooting issues, making it especially valuable for system administrators. Additionally, it provides basic information about the server environment and database, which can be beneficial for developers.
What Information Does It Collect?
The system status report is divided into a few sections, each providing information about your store’s different components. Available information includes:
- Environment – The environment section is split into two parts and includes information about the WordPress and server environments.
- Database – The database section provides information about the database and tables within it.
- Post types – The Post types section details the store’s post types and the number of posts available by type.
- Security – In the security section, we can find limited information about the WooCommerce store security. However, this does not include information about 3rd party plugins and the setup, for example, it does not tell you if your team members are using 2FA on WooCommerce.
- Plugins – The plugins section is divided into three sections, covering active, inactive, and drop-in plugins.
- Settings – Under Settings, we can find general information about how WooCommerce is set up.
- Pages – Within the pages section, we can find information about WooCommerce pages, including IDs and permalinks
- Theme – Under the theme section, we can find information about the current theme
- Templates – In the templates section, we can find information about files that override WooCommerce template pages
- Action Scheduler – In this section, we can find information about actions, including counts and recent dates.
WooCommerce logs are records of events that occur on an online store captured by the WooCommerce plugin. These logs are useful for troubleshooting, debugging, and sending notifications. Extensions, such as WooCommerce Subscriptions, also collect logs about the functionality of that module. Such extensions can also contribute additional information to WooCommerce logs.
Who Is It For?
WooCommerce logs are as varied as they come. As such, anyone involved in the WooCommerce ecosystem might find useful information to glean from them. Having said that, because of their setup, more technical users such as systems, web administrators, and developers will be the primary beneficiaries.
What Information Does It Collect?
The WooCommerce log adapts to your store’s configuration, and as such, the information it collects will vary according to the setup and extensions you might have installed.
One excellent and thoughtful feature included in the WooCommerce log is the inclusion of PHP errors. Generally speaking, you can find the PHP error log on the web server as it collates PHP error logs from different applications and modules running on the server. By including it in their log, WooCommerce makes this very important log more accessible and ensures that you can easily find any WooCommerce-related PHP errors.
WooCommerce does not have an activity log by default. So to keep a log of WooCommerce activities, such as who processed or modified an order and who changed a product’s metadata (like stock count and SKU), you need to install WP Activity Log, an activity log plugin for WordPress, and its WooCommerce extension.
Who Is It For?
The activity log plugin offers an extensive data collection scope; activity logs can be used by both technical and operational administrators and users; however, it is unlikely that developers will get much use out of the data it collects.
What Information Does It Collect?
As mentioned earlier, the activity log tends to lean towards the operational side. To this end, we find that most activities recorded in the activity log pertain to how the eCommerce store operates and functions and how users interact with it.
- Products – Product-related activities logged can include changes to products, stocks, tags, categories, attributes, and other metadata.
- Store – Store-related logs can include changes to currency, checkout, endpoints, and the store settings among many others.
- Payment Gateways – You can also include changes to payment gateways in the activity log.
- Tax – User changes to tax setting.
- Attributes – Changes to attributes by users are logged by several plugins but not necessarily all.
- Coupons – Coupon-related logs can include the creation of coupons as well as changes to the expiry date, amount, and restrictions, among other settings.
- Orders – Orders can also be logged by activity log for WooCommerce plugins, including placed orders and changes to orders, among other activities.
- Customer User Profile – Changes to the user profile include changes to billing and shipping details.
Logs are detailed records of events that occur within a system, capturing essential information such as timestamps, user actions, and changes made. They serve as critical tools for troubleshooting and security monitoring, allowing administrators to track activities, identify fraudulent behavior, and maintain accountability among team members.
WooCommerce logs and reports serve distinct purposes within an eCommerce platform. Logs are detailed records of specific events, capturing timestamps, user actions, and changes made in the system, primarily used for troubleshooting and security monitoring. Reports summarize the overall state of a system over a specific timeframe, presenting high-level metrics like uptime or sales performance without delving into individual events.
The WooCommerce System Status Report is a built-in tool that helps administrators troubleshoot issues within their store by providing essential information about the environment, database, post types, security, plugins, settings, pages, theme, templates, and action scheduler. It includes details about the WordPress and server environments, database tables, the number of post types, and active or inactive plugins.
Yes, you can see user activity on WordPress, mainly through logs and activity log plugins. While WooCommerce does not include a built-in activity log by default, you can install plugins like WP Activity Log to track various user interactions. This plugin records product changes, orders, payment settings, and customer profiles, providing a comprehensive overview of how users engage with the store.
Logs and reports help you identify issues and errors and monitor your website activity. WooCommerce provides different log reports that capture detailed information about events, errors, and user interactions, enabling administrators to troubleshoot effectively. In contrast, the System Status Report offers a high-level overview of the store’s environment and configuration, helping to assess overall performance. Together, these tools enhance operational efficiency and security, ensuring a well-functioning eCommerce platform.
We hope this article has helped you learn about WooCommerce logs and reports. If you have any queries. Drop them in the comments section.