Contents
Plugixa Activity Log - User Documentation
Welcome to the official documentation for Plugixa Activity Log, a WordPress plugin that records what happens on a site - sign-ins, user accounts, content, media, comments, plugins, themes and settings - with who did it, when, from which IP address, and what changed.
Plugixa Activity Log ships in two editions:
- Free - the monitors for WordPress itself, including PHP errors and 404s; the log viewer with full-text search, filters, live view and saved views; the dashboard; switching single events and whole monitors on or off; exclusions; retention; email notifications; privacy tools; the WP Activity Log history import; the Health screen; WP-CLI and a read-only REST API.
- Pro PRO - alert rules to email, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams or a webhook; reports on demand and on a schedule; CSV export; user sessions; IP location; the file integrity scan; the archive; mirrors to syslog, HTTPS or a file; and monitors for WooCommerce and twelve other plugins.
The free edition is not a trial. See the complete Free vs Pro feature matrix.
Four decisions that shape everything else
| Decision | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| The log is append-only | No screen and no REST route edits or deletes an event. Events leave only through retention, the archive PRO moves them, and a privacy erasure anonymises one person’s rows. A log somebody with a stolen admin session could quietly tidy up would be worse than none. |
| Its own table with typed columns, not posts | Severity, user, IP address, object and event code are real, indexed columns in one table. The last page of a million-event log opens as fast as the first, and search uses a full-text index. |
| Events are written once, at the end of the request | Saving a post fires a dozen hooks. They are collected and stored in a single query after the page has been built, so the log does not slow down the action it is describing. |
| Features are decided by which code is installed | Pro features are additional code that exists only in the Pro download. Nothing in the free build is a locked copy of something, and no licence check decides what runs. |
Key concepts
| Term | What it is |
|---|---|
| Event | One thing that happened, stored as one row: a sentence, plus everything captured about it. |
| Event code | The stable number of a kind of event - 1000 is a sign-in, 2001 a published post. Never reused, never renumbered. |
| Severity | How much an event matters: informational, low, medium, high or critical. |
| Monitor | The piece that watches one area of the site. Switched off, it attaches no WordPress hooks at all. |
| Actor | Who did it: the user, their role at that moment and their IP address. “System” when nobody was signed in. |
| Source | How the request reached WordPress: web, ajax, rest, cron or cli. Stored with every event. |
| Object | The thing the event is about - a post, a user, a plugin, a setting. |
| Saved view | A named set of log filters, personal or shared. |
| Exclusion | A user, role, IP range or post type whose activity is not recorded. |
| Retention | How long events are kept. Ninety days by default. |
| Archive PRO | A second table, here or on another database server, that old events are moved to and stay searchable in. |
| Own trail | Codes 9000 and up: the plugin’s record of what was done to the log itself. |
Getting started
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| Getting Started | Install, activate, and what is recorded from the first minute |
| Installing and Updating | Free and Pro downloads, moving between them, updates, and what leaves the site |
| Dashboard | Totals, trends and the most recent serious events |
| Free vs Pro | The complete feature matrix |
| Troubleshooting | Common problems and their causes |
Reading the log
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| The Activity Log | Columns, search, filters, live view and the event inspector |
| Saved Views | Named filter sets, personal or shared, and a default |
| Events | Every kind of event, its code and severity, and switching one off |
| Monitors | Switching a whole area of the site on or off |
| PHP Errors and 404s | The two monitors that start switched off |
| Integrations PRO | Monitors for WooCommerce, SEO, forms, membership and other plugins |
Alerts and reporting
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| Notifications | An email when something serious is recorded |
| Alert Rules PRO | Chosen events to email, Slack, Discord, Teams or a webhook |
| Reports PRO | Summaries on demand, or emailed daily, weekly or monthly |
| Export PRO | The filtered log as a CSV file |
Security
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| Sessions PRO | Who is signed in, ending sessions, concurrent and idle limits |
| IP Location PRO | Country, region and city beside each address |
| File Integrity PRO | Changed, added and deleted files in core, plugins, themes and uploads |
Storage and delivery
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| Retention | How long events are kept, by age and by count |
| Archive PRO | Moving old events out of the live log and keeping them searchable |
| Mirrors PRO | Copying every new event to syslog, an HTTPS endpoint or a file |
| Health | How big the log is and whether its scheduled jobs run |
Configuration
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| Settings | Every section of the settings screen |
| Access | Who may see the log and who may change how it is kept |
| Exclusions | Users, roles, addresses and post types that are not recorded |
| Privacy | Export and erasure requests, shortened IP addresses, policy text |
| Import from WP Activity Log | Bringing an existing history across |
| Multisite | One log for a whole network, and who sees what |
For developers
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| WP-CLI | The wp activity-log commands |
| REST API | The plugixa-activity-log/v1 namespace |
| Hooks Reference | Actions and filters, including recording events of your own |
| Developer Reference | Setting keys, database tables, scheduled jobs, constants and capabilities |
System requirements
- WordPress: 6.5 or higher
- PHP: 8.2 or higher
- Database: MySQL or MariaDB with InnoDB, which the full-text search relies on
- Browsers: current Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge
Getting help
- Check Troubleshooting first.
- Read the page for the feature you are using.
- Contact support through your Plugixa account.
License
Plugixa Activity Log is licensed under the GPL v2 or later. Pro features are the additional code in the Pro download: no licence check inside the plugin decides what runs. Freemius handles the purchase and the plugin updates. See Installing and updating.