Forum Discussion

ToddMolino1's avatar
ToddMolino1
Qrew Cadet
5 years ago

Ways to Log When a Record is Viewed

I've never had this use case before and was curious if anyone had any thoughts on this. I have a client who's workflows are highly regulated and they are interested in a way that we can log the Users and Date/Times that a record is opened and viewed by them. So each time a record is opened, they want to know who was looking and when they looked. Any thoughts on this? I'm familiar with setting up native Logging and have looked into the Advanced Logging tool from MCF Tech. Just curious if anyone had anything to offer. Thanks so much!

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Todd Molino
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Account and realm management
Ask about Quickbase functionality
  • EvanWestbrook's avatar
    EvanWestbrook
    Qrew Cadet
    5 years ago
    Todd,

    QuickBase released the native Audit Log feature earlier this year. You can learn how to set it up for your realm here.

    We've been using it for administrative audit purposes for a few months now, and it logs the data points you're after. The only big limitation we've found is that you have to export it to .CSV to do analysis (i.e. there's no API to access the info.)

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    Evan Westbrook
    PRIME Developer
    Harder Mechanical Contractors Inc.
    Portland OR
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  • AustinK's avatar
    AustinK
    Qrew Commander
    5 years ago
    So they would be taking no action inside the record? Only opening and viewing it? That makes it more difficult.

    Looking into Advanced Logging by MCF I believe the only logs database changes. So if no change to your data is happening then it may not work for you. I would contact them to be sure though. 

    I'm not sure if there is a native solution but you could definitely do this in Javascript and just have it store the logs in another table. Off the top of my head it would involve the Image On Load technique and custom JavaScript to just watch where the user is. When they load a record it could easily detect that by the URL and make a log entry for that action.
    • ToddMolino1's avatar
      ToddMolino1
      Qrew Cadet
      5 years ago
      Thanks for your feedback Austin. It turns out that the Advanced Logging Tool from MCF will log who has simply viewed a record which is great. I'm just curious as to options so I can weight them out and present them. Thanks for your input and I'll certainly take your suggestions into account!

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      Todd Molino
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      • AustinK's avatar
        AustinK
        Qrew Commander
        5 years ago
        Turns out Audit Logs are significantly more robust than I remember last I checked so you may be able to do it natively. That's pretty neat. Sorry to give you some wrong info in my first post.
  • ProjectsForce1's avatar
    ProjectsForce1
    Qrew Trainee
    5 years ago
    My thought

    Create a table to log the visits with a date/time field, a user field, and a related record # field

    In the table you want to see when someone visits, create a trigger field such as a checkbox or what not
    Use a form rule that says when the record is saved check the box as well as one to uncheck if it is checked
    Create an automation that when that checkbox field is modified it creates a record in the log table with the date/time and user who last visited the record as well as log the record ID # of the record visited.

    You can then create ​​a report to show all records in the log table that the Record ID# matches the Related Record #.​

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    ProjectsForce
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