The audit log shows various changes in your Zendesk account since the account was created. It saves a record of these changes indefinitely, and you can view the entire change history. You can view the audit log in Admin Center or via the Support API.
This article contains the following sections:
About the audit log changes
There are two key things to understand about the audit log: the types of changes captured and the details provided for each log entry.
Changes captured in the audit log
The audit log shows changes to the following areas:
- Account information and settings
- Users
- Apps
- Web Widget
- Business rules
- Ticket settings
- Organizations
- Custom objects
Audit log entries
For each entry in the audit log, the following information is included:
Column | Description |
---|---|
Time | Time and date the event occurred |
Actor | User or system that caused the event |
IP address | IP address of the user who caused the event |
Item | Object changed by the actor |
Activity type | Type of action for the event (Created, Updated, Deleted, Exported, or Signed in) |
Activity | Details about the event |
In the Zendesk API and Zendesk Support, audit log timestamps appear in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). In Admin Center, audit log timestamps are shown in your account's time zone. See Setting your account's time. If you are unsure of what time the audit log is using, hover your mouse pointer over the information icon in the Time column heading.
Viewing the audit log in Admin Center
From the Audit Log page in Admin Center, you can view the audit log as a whole, sort the log by time, filter the list, or export a copy of the log.
- In Admin Center, click
Account in the sidebar, then select Audit log > Audit log.
Filtering the audit log
Often, only part of the picture is available when you visit the audit log. For example, you might know when something changed (but not what) or who changed something (but not when). Since the audit log can include a large volume of events, filtering makes it easier to find what you’re looking for.
While top audit events are available as filters, not all event types can be filtered. Additional audit events will be added over time.
To filter the audit log
- In Admin Center, click
Account in the sidebar, then select Audit log > Audit log.
- Click the Time column to sort the entries by date.
- To use more filters, click Filter.
Additional filters appear in a side drawer.
- To find entries within a specific date range, enter a Start date and End date.
-
Enter a name in the Actor field to filter by the people or systems responsible for the activities.
- Select an Activity type to filter entries by the action type (Created, Updated, Deleted, Exported, or Signed In).
- Use the filters in the Item section to filter by a specific
setting, user, or business rule that has changed.
- In the Type field, select or search the generic item type you want to filter by (for example, "Trigger").
- In the Names field, select or search for the specific items you want to filter by (for example, the trigger named "Notify assignee of comment update").
- Click Apply filters.
Exporting the audit log
You can export a CSV formatted copy of the audit log. If you filter the list before starting the export, the CSV file is also filtered this way. The exported copy is emailed to your primary Zendesk email address.
To export a copy of the audit log
- In Admin Center, click
Account in the sidebar, then select Audit log > Audit log.
- Filter the audit log as needed.
- Click Email CSV.
80 Comments
Can the audit log be set up as EXPLORE report query? It would be nice to be able to have Agent Log In times (for example) and have that an automated report sent to the Managers. Thank you
I wanted to throw out some feedback on this:
For basic functionality the filtering is great if you know exactly what you are trying to find however, if you are trying to find a specific change the filtering that is provided doesn't help. It would be nice to be able to filter by each column or even keywords like a typical search uses. The reason I say this is because if someone changes a trigger or view, it would be easier to just use "View changed" or "trigger changed" to find something instead of having to comb though insignificant data.
I am aware that I can download this into a csv to filter it that way but really that shouldn't be necessary to find what Admins need.
Did this functionality get removed:
In the previous audit log, I could click on the activity and view a log of who made changes and what changes were made. Did that go away?
I find this helpful when training new agents on macros. I'm able to see who first created the macro and what was updated and who updated it so that I can see a timeline of events and adjust my training as needed. Equally, it shows me if someone changed something without "permission".
Nice updates to add Date filtering. I'd love for filtering around what was changed like role edited for an agent or view activated/deactivated, etc.
Hey Ak,
Excellent question! Light agents will not count towards your max number of agents on the account.
I did some digging on my end and it doesn't look like there's an endpoint for contracted agent licenses currently. That being said, you could use the search users endpoint. In your search query, you will want to include the role ID for agents and admins on your account. This will at least allow you to pull a list of your agents who are using up a license on your Support account.
I hope this helps!
Hey Thomas, we should capture updates made to the ticket fields 🧐 Can you tell me which update you made that didn't show in the audit log for you and I can take a closer look?
I would like to port the audit log into a monitoring system to alert my team if certain changes occur. I don't see that anyone has asked this question just yet. I'm not asking for report or filtering. I'm asking if anyone has ever, or knows anything out there, that can access the logs.
We want teams to be alerted if "X" changes in the log, for example.
For example... are the logs available to a custom API? We are using Looker and we could use looker as a middle man on this if possible. IF so... where do I find the logs in the directory?
Any help is appreciated.
It would be great turning on/off a ticket form would be part of the audit log.
Background:
Our Zendesk instance has been hit by a spam attack.
All spam tickets came in via Help Center using the same form.
Therefor we turned the form off for end users.
During the spam attack we involved Zendesk support and they asked us, when we turned off the ticket form, but we couldn't tell exactly, because this information is currently not part of the audit logs.
Also I second the comment of Andrea Rodriguez (CD Baby)
The new "Admin Center" view of the audit log it very limited in functionality, as the only filter is "person" and "action" but not "type" and especially not "specified item" (source_id). This means you now have to switch to the API which is a pain in the ass to use if you're not a developer. Also the documentation is not very good. It's not listed "what types exist" etc, and many of the queries make the DB time out instead of bringing any result.
Please bring back the clickable audit log filters.
Thanks
Oliver
The audit log accessible from Support allows you to open the information/action changed in a new tab. For users it can display all the times they logged in or changes made to their profile. This is also great if you know what changed but not sure when since you can edit the new tab's url and plug in your desired option.
The audit log accessible from the Admin center does not allow you to open any of them in a new tab/window. So you're stuck digging through until you find what you're looking for and all the changes for one person/rule aren't accessible together.
While date is a helpful filter, it should also include optionally a timestamp. I knew something occurred at 8am, but had to click through page after page to get from midnight to try to get to 8am.
Hi,
Does the Maximum number of agents for your account under Account Changes include the count of Light Agents too or is it only agents who take up a license?
Also, is there any way I can check the total number of contracted licenses for an account through the API?
Thanks in advance.
I emailed a CSV to myself and it looks like it's using UTC time. Is there a way I can change that?
I'm really frustrated to find out that fields and forms being deactivated are not recorded at all. I get literally HUNDREDS of useless entries a day about Zendesk destroying attachments, but not any of the stuff that I actually, really, really need to be logged. On top of that, I was informed that there's no record even on Zendesk's side of when a field was deactivated or who did it.
Hi Megan,
Thanks for this feedback – would you mind upvoting and adding a comment with your use case to this product feedback thread? Overwhelmed by noise in audit log.
We need to be able to search the audit log by the user that was changed, not just the actor making the change. Is there a plan to implement this in the audit log or am I not seeing how to do this?
It would be good if you could search for what has been changed e.g. the new email address added
I see that the audit log tracks when a help center is *deactivated* but not when it is activated, which is the information I'm trying to find out. Is there any way to track down this information or am I missing it as an event not tracked under the "Brand" type?
Hi Nikita,
Changes related to the Account Assumption setting is already reflected in the Audit log, but it's a good catch on the logins that happen from Zendesk staff based on the assumption being granted. I've added a task to our backlog to investigate how we'd be able to present this. Thanks for your feedback.
The new audit log interface in Admin center have some good ideas, but seems not finish.
Should be interesting to add a lot of other filter :
- filter per item
- date AND Hours
- on the previous one we were able to select a specific item and get its history, not possible anymore
HeyO Craig VanDeVenter
For your question "are the logs available to a custom API" - the API for Audit Logs are documented here: https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/ticketing/account-configuration/audit_logs/
I'm not sure if this answers your question, but if Looker can pull logs down from our REST API to ingest, hopefully that'll suffice.
Hey Brett,
Just following up on the above comment again,
This mean that the Max agents number mentioned in the audit log here shows the number of licenses I have paid for right?
Apologies for opening this thread again, but I got this doubt when I was going through your reply again.
Thanks!
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828001434/comments/4408849470746
I would like to set up a report that gives me the total time my agents spent on the tickets and the time they start logging in the system for load balancing. Appreciate if you can point me to standard report or to someone who can help me create one.
Hi Dwight, thank you. This means indeed if changes <30 days you may see it.
But within an instance, even an admin cannot, right?
Hey Sam,
Is the integration logs sufficient for what you're looking for? I'm interested in knowing more of your needs surrounding logging around this.
I'd love to hear more about what's missing!
That's correct. Changes to ticket-fields are not included in the audit-log at this time.
There's an ongoing effort to close the gap on events that are missing from the audit logs – see Caroline Kello's official comment in this thread, and please do upvote and add what you're wanting to see included: Audit Logs
Caroline Kello Am I correct in stating changes to an end user in their language are not captures in the Audit log? Knowing this would really be helpful because the end users language does or can be determining for routing or the offering of dynamic content. The article only states that changes in users are captured (and most changes are) but language doesn't seem to be.
Hi there,
Is there any way to delete the audit logs after a certain period - for instance after 365 days?
Thanks!
Khajik Khajadourian The user that was changed will be displayed in the Item column; there's no way to filter by this column at the moment but that work is being discussed and designed at the moment so it's something that we're actively working towards.
Fluke Corporation It's not on our short term roadmap but I do see the value in having the audit log be available in Explore for reporting purposes. Maybe some pre-canned dashboards too.
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