User guide

Six things you'll do
with the log.

Written as tasks, not features. Each one starts where you'd actually start — with a question about your store — and ends with the answer on screen or in a file.

Task 01

Open the log

Auditor inside BigCommerce. There is no separate site to sign in to and no password of ours to remember — if you can open your store, you can open its log.

  1. Go to Apps in your control panelAuditor appears in the list of installed apps on that store.
  2. Open AuditorIt loads inside BigCommerce and signs you in using your store session.
  3. Land on the activity logNewest entries at the top, one row per recorded event. This is the screen you'll use for almost everything.

Not installed yet? The installation guide covers requirements, permissions and the two-minute setup.

Task 02

Read a row

Every entry answers the same four questions in the same order, so after a day or two you stop reading columns and start scanning.

Column What it holds Read it as
Time When the event reached Auditor, to the second, in your store's time zone When
Event The event type, such as product.updated What kind of thing happened
User The staff account, storefront or connected integration behind it Who
Change The resource affected and, where the event carries them, the values What changed

Activity log entries

Each activity entry shows the event information recorded by Auditor. The available details depend on the activity received from BigCommerce.

The Auditor activity log showing recent store events.
screenshots/activity-log.png
dashboard — activity log store connected
time event actor details
16:31:09 product.updated staff user updated product information
16:12:44 order.updated staff user updated order information
15:58:02 customer.created storefront customer activity recorded

The activity log. Recorded activity is displayed with its timestamp, event type, available actor information, and event details.

Task 03

View event details

The Dashboard provides a summary of each recorded activity. To view additional information about an event, click More Details for the required activity.

  • Event details — displays additional information associated with the selected activity.
  • User details — displays the available user or staff information associated with the activity when that information is provided.
  • Resource details — displays available information about the BigCommerce resource associated with the event.
  • Activity information — provides the additional event data recorded by Auditor for the selected activity.

Information availability: The details shown depend on the information available for the selected BigCommerce event. Some events may contain more information than others.

Task 04

Find one specific change

Nearly every investigation starts from a date, a person or a product. The filter bar covers all three and the filters combine, so the trick is the order you apply them in.

  1. Set the date range firstEven "sometime Tuesday afternoon" removes most of the noise in a single move, and it's what keeps a busy store's log fast.
  2. Add the event type you suspectDeletions, price edits, order updates. If you guessed wrong, widen it again rather than narrowing further.
  3. Search the resource lastA SKU, order number, customer name or ID pulls every entry that touched it inside the range you've set.
  4. Open the rowRead the detail view. If you still need the exact field that moved, continue to staff action details.
Filter Reach for it when
Date range You know roughly when it happened.
Event type You know what kind of change it was.
Channel You're isolating one storefront on a multi-channel store.
Search You have a SKU, order number, name or ID in hand.
Task 05

Get staff action details

BigCommerce keeps its own record of what staff did inside the control panel, in more detail than an event alone carries. Auditor fetches that record on request and lines it up against your log.

  1. Open the staff action details viewUse it when a change needs a name and a before-and-after, not just an event type.
  2. Set a tight windowNarrow to the hours around the change. A wide range takes longer to return and is harder to read.
  3. Run the fetchAuditor collects the matching staff entries from BigCommerce and lists them against your store.
  4. Match it to your rowPair the staff entry with the activity row by time and resource. Together they give you who did it and exactly what moved.

This one isn't instant. Unlike the activity log, staff detail is pulled on demand rather than streamed in advance — so keep the window close to the change you care about.

Worked examples

Common ways to review activity

Use the Dashboard, filters, event details, and Staff Log to find relevant activity in Auditor.

Example A

"I want to review a product update"

  1. Open the Dashboard.
  2. Use the available filters to narrow the activity.
  3. Find the required product update event.
  4. Click More Details to review the available event information.
  5. Review the updated value and available user details.
Example B

"I want to review an order activity"

  1. Open the Dashboard.
  2. Use the available filters or search to find the relevant order activity.
  3. Select the required event.
  4. Click More Details to review the available activity and user information.
Example C

"I want to check recent staff activity"

  1. Open the Staff Log page.
  2. Check the date and time of the last scraping process.
  3. Start scraping when newer staff activity needs to be retrieved.
  4. Monitor the scraping progress and records found.
  5. Review the retrieved staff activity in Auditor.

Set expectations

Four limits worth knowing

Better to read these now than to discover them mid-investigation.

Limit 01

History starts at install

Auditor records forward only. Changes made before it was connected are not in the log and can't be recovered — for those, BigCommerce's own staff action logs are the place to look.

Limit 02

Detail depends on the event

Some events carry the changed values; others carry only the resource that changed. Staff action details is how you close that gap, and it's fetched on request.

Limit 03

One install, one store

Logs are never mixed between stores. If you run several, install Auditor on each — each one keeps its own separate history.

Limit 04

Retention has a window

The beta keeps 90 days of history per store. Export anything you need to hold longer, and watch the pricing page — retention changes are announced there first.

Still stuck on something specific?

The help centre has the symptom table; the manual has the reference detail; we answer email in one business day.

Open the help centre Read the full manual