Track the History of Changes with Activity Log

This Help Article Appears in the Following Learning Tracks

With Activity Log, you can quickly see who did what in a sheet or who last viewed a dashboard—that is, you can get an audit trail of the edits and deletions of various elements on a sheet and get a better understanding of what your collaborators are taking action on in the sheet. You can also see who has viewed and made general edits to a report or dashboard.

NOTE: This feature is included with Business and eligible Enterprise plans. For more information about plans and pricing, including which features are included with which plans, please see our Pricing page.

Actions Tracked in Activity Log

Use the Activity Log to track common actions such as:

  • Who has viewed the sheet, report, or dashboard.
  • Who has been shared to or unshared from a sheet, report, or dashboard.
  • Sheets only: What type of changes were made and the specifics of the changes—for example: on Row 4, Sally Smart changed the Status from "In Progress" to "Complete"
  • The name of the person that made the change.
  • The time and date that the changes were made.

NOTE: Edits made to the data in cells and rows in a report will only appear on the Activity Log of the source sheets, not on the Activity Log of the report.

TIP: The Activity Log will show the most recent cell changes, but if you'd like to see the full history of a particular cell, you can right-click the cell and view its cell history. (See Viewing Cell History for more information on cell history.)

View Activity Log Entries

Open the Activity Log to view records of various sheet actions that have been performed by collaborators.

To see the Activity Log:

  1. Click File in the Menu Bar.
  2. Select View Activity Log to display the View Activity Log window. 

In the View Activity log window, you’ll have visibility to the various sheet actions, such as who deleted rows and when, or when a user viewed the sheet. 

You can filter the Activity Log to more easily display the history you want.

NOTE: Some organizations create or use custom solutions that leverage the Smartsheet Application Programming Interface (API)—Smartsheet Pivot App is an example of this. If the API influences the content in a sheet, you'll see the API - Integrated App image next to the date column.

Activity Inserted by API

Filter Activity Log Entries

You can use filters in the Activity Log to see only the entries you want. Apply a filter that shows you the activity for a specific date range, shows you a specific type of action, or the specific people that have been active on the sheet.

NOTE: When you close the Activity Log, your filters will be cleared automatically. Activity Log filters cannot be saved or shared with other collaborators on the sheet.

To apply filters to the Activity Log: 

  1. Open the Activity Log and select Filters in the upper-left corner of the Activity Log window to expand the filter options. 
  2. Select any of the following:
    • Action—The type of activity. (For example, row was a deleted.)
    • Collaborators—Who performed the activity.
    • Date Range—The group of dates that you want to view the activity of.
  3. Select Apply.

If you need to clear the filters, click Clear Filters (next to the Apply button).

NOTE: Some actions can't be traced back to a Smartsheet user name. For example, if a person is not logged in to Smartsheet, and that person downloads an attachment from a row sent to them through an email, Smartsheet will track and record the activity, but the log entry will display a user name of download@smartsheet.com.

Export the Activity Log

You can download the Activity Log for the item to keep an additional record of sheet activity. To export an Activity Log:

  1. Open the item.
  2. Click File > View Activity Log.
  3. Click the Download button at the bottom of the Activity Log window.

    Smartsheet will send an email message to the email address that you use with Smartsheet that contains a link that you'll use to access the downloaded file.

    NOTE: The length of time it will take for Smartsheet to generate the file and send you the download link will vary. Once you click Download, you should receive a message with the link to the file within the next business day.
     
  4. When you receive the email, click the emailed link to download the Activity Log.

The Activity Log file will be downloaded to your computer in .csv format.

Activity Log Actions Explained

Some actions listed in the Activity Log describe an overall change, but won't provide context on the details of that change.  Below are a few actions that you might see and what they mean.

Card View: Card Reordered and Card View: Cards Reordered Indirectly

Card View: Cards Reordered means that you've manually dragged-and-dropped one or more cards from one position to another—either to a different lane, or to a different position in the same lane.

Card View: Cards Reordered Indirectly means that cards have been moved by any other means. For example, when you manually drag-and-drop one card to any position, either in the same lane or to a different lane, other cards are indirectly moved to higher or lower positions as a result. Cards can also be reordered indirectly when you make changes in the Grid and Gantt views, such as assigning a task to a different person or changing the Dropdown list option for a row.

Who Can View the Activity Log

Access to the Activity Log depends on your sharing permission level. The earliest point in time that you can see tracked activities depends on when you were last shared to the sheet.

NOTE: Dashboards don't have an Editor sharing permission level. Only Admins and the Owner can view Activity Log for dashboards.

Sharing permission level Can view Activity Log Can export Activity Log See tracked activity starting at this date/time
Owner* Yes Yes Creation of the item
Admin (Licensed)** Yes Yes View and export from when you were last shared to the item
Admin (Unlicensed) No No -
Editor (Licensed)** Yes No  View (but not export) from when you were last shared to the item
Editor (Unlicensed) No No -
Viewer (Licensed or Unlicensed No No -

*If you transfer ownership of a sheet, the new owner will see all of the Activity Log, starting from the time that the sheet was created.

**If you are upgraded to Admin (Licensed) or Editor (Licensed) sharing permissions, you will be able to see Activity Log entries starting from the time that you were first shared to the sheet. Check out our Sharing Permission Levels article for details on different sheet sharing permissions.