Activity Log
Everything you need to know about the Activity Log in MinistryPlatform, including what it is, where you can find it, and how it runs.
- The Activity Log uses the Audit Log to provide a snapshot of an individual's involvement-related data. (See this FAQ article for more details and tips.) It summarizes an individual's:
- Group Participant records
- Event Participant records Note: Event Registrations use the _Setup_Date field for Activity Date rather than the Event Start Date, unless the Participation Status is Attended or Confirmed.
- Milestones
- Responses
- Feedback Entries
- Form Responses
- Needs, requesters and providers
- Care Cases
- Donations, including Soft Credit, and Pledges
- The Activity Log is in the Administration folder.
- This page helps you analyze and report on activity stored in different pages.
- A subset of the Activity Log is also available as a sub-page in the Contact, Participant, Household, Ministries, and Congregation records.
- The Activity Log uses new data from an automated nightly SQL Server Agent routine. Your IT SPoC must ensure the routine runs on the correct schedule without error. Note: If you have rogue Activity Log records - inaccurate records or records you should delete - you may use a Free Assist to request that Professional Services rebuilds it for you from scratch.
Fields Updated by the Activity Log
This article details the fields within the Activity Log that automatically update to reflect Household activities and donations, including how to enable specific date fields.
In addition to populating the Activity Log page, there are a few fields on the Household record that populate automatically based on the Activity Log information.
- Last Activity
- This read-only date field displays the date of the last known activity recorded for any Contact in the Household.
- Last Donation and First Donation
- These read-only date fields display the dates of the most recent donation and the very first donation by any Contact in the Household. Note: Initially, this field disabled. To enable this field, a SPoC can go to and set the SERVICES, AddHouseholdDonationDates Configuration Setting to Yes.
Views Based on the Activity Log
This article provides an overview of various Activity Log views, including how and where to use them within multi-site church management.
There are several views based on Activity Log information. These views do not return any data if the Activity Log hasn't updated in over ten days.
- Households page - Review Last Congregation view
- Multi-site churches can use this view to identify Households that attend a different congregation, campus, or site. You can then use the Assign action to mass update the Congregation field on the appropriate Households.
- Participants page - Review Last Activity Date view
- Determine the date of last activity for each Participant and for their Household. This helps to find records that you can inactivate. See the Inactivate Tool.
- Participants page - Review Recent Activity view
- Review the amount of activity in the last 90 days for a Participant and their Household. Use this view to determine who doesn't attend regularly.
- Participants page - Review Continued Activity
- Rreview records with an Inactive Contact Status but recent Household activity. Use this view to determine which Participants have returned to your church.
Activity Log Customizations
You can create custom fields and views based on information in the Activity Log. In particular, the Activity Log is an important part of a segmentation and movement process that helps you categorize church attendees based on engagement. The Activity Log stored procedure updates regularly with MinistryPlatform deployments. To modify the Activity Log Stored Procedure, add your modifications through a secondary procedure. You can also update the Activity Log when Group Names and other Record Names update. Currently, the Activity Log does not update the Record Name.
A SPoC can contact Support and/or Professional Services for any such customizations.
Activity Log FAQ
This FAQ addresses common questions about the Activity Log, including how it works, data management, and customization options to better track church member activity.
By default, the Activity Log assumes that being involved in a Group is valid activity. As such, the Activity Log logs the date it last ran if the person was in that Group at the time the Activity Log ran. For example, for Activity type Current Ministry Team: Servant, the Activity Log notes the date they are currently on a ministry team and updates every day with that day's date. See Q4 for more information on Group activity in the Activity Log.
You can delete records from the Activity Log without affecting the primary database data. The Activity Log is a snapshot of other information in the system - deleting the snapshot doesn't delete the actual records. However, if you regenerate or recreate the Activity Log for any reason (which happens once or twice weekly on most systems), the data you deleted may reappear if the records you used to create a snapshot still exist.
Activity Log data is based on the data at the time the Activity Log updates. If you're missing those records, it's likely someone deleted them. A SPoC can contact Support to regenerate the Activity Log. Additionally, a SPoC can contact Professional Services to research or restore deleted data.
You can adjust whether a Group counts as activity. To do so, a SPoC can go to and set the Activity Log Start Date to Yes. Do this for all Group Types you want the Activity Log to record only the start date of the Group as activity (and not the date the Activity Log updates for those people still in those Groups).
The Activity Date is always the start date for Groups that only log the start date. The Activity Date is the end date or today's date for Group where ongoing participation counts towards current activity. See Q4 for how to set the Activity Date.
You can use the existing Activity Log views, or create your own views. You could also use reports such as Group Participant Attendance, Selected Contact Attendance, Selected Event Group Attendance, Selected Group Attendance, Selected Group Attendance by Event Type, Selected Group Attendance by Individual, Selected Group Attendee Search, Selected Group Last Attended, Selected Contact Group Involvement, and Selected Group Involvement.