Activity Log
- The Activity Log keys off the Audit Log to 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 (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 found as a page in the Administration folder.
- This page is useful in facilitating analysis and reporting on activity that would otherwise be stored in different pages.
- A subset of the Activity Log is also available as sub-page in the Contact, Participant, Household, Ministries, and Congregation records.
- The Activity Log is populated with new data by an automated nightly SQL Server Agent routine. Your IT SPoC is responsible for ensuring the routine runs on the correct schedule without error. (If you have rogue Activity Log records - records that are inaccurate or should be deleted - you may use a Free Assist to request that Professional Services rebuilds it for you from scratch.)
Fields Updated by the Activity Log
In addition to populating the Activity Log page itself, there are also a couple fields on the Household record that are populated automatically based on the Activity Log information.
- Last Activity
- This read-only date field shows the date of the last known activity recorded for any contact in the household.
- Last Donation and First Donation
- These read-only date fields show the dates of the last (most recent) donation and the very first donation by any contact in the household. Note that this field is initially disabled; to enable it, a SPoC can go to and set the SERVICES, AddHouseholdDonationDates Configuration Setting to Yes.
Views Based on the Activity Log
There are several views that are based on Activity Log information. These views do not return any data if the Activity Log has not been updated in over ten days.
- Households page - Review Last Congregation view
- Multi-site churches can use this view to identify Households that are attending a different congregation (campus, 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
- Allows you to determine the date of last activity for each Participant and for their Household. This is a useful view in determining records that could be inactivated. See Inactivate Tool.
- Participants page - Review Recent Activity view
- Allows you to review the amount of activity in the last 90 days for a Participant and their Household. This view can be used to determine who is not regularly attending.
- Participants page - Review Continued Activity
- Allows you to review records whose Contact Status is Inactive but whose Household (HH) has recent activity. This view can be used to determine which Participants have returned to your church.
Activity Log Customizations
Custom fields and views can be created based upon information in the Activity Log. In particular, the Activity Log is an important part of a Segmentation and Movement process that assists you in categorizing church attendees based on engagement. Any modifications that a church would like to make to the Activity Log Stored Procedure should be added via a secondary procedure as that the Activity Log stored procedure is updated by as a regular part of our deployments. Another example would be updating the Activity Log when Group Names and other Record Names are updated. 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
By default, the Activity Log presumes that someone's involvement in a Group is valid activity. As such, being in a Group is considered activity and is logged with the date the Activity Log 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 (so it should get updated 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 fear of the deletion affecting the primary database data. The Activity Log is a snapshot of other information throughout the system - deleting the snapshot never deletes the actual records. However, if the Activity Log is regenerated or recreated for any reason (which happens once or twice weekly on most systems), the data you've deleted may reappear if the actual records that the snapshot is based on still exist.
Activity Log data is based on the database data at the time the Activity Log was updated. If records have since gone missing, odds are that the records were deleted. A SPoC can contact Support if you want to regenerate the Activity Log. Additionally, a SPoC can contact Professional Services if you need deleted data researched or restored.
You can adjust whether a Group is counted as activity. To do so, a SPoC can go to and set the Activity Log Start Date to Yes for all Group Types where you want the Activity Log to record only the Start Date of the Group as activity (and therefore not the date the Activity Log was updated for those people still in those Groups).
The Activity Date will always be the start date for Groups where only the start date should be logged. The Activity Date will be the end date or today's date for Group where ongoing participation should count towards current activity. (See Q4 for how to set.)
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, Selected Group Involvement.