Administering a multi-author blog will lead you to meet certain challenges, such as stopping unwanted subscriptions, managing the editorial flow, etc. One solution that most WordPress site admins are looking for is the ability to easily monitor user activity on their websites.

In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to monitor user activity on WordPress.

This will allow you to put a system of checks and balances in place when things get out of hand, so you can understand what went wrong, who did it, and how to fix it.

Why identify and monitor user activity on WordPress

Obviously you have confidence in your users, which is the reason why you have given them access to do certain things on your site. However, people make mistakes all the time. If you knew who is responsible for a mistake and what was done wrong then you can quickly correct it and also teach the user how to avoid this mistake in the future.

For example, if a moderator approved a comment that does not match the comment guidelines, you can quickly correct their mistake and notify them, saving you time in the future.

It also allows you to have better control over the writing of your website. You can see which articles are being edited and which articles are waiting to be reviewed. Which users accessed the Website and the tasks they performed.

Setting up a simple history on WordPress

The first thing you need to do is to install and activate the plugin " Simple History ". After activating the plugin go to the " Settings> Simple History To configure the settings.

simple history settings

On the settings page, you will be able to choose whether you want the history to be displayed on the dashboard or on its own page. You can enable both options if you want. You can also use an RSS feed to follow the story. This will allow you to hide the history page from other users like those with editor roles.

The plugin will clean up all data on history that have existed for more than 60 days based on data, but you can also delete the history by clicking " Erase Now On the settings page.

By default " Simple History Offers a predefined set of actions. This includes login, logout, wrong password, article / page editing, sending media, installing a plugin, configuring a widget, changing the profile of a user, etc. This plugin is also compatible with bbPress forums, which allows you to see the forum and its activities on your site.

bbPress activity history

« Simple History »Also allows you to add your own personalized events. If you have experience as a developer and want to add your own custom event, then you're in luck. Consult the plugin details to know how to get there.

We hope this tutorial will help you add activity history to your WordPress blog. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask them.