Turning Audit Log data into dashboard insights
This week’s Widget Wednesday introduces a new data source for ControlUp Dashboards: the Audit Log.
You can now build widgets directly from Audit Log data, making it easier to visualize activity, filter for specific events, and monitor actions such as API activity, access-key creation, and remote-control sessions.
In this how-to video, Chris Twiest demonstrates how the new capability works, how to explore the available fields, and how to build an Audit Log widget from scratch.
What’s new in this episode:
Audit Log data in dashboards:
Audit Log is now available as a data provider when building widgets. Widgets created from it display a new Audit Log symbol, while data-source icons make it easier to identify where each dashboard widget gets its data.
Support for global filters:
Audit Log data also works with global filters. Chris demonstrates this by filtering the dashboard to show actions performed through the API, including the creation of an access key.
Exploring the raw data:
The Audit Log contains one table. Before building a visualization, Chris uses the Grid Builder to inspect its raw records and understand the available fields.
These include:
- Type, which identifies categories such as security or action
- Activity, which describes what happened
- Module, which identifies the product involved
- Description, which provides more detail about the event
Formatting fields for clarity:
The episode also shows how fields can be formatted to make the results easier to read, including displaying time values in a clear date-and-time format.
Building a practical Audit Log widget:
Chris creates a widget that counts how many times remote control was started by filtering on the Activity field. The episode also shows widgets that summarize different activity types and highlight remote-control actions whose status was not successful.
Why it matters:
Audit logs contain valuable operational and security context, but raw entries can be difficult to review at scale. Bringing this data into dashboards makes it easier to identify patterns, monitor important actions, and surface unsuccessful events that may require investigation.
Better visibility. Faster investigation. More useful audit data.
The feature is live now, and an Audit Log dashboard for the Dashboard Gallery is in development.
Have questions about this video, want to go deeper, or curious how others are using these dashboards? Don’t be shy, just ask…
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Categories: ControlUp Dashboards, Widget Wednesday - ControlUp Dashboard Videos