Technical instruction - WebViewer Usage Log

Owned by Corentin Humbert
Last updated: 18 Dec 2023
3 min read

Version 5.2 and later.

 

I. Overview

The WebViewer now has a component to log various user actions. We refer to this type of logging as Usage Logs. This information is destined for customers to get information on how the WebViewer is used. This documentation will focus on how the environment must be configured to get UsageLog component and see logs in the WebViewer.

II. Configuration

The component relies on three settings:

  • UsageLogEnabled: Set it to true if you want to use UsageLog, false otherwise

  • ApiBaseAddress: It should be the same as the hostname you have for the Issuer in the UsageLog API Auth config section

  • ApiKey: You should be able to get one by asking the person who was in charge of setting up the API

  • ApiTimeout: Increase this in case the network has some base latency. The default is set to 2000 ms (2 seconds)

To configure the Usage Log component, you can either use a config file or do it within the WebAdmin UI directly. Regardless of which option you choose to go with, you will need to set all three settings.

1. Using a config file

If you want to do it via file, you can either create a new Profile Snippet or add the configuration directly in the main profile.config file.

<UsageLogEnabled>true</UsageLogEnabled> <UsageLogSettings> <ApiBaseAddress>https://example.com/UsageLogApi</ApiBaseAddress> <ApiKey>YOUR-API-KEY-HERE</ApiKey> <ApiTimeout>2000</ApiTimeout> </UsageLogSettings>

2. Using the Configuration panel

If you head over to the WebViewer and go to Administrate > Configuration, you should see a Usage Log section:

 

III. View usage logs

If you followed this guide thoroughly, UsageLog should now be turned on. To test it, you can run the WebViewer and go to Administrate > Site (/admin/DashBoard URL). A new menu item should be present on the left:

Screenshot of the Administrate > Dashboard page

When clicking the button, you should get the following view. Each row corresponds to a specific usage log event.

IV. Common issues

Invalid or missing API key

If you are unable to view any log in the UsageLog view page, it is likely that your API key is outdated or missing.

You should be able to find a valid API key in the KeePass. If you cannot find the key, or it does not work, please get in touch with a developer.

For security purpose, API keys are only valid for a certain time and new ones need to be generated once the validation period expires.

API timeout set too low

If you get exceptions similar to this one:

Failed to send GetLogs request: One or more errors occurred. A task was canceled.

Then, it is likely that the configured ApiTimeout is too low. Try increasing it to a high value in the settings.