1. by Paula Čučuk, Locastic 21.9.2023. / API Platform Conference 2023
Tracking user activity
logs using Loggastic

2. Paula Čučuk
paula@locastic.com
@paoolala
Partner & Lead backend developer @ Locastic

3. Software solutions for
business challenges.
locastic.com

4. Intro

5. The goal
Track each change made on data + custom actions not related to database
changes
Ability to define which data should be tracked, including fields from relations
User friendly logs view
Support for large amount of data and fast browsing
Logging should not slow down the response time

6. What should log contain?
Entity name
Action (create, edit, delete)
Datetime
Before/after values
User

7. Existing solutions

8. Loggable behavioural
Doctrine extension

9. Loggable behavioural Doctrine extension

10. Loggable behavioural Doctrine extension
Track each change made on data + custom actions not related to changing data
Ability to define which data should be tracked, including fields from relations
User friendly logs view
Support for large amount of data and fast browsing
Logging should not slow down the response time
EXTRA: Ability to rollback the data to the previous state

11. Loggastic

12. Loggastic - logging flow
Listen loggable
objects actions
CREATE
EDIT
DELETE
Send message to
Symfony
messenger
Compare data Elastic
Search

13. Loggastic - displaying logs
Elastic
Search
Read logs
Expose to
ApiPlatform
endpoint
Expose to Twig
view

14. Loggastic - elastic indexes
<entity_name>_activity_log
<entity_name>_current_data_tracker
Contains current
object data used for
comparing changed
object
Needs to be up to date
with database values
Contains actual
activity logs for
current object

15. Loggastic
implementation

16. 1. Installation
composer require locastic/loggastic

17. 2. Making an entity loggable

18. 2. Making an entity loggable

19. 2. Making an entity loggable

20. 2. Making an entity loggable

21. 3. Run commands for creating Elastic indexes
bin/console locastic:activity-logs:create-loggable-indexes
bin/console locastic:activity-logs:populate-current-data-trackers
If you already have some data in database:

22. Done! Activity logs are now tracked

23. Create product

24. Edit product

25. Delete product

26. 4. Displaying activity logs

27. Displaying activity logs : Api platform

28. Displaying activity logs : Api platform

29. Displaying activity logs : Api platform

30. Displaying activity logs : Twig

31. Displaying activity logs : Twig

32. Basic implementation summary
Add Loggable attribute to entity and serialization groups to
properties
Run command for creating indexes
Expose an api endpoint or display logs in twig

33. Customizations

34. Configuration reference

35. Configuration
reference -
Elastic indexes

36. Customising logged data

37. Custom user fields

38. Custom user fields

39. Custom user fields

40. Custom user fields

41. Collection keys

42. Custom Collection keys

43. Handeling relations
Activity log is not saved!

44. Handeling relations

45. Handeling relations

46. Changing the default
loggable listener

47. Turning off the default listener

48. Creating your own listener

49. Creating
your own
listener

50. Custom action name

51. Save edit log when no changes were made

52. Optimisation

53. Making logs async

54. Different consumers per entity (AMQP)

55. Different consumers per entity

56. Pros / Cons

57. Pros
Quick and easy implementation
Flexible & customisable
Meets all of our goals
Helpful in debugging
Complex setup
Keeping data up to date
Cons

58. How does it work
on real projects?

59. 1.5 million
Number of activity
Log records
< 200ms
Sylius & ApiPlatform project
GET /activity-logs
response time

60. Future plans

61. Future plans
Add support for other data storages
Add more abilities for customisation
Sylius plugin
Keep testing it and fix any found issues

62. Contributing

63. Thank you!

64. Questions?
Paula Čučuk
paula@locastic.com
@paoolala
Partner & Lead backend developer @ Locastic