Activity Log: One Place to See Sheet Views and Changes

We’re excited to announce Activity Log, one place for sheet owners, admins, and editors to see who has viewed a sheet, what changes were made, and when those activities occurred.

Until now, if you wanted to know who made what changes to a sheet, you’d have to click into each cell to get the cell history. For larger sheets with many collaborators, this could be a time-consuming process.

With Activity Log, you can see those changes logged in one place, and also track who viewed your sheet and when. You can even filter by action types, collaborators, and date range to find exactly what you’re looking for.

To give you an idea of how Activity Log can help you keep a pulse on your work, here are a few examples of how you can use it in your day-to-day activities:

Confirm That Everyone has Seen the Latest Information

Activity Log can help you ensure that everyone is prepared for a meeting – without making more work for anyone – by enabling you to quickly check to see if meeting participants have seen the latest content.

Here’s an example: Natalie works for a marketing agency and shared her sheet – with deliverables – to her client. She made some significant changes and wants to know whether the entire client team has seen the latest information prior to their next meeting.

Rather than confirming with each person before the meeting, Natalie checks the Activity Log.

She sees that her client viewed the sheet and downloaded the most recent attachments.

Solve the Mystery of Who Changed What and When

With the ability to filter Activity Log by date, you can see changes that were made on a specific day or between a defined date range.

Here’s an example: Tom manages a team that’s working on a new product launch. Returning from a short vacation, he sees that a lot of changes were made to the launch plan, and he wants to know who changed what.

Tom goes to the launch plan sheet, opens Activity Log, and filters by the dates he was gone.

He gets a filtered view of all the changes that happened. He even sees who made them so he knows exactly with whom to follow up.

Keep Confidential Initiatives Confidential

With Activity Log, you can also see who has been shared to – or unshared from – a sheet by filtering on ‘Sharing’ to see who shared a sheet, whom they shared it with, and when.

Here’s an example: Karen owns the project sheet for a confidential initiative that only project leads and their teams should be shared to. She discovers in conversation that people outside of the project team have been given access.

Karen opens the Activity Log and uses the filters to see with whom the sheet has been shared.

She sees that one of the new project leads accidentally shared the sheet to people outside of the team. Karen is able to immediately unshare the sheet from the people who don’t need access and reminds the project lead of the rules.

Get Started with Activity Log

In order to use Activity Log, you’ll need to be the sheet owner, an administrator, or an editor on the sheet and be on a Business or eligible Enterprise plan. You can learn more about how Activity Log works by reading our help article here.

Activity log is only available to users on Business and eligible Enterprise plans. If you’re on an Enterprise plan and have questions, please contact your Smartsheet account representative. If you’re on a Team or Individual plan an interested in upgrading to a Business plan, contact our team today. 

Note: Users must have a paid license to view Activity Log. Free collaborators, even if they have sufficient permissions on a sheet, cannot access Activity Log.