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It’s not unusual for me to get questions about viewing Dynamics GP security and access logs, specifically about who logged in and when. This usually comes up when clients need to investigate a past issue. However, GP doesn’t inherently log these events, so this type of data typically doesn’t exist.
For those who see the need for such logs, it’s worth exploring Dynamics GP’s Activity Tracking feature.
Dynamics GP Activity Tracking offers three main windows:
- Activity Tracking Setup
- Activity Tracking Inquiry
- Remove Activity Tracking Detail
Before delving into specifics, let’s clarify what Activity Tracking can and cannot do.
This feature logs essential Dynamics GP security actions, like successful and unsuccessful logins, window openings, and logoffs.
It can also monitor successful and unsuccessful window access, record creation, modification, and deletion, report printing, and even specific batch postings.
While this might sound comprehensive, it’s crucial to ask yourself a few questions before activating extensive Activity Tracking.
- What’s the purpose of activating activity tracking? Is there a specific situation or reason driving this need?
- Will the data collected through tracking directly answer your potential questions?
- What level of effort are you prepared to invest in managing and examining the tracking data?
I highlight these points because of a past client request: “We need to track an employee’s arrival time, work duration, tasks performed, and potential non-work-related activities.”
Dynamics GP cannot fulfill these requests. If an employee arrives at 8 am but logs into GP at 10 am, the login event lacks context. Similarly, periods of inactivity in GP don’t necessarily reflect non-work activities, especially if the employee engages in phone calls, meetings, or offline tasks. Finally, manually sifting through thousands of records to assess an employee’s workday isn’t practical.
My advice is to use GP Activity Tracking as a supplementary security audit log or a diagnostic aid. It’s not a substitute for direct employee management and isn’t very effective for HR matters.
With that said, let’s explore the Dynamics GP Activity Tracking windows.
The Activity Tracking Setup window (Tools -> Setup -> System -> Activity Tracking) has four main sections.
It lets you define the types of activities to log, the users to track, and the relevant company databases.
The Activity Type dropdown menu offers five categories of trackable activities. Selecting an activity type updates the Activity list with specific trackable events.
Once you’ve chosen the activities, select the user you want to monitor. This updates the Company list with their accessible companies. You can then choose the specific companies for tracking.
The screenshot above shows tracking enabled for all login events of the ‘sa’ user within the Fabrikam company.
This one shows tracking for master file and transaction creation, updates, and deletions by the ‘sa’ user.
Let’s now examine the event data. The Activity Tracking Inquiry window (Inquiry -> System -> Activity Tracking) provides an overview of all activity records with filtering and sorting capabilities.
You can filter by company, user, activity type, and specific activity.
If the inquiry window’s analysis capabilities aren’t sufficient, you can directly query or export the SY05000 table from the Dynamics database. This allows for filtering by date/time and searching within event descriptions.
Lastly, the Remove Activity Tracking Detail feature is crucial. Enabling tracking, especially for numerous users and events, can lead to rapid data growth in the SY05000 table.
To manage this, this feature allows the selective removal of activity records based on activity types, companies, users, and date ranges.
Given these capabilities, here are my recommendations for using Activity Tracking effectively:
Before enabling tracking, outline the specific events you want to track and why. This clarity will guide your configuration and usage.
Enable only essential events. Tracking everything creates noise, making it harder to find meaningful events and unnecessarily increasing data volume. Consider alternatives like SQL log viewers for detailed transaction tracking, especially if you’re already using Full Recovery Model with transaction log backups.
After setup, test the data to ensure it meets your requirements. Are the necessary events captured with sufficient detail to answer your key questions?
Acknowledge that tracking won’t answer all questions. Even with tracking, certain events, particularly HR-related ones, might not have clear answers within the logged data.
Steve Endow is a Dynamics GP Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified IT Professional based in Los Angeles. He is also the founder of Precipio Services, a company specializing in Dynamics GP integrations, customizations, and automation solutions.