When you maintain client WordPress sites, a reported problem often starts an investigation into recent changes.
The Activity Timeline in the Scanfully Dashboard records WordPress events so you can compare recent changes with the reported failure.
The Activity Timeline
Review plugin updates, theme changes, and content revisions in chronological order. Start around the time the problem first appeared.
Tracking User Actions
A user may enable or disable a plugin that another feature depends on. The timeline records when that happened so you can investigate and decide whether to restore it.
Understanding Updates and Revisions
Updates can introduce bugs as well as security and functionality improvements. Review the recorded update, check compatibility, and roll back if needed.
Similarly, tracking content revisions helps you identify when a faulty piece of code or an incompatible media file was introduced.
Debugging Performance Issues
The Activity Timeline of WordPress events sits alongside performance measurements in your Scanfully Dashboard.
Compare DNS Lookup time, TCP Connection, TLS/SSL Handshake, Time to First Byte, and Download Content data with WordPress events. The timing can help explain either an improvement or a slowdown.
Check whether a theme or plugin update coincided with the slowdown. Also review traffic changes and plugin deactivations before choosing what to investigate.
No, I haven’t touched anything
– any client
Use the recorded history to check that recollection and narrow your follow-up questions.
Security and Breach Analysis
In the unfortunate event of a security breach, a timeline becomes a forensic tool. You can see when suspicious activity occurred, which accounts were accessed, and what changes were made. This information is critical for patching vulnerabilities, and preventing future attacks.
Let me share a quick anecdote that underscores the value of an Activity Timeline. A friend, a WordPress developer, was troubleshooting a site that suddenly started to misbehave. The client insisted they hadn’t changed a thing.
Without a timeline, my friend embarked on a wild goose chase through logs and settings. Hours later, he discovered the client had, in fact, installed a new plugin that conflicted with the site’s custom code. Scanfully’s WordPress Activity Log would have cut this ordeal short, saving time and preserving the client’s peace of mind.
Implementing a WordPress Activity Log
Add a site to your Scanfully account and install the Scanfully WordPress plugin. The plugin connects the site to your Scanfully Dashboard.
The plugin then sends recorded WordPress activity to the timeline.
Additional Measures: Version Control Systems
Integrating a version control system like Git with your WordPress development workflow allows you to keep track of code changes. This is a much more granular way of tracking code changes for your WordPress site. In a future version of the Activity Timeline of WordPress events, you’ll be able to connect your repository via Webhooks to pull in your Git commits.
Start with the Time of the Failure
Open Scanfully’s Activity log around the first reported failure, compare the changes, and test the most plausible explanation.
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