Answers.Body: <p>Under Administer - CiviReport - Create Report From Template there is one called &quot;Database Log Report&quot;. That shows you more or less what's in civicrm_log.</p>
  <p>For advanced logging (at Administer - System Settings - Misc - Logging), which I don't think is what you're talking about but just in case, the lack of an activity report is a known issue. The advanced logging <em>Contact</em> logging report does not always show proper logs for <em>non-Contact</em> records.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-07-22T17:38:46.657Z
Answers.Text: Thank you... so if I do not use this report I do not really need these logs, is this correct?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Tobias Krause
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-07-22T17:56:14.493Z
Answers.Text: There are some places that use them to determine the history and who created a record, like civicase, or I think for example the "Date added" custom search for contacts, but at worst it should just show blank if you don't care about that. You can back up that table first before truncating it if you want to be careful.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Demerit
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-07-23T08:07:21.180Z
Answers.Text: Just to let you know: I checked if the custom search by "Date added" still works when activity related logs are deleted from civicrm_log and it does.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Tobias Krause
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-07-23T10:27:59.373Z
Answers.Text: Cool. Yes that one would only [depend on the contact records](https://github.com/civicrm/civicrm-core/blob/0ea6deefe8bdebaeecd9655fac3823f24e6e526e/CRM/Contact/Form/Search/Custom/DateAdded.php#L189-L191).
Answers.UserDisplayName: Demerit
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-07-22T17:30:21.990Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-07-22T17:30:21.990Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Demerit
Body: <p>I am struggling with a large database and try to find ways to reduce data mess. I really wonder why there is no scheduled job to delete old log entries from civicrm_log but this is not my question. Diving into this data I found out that there log entries created everytime an activity was created or updated. But it seems to me that these logs are never shown to admin in the backend?! For contacts there is a tab for the logs but for activities I could not find any page where the logs for an activity are listed.</p>
  <p>Is there a way to avoid log creation for activities? Is there any way to list these logs to users or what is the reason to create these logs?</p>
  
Tags: <activities><logs><logging>
Title: What is the purpose of logs for activities in civicrm_log table?
ThreadText: # What is the purpose of logs for activities in civicrm_log table?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-07-22)
  
  I am struggling with a large database and try to find ways to reduce data mess. I really wonder why there is no scheduled job to delete old log entries from civicrm\_log but this is not my question. Diving into this data I found out that there log entries created everytime an activity was created or updated. But it seems to me that these logs are never shown to admin in the backend?! For contacts there is a tab for the logs but for activities I could not find any page where the logs for an activity are listed.
  
  Is there a way to avoid log creation for activities? Is there any way to list these logs to users or what is the reason to create these logs?
  
  **Tags:** activities, logs, logging
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2020-07-22. Score: 1 | Accepted answer
  
  Under Administer - CiviReport - Create Report From Template there is one called "Database Log Report". That shows you more or less what's in civicrm\_log.
  
  For advanced logging (at Administer - System Settings - Misc - Logging), which I don't think is what you're talking about but just in case, the lack of an activity report is a known issue. The advanced logging *Contact* logging report does not always show proper logs for *non-Contact* records.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Thank you... so if I do not use this report I do not really need these logs, is this correct?  
  > **username_1**: There are some places that use them to determine the history and who created a record, like civicase, or I think for example the "Date added" custom search for contacts, but at worst it should just show blank if you don't care about that. You can back up that table first before truncating it if you want to be careful.  
  > **username_0**: Just to let you know: I checked if the custom search by "Date added" still works when activity related logs are deleted from civicrm_log and it does.  
  > **username_1**: Cool. Yes that one would only [depend on the contact records](https://github.com/civicrm/civicrm-core/blob/0ea6deefe8bdebaeecd9655fac3823f24e6e526e/CRM/Contact/Form/Search/Custom/DateAdded.php#L189-L191).  
  
  ---
  
  