How To Track WooCommerce Logging (And Why You Should)

by Vipe Team in WordPress Development; Published on 16.11.2022 Last updated on 26.05.2023

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Welcome once again to our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development where we are constantly trying to present to you useful, interesting and guiding information about all things WordPress, web, software technology and improvements!

Just recently we’ve covered the topic of WooCommerce‘s scalability and went to great lengths to explain and showcase why WordPress’s eCommerce plugin is your go-to strategy when you want to start an online store business. Probably you’ve already checked our article, but in case you’ve missed it, here’s a friendly link reminder.

Today we are about to continue this same topic while trying to provide further information and strategic knowledge when it comes to working and building with WooCommerce. The subject of today’s article is how to track logging – join us as we are about to explain what logging is and why it’s essential for you to track logs in terms of further developing, improving and securing your web platform.

Let’s get down to it!

WooCommerce Is Definitely the Best Tool That Can Help You Establish a Dazzling Online Store

In this day and age, everyone is online. Of course, this tendency changed the overall approach of businesses when it came to reaching out to customers.

Back in the day, the physical stores were flourishing as they were the only go-to place for everyone who wished to make a purchase– all you had to do was take a stroll in the city and browse the plethora of locations that provided products and services for everyone’s needs.

As technology kept on improving and offering more and more opportunities, so did the shopping tendencies of people. Businesses started focusing on creating a place for themselves on the web which was, in fact, the only logical step since the potential customers were online almost all the time. With time, physical stores stopped being the only choice when it came to shopping and making purchases. We witnessed the establishment of online stores which entirely shifted the customers’ whole perspectives on what buying things represented.

Our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development can quickly go over some of the most useful advantages when it comes to online shopping: it saves time, it provides secure payment methods, it offers flexibility in terms of delivery and it also showcases a bigger assortment of products and services.

It all sounds so great – online stores were definitely a step further when it came to shopping development! All businesses needed was to find a secure and reliable platform that would quickly turn into their establishment’s home.

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Luckily for everyone, such a platform exists – there’s a reason why WordPress powers over 43% of worldwide websites! What’s even better is that the most popular CMS even offers a dazzling eCommerce plugin that will help any business achieve its goals and aspirations – definitely WooCommerce is your go-to solution whenever you want a scalable, flexible, secure and easy-to-use online store platform. It’s never been easier to start your next business journey online.

WooCommerce Definitely Offers Advantages That Are Complete Game-Changers

Before stepping into the topic of WooCommerce tracking and logging, our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development would like to quickly mention some of WooCommerce’s top advantages that are crucial both for the developers, the businesses and, of course, the customers themselves.

WooCommerce’s setup is a piece of cake – the best part about the plugin is that it allows anyone to handle its installation process (or trust a professional to do it for them). What’s more, it offers plenty of custom solutions for developers which enhances the overall experience even more.
If pre-made themes are your thing, you are at the right place – themes provide the very important personal touch for every business; what’s more, developers can step in and offer customized and personalized themes tailored specifically for your business needs.
The plugin offers plenty of payment integrations – providing limitless payment methods is crucial for any business’s customers.
WooCommerce is add-ons-friendly – using various types of add-ons and additional plugins definitely enhances the online store’s overall performance.
Scalability is key – every business owner knows how important scalability is when it comes to the development of their platform. As the business develops, the demand will raise too – it’s vital for the platform to be able to meet customers’ demands and peak requests by providing excellent service and stability.

In addition to all those advantages, we’d like to focus on a specific feature that is crucial in terms of performance – logging and tracking.

What Is Logging in the Context of WooCommerce?

Once you’ve managed to establish an online store with the help of WordPress’s WooCommerce plugin, you’d still have plenty of things on your plate.

Businesses usually rely on many people to develop and maintain a website – can you imagine if one person has to deal with all the possible problems, issues and requests that may arise at any given point in time? So in order for developers and site owners to be capable to monitor everything that’s been going on in their online store, they need a tool that sums up the entire information for them in a neat and structured way.

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Essentially, that’s what logging is. Log files are collections of events and steps that are generated automatically and give the developer/site owner thorough and complete information about everything that seems to have happened on the site in terms of changes, bugs and all other types of systems responses. In a nutshell, logging keeps data on all sorts of activities that happened on the website in the background.

This tool is incredibly important since tracking the log files is one of the easiest ways for anyone to determine what appears to be the issue. All types of events that happened in the background of your website would be neatly structured in a list so that you can easily assess them, review them and come up with the most adequate solutions.

Of course, those logging files don’t need constant monitoring – usually, when your website appears odd or acts out in a weird way, the developers can quickly visit the logging history and check whether something has happened that can trigger mishaps or problems in performance.

Our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development is quick to remind you that WordPress has its own built-in debugging tool that turns into your best friend whenever you witness suspicious activity logs. It’s incredibly simplified and offers fast and secure debugging approaches.

WooCommerce Logging Is Essential Indeed

When we are referring to online stores, adding the logging feature is an absolute must! It can show you not only what changes have been implemented, but also who’s been responsible for them.

In an online store, everything is often pretty dynamic – businesses constantly need to add new items, change availability or prices, add categories, maintain numerous payment methods, deal with transactions and purchases, etc. So being able to track all the changes made to the website enables you to easily follow all the additional steps that may have led to system failure or bugs of any sort.

When you enable activity log in WooCommerce, you can virtually observe all features, presented by the plugin, and track all the implemented changes:

Products in stock;
Prices or coupons, as well as promotional codes;
Plenty of store settings that have to do with the website’s performance;
All product descriptions that are incredibly important for the customer experience;
Storage availability, etc.;

You can imagine how useful Activity Log is for WooCommerce, especially if you have multiple store managers that work daily on the website’s performance. Handy notifications can always tell you what changes have been made, by whom and how have they affected the platform’s work.

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Activity Log for WooCommerce is also an incredibly important feature against all types of hacking attacks. Owning an online store means you handle personal and financial data on your customers so being able to constantly monitor your website for any suspicious behavior and then having the chance to quickly debug and solve all the issues.

Our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development reminds you that the WooCommerce plugin doesn’t have a built-in activity log feature. In order for you to enable tracking logs, you need to install an additional plugin that does the trick. Soon we can present to you some of the best ones in terms of performance, utility and usage.

What Is Error Logging and How It’s Different from Activity Logs

Once we’ve introduced activity logs and stated that you’ll need an additional plugin in order to use them in your WooCommerce, now it’s time to get you acquainted with another tracking feature. However, this one is built-in in the WooCommerce plugin itself which makes it even easier to use.

We are referring to Error Logs. In a nutshell, we witness two types of error logs:

Fatal errors – those types of errors are quite serious, as their name suggests. Usually, they are the result of code malfunction and can cause critical damage to the website’s performance.
General PHP Errors – those types of errors are also produced from code malfunction, but are usually far less serious and could even stay unnoticed.

Either way, logging errors is another useful way for you to always keep your WooCommerce up-to-date, enhancing its dazzling performance. Now imagine combining error logging with activity logs! Now we are talking!

Activity Logging and Tracking Is Definitely Your Go-to Strategy for Maintaining a Great WooCommerce Platform

Our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development hopes you’ve managed to gain a good perspective on what makes activity logging and tracking such an important aspect of maintaining a dazzling, structured and error-free website that nails it at its performance stages.

Our advice is to not miss enabling the activity log for your WooCommerce as it will give you information, strategy for action and careful monitoring for all of your platform’s features.

Enhance your online store today! If you’re up to chit-chat or need additional information on activity logs for WooCommerce, we are here for you – don’t hesitate and get in touch today.