Audit Aternity Access with REST API (version 2.0)

USER_AUDIT returns a list of users and the times that they successfully signed in, so that you can audit or monitor the people accessing Aternity.

For example, you can check that all Application Owners (AOs) monitor their product performance regularly in Aternity by calling this API and filtering for the AO department. This returns the list of AOs and times that they signed in to Aternity.

Each returned entry from USER_AUDIT represents a successful sign in from the Aternity sign-in page, or via SSO with an identity provider. The entry provides the time the event took place, and the Aternity username.

Note About how long Aternity keeps this data (retention) and how far back you can go, read here.
Note

This article covers the latest REST API version. For older version 1.0, click here.

Before You Begin

To send a REST API query in Excel, PowerBI or a browser, enter the URL of the REST API, your Aternity username (must have the OData REST API role) and its password. You can find this by selecting User icon > REST API Access. SSO users must generate (once) and use a special password, as Aternity's REST API does not authenticate with your enterprise's identity provider. For LDAP users, enter the domain name, then a backslash ('\'), then your network username and password. For example domain_name\jsmith

To view Aternity REST API, enter the base URL from Aternity > User icon > REST API Access, followed by the name of the API into a browser, Excel or PowerBI (learn more). For VIEWING, use <base_url>/latest/API_NAME; for INTEGRATIONS, use <base_url>/<version number>/API_NAME (for example, <base_url>/v1/API_NAME, or <base_url>/v1.0/API_NAME, or <base_url>/v2/API_NAME, or <base_url>/v2.0/API_NAME).

Get the latest REST API version for analyzing in the external app
The <base_URL> is configured in the Aternity REST API Server as the external_url (learn more):
http://odata-aternity.company.com:80/aternity.odata/API_NAME
Tip

Wherever possible, use $select and $filter to narrow your query, to avoid receiving an error like Returned data is too large. Learn more.

Examples

To access this API from a browser, Excel or Power BI (learn more), enter <base_url>/latest/USER_AUDIT or <base_url>/v2/USER_AUDIT

To see all the times when a specific user signed in to Aternity, select to display the Timeframe column and filter for a specific username:

.../USER_AUDIT?$select=TIMEFRAME&$filter=USER_NAME eq 'jsmith@company.com'

To see all users who signed in with SSO in the week just passed, enter:

.../USER_AUDIT?$select=USER_NAME&$filter=METHOD eq 'SamlUser' and relative_time(last_week)

Supported Parameters

You can view the data by entering the URL into Excel, into a browser, or into or any OData compatible application such as Power BI.

You can add parameters to the URL to filter the returned data, by adding a question mark (?) followed by a parameter and value, such as .../API_NAME?$filter=(USERNAME eq 'jsmith@company.com'), or several parameter-value pairs each separated by an ampersand (&), like .../API_NAME?$format=xml&$top=5.

Query Options Description
$select=

Use $select to return only specific columns (attributes), to make queries more efficient: ...API_NAME?$select=COL1,COL2,COL3
$format=

Use $format to force the returned data to be either in XML or JSON format. This is only useful for testing the raw data in a web browser. For example: .../API_NAME?$format=xml
$orderby=

Use $orderby to sort the returned data according to the value you choose. For example, .../API_NAME?$orderby=LOCATION
$top=

Use $top (lower case only) when you are initially testing the response of the API by returning the first few entries.

For example, to return the first five entries (not sorted), use: ...API_NAME?$top=5
$filter=

Use $filter to insert conditions that narrow down the data, to return only entries where those conditions are true..

To limit the timeframe of a query, add $filter=relative_time() like, .../API_NAME?$filter=relative_time(last_x_hours) or (last_x_days). Learn more.

Create conditions for filtering with any of the following operators:

Query Operators Description
eq

Equal to

For example, COL4 eq 'val4'
ne

Not equal to

For example, COL4 ne 'val4'
gt

Greater than

For example, COL4 gt 'val4'
ge

Greater than or equal

For example, COL4 ge 'val4'
lt

Less than

For example, COL4 lt 'val4'
le

Less than or equal

For example, COL4 le 'val4'
and

Logical and

For example, COL1 eq 'value1' and COL2 ne 'value2'
or

Logical or

For example, COL1 eq 'value1' or COL2 ne 'value2'
not

Logical negation

Create conditions for filtering with any of the following functions:

Query Functions Description
startswith

For example, $filter=startswith(account_name,'Aternity')
endswith

For example, $filter=endswith(account_name,'Aternity')
contains

$filter=contains(COL5,'val5')

For example, $filter=contains(account_name,'Aternity')
Use operators with parentheses to group conditions logically: .../API_NAME?$filter=(COLUMN1 eq 'value1' or COL2 neq 'val2') and (COL3 gt number) and not (COL4 eq 'val4' or contains(COL5,'val5'))
$search is NOT supported.

Do not use $search in Aternity's REST APIs.
Tip

Wherever possible, use $select and $filter to narrow your query, to avoid receiving an error like Returned data is too large. Learn more.

Output

Each returned entry from USER_AUDIT represents a successful sign in from the Aternity sign-in page, or via SSO with an identity provider. The entry provides the time the event took place, and the Aternity username.

The returned columns are:

Account_ID,Account_Name,Action,Session_Type,Audit_Action_Timestamp,User_Name,User_Type