Audit the Number of Dashboard Views with REST API (version 1.0)

DASHBOARD_VIEWS_AUDIT returns a list of Aternity dashboards that users accessed over the past seven days, and the username and time of each access, so that you can audit or monitor the users who view different parts of Aternity.

For example, you can monitor the frequency with which your helpdesk personnel are checking the Incidents dashboard by calling this API and filtering for the helpdesk usernames.

Each entry from DASHBOARD_VIEWS_AUDIT represents a single dashboard access, and provides details about that event.

Note

You can access data using this API (retention) going back up to 31 days. If you do not add a relative_time filter, by default Aternity returns data for the past seven days.

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.

To view an Aternity REST API, enter the base URL from User icon > REST API Access, followed by the name of the API: <base_url>/API_NAME into a browser, Excel or PowerBI (learn more). :

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>/DASHBOARD_VIEWS_AUDIT

To return the list of people (Aternity usernames) who opened the Enterprise Summary dashboard in the past week, use:

.../DASHBOARD_VIEWS_AUDIT?$select=user_name&$filter=DASHBOARD_NAME eq 'EnterpriseSummary' and relative_time(last_week) and ACTION eq 'Open Dashboard'

To see the same list along with a timestamp when each one opened the dashboard, use:

.../DASHBOARD_VIEWS_AUDIT?$select=user_name,timeframe&$filter=DASHBOARD_NAME eq 'EnterpriseSummary' and relative_time(last_week) and ACTION eq 'Open Dashboard'

To see the list of dashboards which a user accessed in Aternity yesterday, use:

.../USER_AUDIT?$select=DASHBOARD_NAME&filter=user_name eq 'jsmith@company.com' and relative_time(yesterday)

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.

Parameter Description
$select=

Use $select to return only specific columns (attributes), to make queries more efficient: ...API_NAME?$select=COL1,COL2,COL3
$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 with operators: and, or, eq (equals) gt (greater than), ge (greater than or equal), lt (less than), le (less than or equal), ge (greater than or equal to), ne (not equal to), le (less than or equal to), not and contains. 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'))
$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
$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 entry from DASHBOARD_VIEWS_AUDIT represents a single dashboard access, and provides details about that event.

You can access data using this API (retention) going back up to 35 days. If you do not add a relative_time filter, by default Aternity returns data for the past seven days.

The returned columns are:

Account_ID,Account_Name,Action,Custom_Attribute_1 - 6,Dashboard_Name,Object_Name,Object_Type,Session_Key,Timeframe,User_Name