Start monitoring Apilio's activity with our new event logs

Apilio Updates
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All of us at team Apilio hope you are all staying safe and healthy during this outbreak. Whether you feel like getting your tinker on or your mind is elsewhere right now, we will continue to be available if you need assistance getting started or setting up a new idea. On that note, we have some exciting news :raised_hands:t3:

When you log on to Apilio, you’ll find a new addition to your dashboard. We’re confident you’ll like it because we all love monitoring what our devices, sensors, applets and apps are doing :nerd_face:. This way you can make sure everything is going according to plan, or find handy information to help you when it is not.

:arrow_right: With Apilio’s new event logs you’ll see when variables being are updated, logicblocks executed and actions sent to IFTTT.

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The new event log is fantastic to make sure things are running smoothly, and also a great source of information when setting new devices or IFTTT applets up, or trying to diagnose an issue.

Let’s have a look at what you’ll be able to see in your Apilio logs:

All the Apilio log events explained

1) A variable was successfully updated

Apilio receives a request from IFTTT to do update a variable, and it is then updated successfully. This event is only displayed after the successful update has happened.

You’ll be able to see:

2) A logicblock was successfully evaluated

This is displayed when Apilio evaluates successfully a logicblock, following a request from IFTTT.

3) An action was successfully sent to IFTTT

As a result of executing a logicblock, if the conditions for running any actions are met, Apilio sends a request to IFTTT to run an action, sending the event name that you specified.

4) A variable could not be updated

This is displayed if Apilio fails to update a variable following a request from IFTTT, for example, if a string variable is too long and cannot be saved.

5) A logicblock could not be evaluated

Apilio fails to evaluate a logicblock following a request from IFTTT. This can happen for example if your account is receiving too many requests (we will always contact you if we see any suspicious/excessive activity).

6) An action is not connected with any active IFTTT applets

If Apilio sends an action request to IFTTT but there isn’t an active applet listening for this event, then the action will fail because it is not activating anything connected with your IFTTT services.

7) You have reached your plan’s rate limit

If you are on our Pro or Essentials Plans, you can send/receive updates every second. If you are on our Free Plan, every minute. If your account reaches its limit, we will temporarily disable it as a protection against this suspicious activity. We will be in touch if this happens.

Also check your IFTTT activity

Apilio’s event log only displays what Apilio is doing. If you are setting new things up, or investigating an issue, we recommend you also check your activity on IFTTT.

IFTTT’s activity feed is a nifty list that shows how your applets are running. If you are having any issues with applets not executing, or doing throwing errors, this is a great place to find information. You can find your IFTTT activity feed here https://ifttt.com/activity

Here’s also how you can find IFTTT activity feed yourself:

  • IFTTT Website: Log on to IFTTT and click on your avatar on the top right-hand corner. From the menu, choose “activity”.
  • IFTTT app (versions: Android, iOS): tap on your avatar on the top right-hand corner. Under your big avatar and personal information you’ll see a “view activity” button, that’s the one you want!

IFTTT also has this detailed documentation page that explains what you can expect to see in their activity feed.

:nerd_face: Would you like to see more/different events?

We brainstormed a long list of possible events and errors we could display, and compared it to how you all are diagnosing your applet runs and issues. We believe these 6 events monitor your account’s key executions. But there is so much room to improve these! :slight_smile:

We’d love to hear from you: let us know in the comments what else you’d like to monitor in these logs. We are all eyes :eyes: and ears :ear:.

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I am LOVING the logging, thank you Team Apilio! :bowing_man: :bowing_man:

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So…I like the Logging idea. How do I turn it on? I am a paying customer, and I have several boolean variables and logic blocks that have changed state / been evaluated, but nothing has shown up in the logging on my dashboard. Is there some setting I need to enable?

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Good work thank you for your efforts

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Hi @james.a.stratman,
Are you still using the legacy way of integrating Apilio with IFTTT via webhooks (vs the native integration: Apilio-IFTTT Integration is now LIVE!)?
That could be an explanation, since only the actions via the native integration are covered so far.

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Thank you @pebneter !!

That must be it!!

I set up my most of my IFTTT and Apilio stuff late last summer using what I now understand is the ‘legacy’ integration. I muddled through it but was not on the Apilio community board much, and did not see the Apilio integration into IFTTT until your post with the link to the Oct. '19 announcement, which obviously I missed.

I’ll work to transfer things over, because I really like the idea of the one-stop logging on the dashboard to see what’s going on.

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From:Anon

Thanks for the great addition. I’m sure it will help newbies figure out what’s going on.
Wish it was there when I was getting started. grinning All of my stuff is running nicely now.
One interesting side effect of the Event logging is that now when you have multiple logic
blocks getting evaluated when a connected variable changes, you can see the sequence in
which the logic blocks were evaluated.

I do have 2 observations :

  • I did not see anywhere that you could prune/clear the Event logs.
  • The Event log would be even more useful if it updated itself every second or two.
    It would then be convenient to have it in a separate window for debugging when in
    development mode for new flows.

Thanks again for a great product……

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I would like to filter the logs if i’m looking for for a certain event,

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Hello everyone :wave:

I have a quick update regarding a new log we just added: we now also have an event that will let you know if an action failed because there was no active applet in your IFTTT account that was using this action, so it’s not really being used for anything. This will hopefully help you close your loops when debugging your automations :slight_smile:

It will say: “Ifttt action (name of your action here) sent by Apilio failed. No IFTTT applet active for this action”

And here you can see an example:

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Does the Event Log max-out at 200 events? I have the PRO plan (which is entitled to a months worth of event logs), but I can see less than 24hours worth of event logs on my dashboard page. It is showing exactly 200 events (I have motion and door-opening events, so they rack up quickly). I mean, admittedly that still a lot of events, and it’s super helpful for trouble shooting my system, so it’s still a wonderful feature! I only noticed because I was trying to troubleshoot a sunset program, and I can’t scroll back that far! I can just wait for sunset tonight. Or temporally disable my door-is-open system so that I don’t reach 200 so quickly. Unless there is another page where I can see more than 200 events?

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Thanks for the question. Let me check with the :mage: and we’ll get back to you.

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Hi @K8Baldwin!
The log entries are kept in storage for a month and are further limited to 6000 entries per user (this only impacts you if you have a lot of events - we had to introduce a temporary limit due to concerns about performance).
Now on the Dashboard, we saw slow loading times when a lot of log rows are present and we had to limit them to 200 for display to ensure fast loading. We have plans to introduce a new dedicated log page and add filter options there for faster research.
I can offer you to do a custom extract or we can expedite an intermediary solution to allow you to view more logs if this issue is hindering you in the coming days.
Let us know how we can help you best!

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Thank you! I am good for now, but it’s great to know that is an option if I get stuck troubleshooting and need to scroll back farther. The filters sound really helpful too, because the repetitive events, like motion sensors, get in the way of seeing the big picture.

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The event log is great for a thousand reasons. Hard to imagine the world without it.
Nonetheless, maybe I missed something, it might be extremely useful to be able to export the event log (CSV file), so as to be able to analyze or to use the data. Would that be feasible?
Thanks for the fantastic work.

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There is currently no export function, but we will consider it when we design a dedicated log entry view with filters and paging etc.

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Hey @mike.b.silberman :wave: :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: Just in case you missed it, you can now download your logs as a CSV file:

Let us know if you give it a go! :slight_smile:

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