Sharepoint - tracking downloaded files

Question

Is there an easy way in WSS to track when files are downloaded from a site?

This is an old topic but the answers are available in this thread on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4457495/does-sharepoint-track-document-downloads — Andrew C, Mar 09 '15 at 23:57

Jim B · Answer 1 · 2009-07-10T21:05:48.403

2

Yes see How to configure Usage Analysis Processing on a Web server by using SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services or by using SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

You can also get this data by creating a sharepoint designer report (office online appears to be dead or I'd post the link)

edited Jul 10 '09 at 21:05

answered Jul 10 '09 at 20:57

Jim B

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I turned it on according to those instructions, but then how do I get the information? – ScottStonehouse Jul 13 '09 at 02:15

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 12 '09 at 15:02

I believe you can accomplish this using the audit log reports that come with SharePoint. You need to turn on the audit logs, but check out this article for a bit more.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101000051033.aspx

Basically once turned on, any action in your site collection will be audited, and downloaded files will I believe show up as a "View" action. The audit logs are kind of ugly and are XML based, Excel 2007 handles them nicely though. Hope this helps

Is this MOSS only? I have WSS. – ScottStonehouse Jul 13 '09 at 02:20 — ScottStonehouse, Jul 13 '09 at 02:20

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 29 '09 at 12:04

I just ended up digging through the IIS logs and log parser. Note that there are at least two different ways to download files, so you have to be watching for different log entries that essentially mean the same thing.

Doubt this is the best answer, but it got the job done for me.

Sharepoint - tracking downloaded files

3 Answers3