Activity Event history for Things, Tiles and Panels

I don't have any use for device history unless you can filter it to show errors only, such as offline/non-reporting devices and batteries.

Simple usage: Check when a specific motion sensor or contact sensor triggered. I use it all the time to check if my son arrived home...

I have used it infrequently in SmartTiles but found it helpful when I did. I would agree that filtering would be useful.

The option to add a basic shortcut to the SmartThings notifications would nice.

That is not possible.

SmartThings does not offer any API/hooks into their notifications, including Smart Home Monitor (SHM) notifications. Developers and Customers have asked them for it.

Now that we've gotten a better idea of hot to open intent URLs for apps, this may be possible.  The SmartThings URL is:
    intent:#Intent;launchFlags=0x10000000;component=com.smartthings.android/.main.MainActivity;end

(Reference: http://support.actiontiles.com/forums/12-actiontiles-forum/topics/1255-open-android-app-or-app-activity-via-url-formatted-shortcut/#comment-12181)

I'm thinking it you can find the right extension, you could likely get to notifications, by swapping out "main.mainactivity" for something else.  I haven't had any luck with it...but it seems possible.

that is to bad.

If the surface phone ever gets released I will be needing Actiontiles as SmartThings app doesn't support Windows anymore.

We are trying to get SmartThings to lead an effort to coordinate a standard for notifications that all SmartApps could use.

ActionTiles will then have a strong justification for embedding the ability to receive these notifications into our product. Without a standard, there are too many different ways for us to accommodate cost effectively.

But it may take the developer community to lead this effort.

I use this feature extensively in SmartTiles to see when events occurred. For example, when doors were opened or when people left/retuned. I have a panel just for doors and people so I can quickly see the event history just for those. It would be great if clicking on the tile brings up the history for that tile (for tiles where history is relevant). I agree that the history is hard to parse in SmartTiles when you have many tiles on a panel. Also a History tile with filtered history would be great too. Hopefully you could add more than one to see history for different groups of tiles.

Please be sure to allocate some of your Topic Vote budget on this, to help it retain visibility!

On the presence tiles it would be nice to not just see if someone is present but a also which time they arrived or departed. That info is in the Smartthings app

I don't use Event History frequently but I do value it immensely when I do. Typically I'm validating that an action is still reliably occurring. It's also handy for confirming the timing of other, dependent events. 

It means I don't have to start from absolute scratch when troubleshooting an issue.

For  my driveway sensor to have meaning, I need to know the last time it was tripped. Ideally I'd like to have a tile with the most recent sensor trip time. 

If having just the "last time it was tripped" would be valuable to you, please visit and Vote on this separate Topic: 

•  http://support.actiontiles.com/topics/1149-report-or-display-timestamp-of-last-event-for-sensors-etc/

To me it is a must have feature and I want to know if it is on your road map to determine if I should get the license, thanks

At ActionTiles we do our best to "never" make a promise we might not be able to keep. So we avoid publishing feature roadmaps, bug fix ETAs, and even minimum reliability levels. (But sometimes we slip up and are so optimistic and excited about a possible enhancement, we say that we're working on something).

With the greatest respect possible, we officially advise prospective customers:

"Please base your decision on whether or not to purchase a License on what ActionTiles is today, rather than what it might be someday"

Hi Terry, 

Thanks for the reply I do wish I could purchase a smarttiles license as such feature was there or install it somehow to wait for things to happen I am relatively new to smartthings and kind of just missed the chance of installing smarttiles

Thanks 

Ny

We agree that there are some favorite features in SmartTiles that are not currently in ActionTiles. Some are more likely (and more easy) for us to consider than others.

By purchasing an ActionTiles License you are support a small but growing venture that looks forward to continuously improving the product with reliability and responding to the most popular Feature Requests.

I hope you consider the existence of this "Feedback Forum" as an indication of how important we consider Customer Feedback!

I am happy to get the license if I could install smart tiles to bridge the gap until it is available in action tiles so that I could replace smartthings app with this

SmartTiles is no longer available for installation.

I hope the high vote counts will make a difference and just bought the license

Event History is something that I use in SmartTiles.  I recently discovered Action Tiles and like it better but would like to have access to the Event History of my Things.  It's not critical, but has been helpful to identify when anyone is present in the home.

wait smarttiles has event history ability???  my understanding is smartiles is no more and actiontiles only.

I would be happy if we could just get last date/time on presence so I can see when the fam comes and goes. 

Please refer to the Topic that is limited to that specific Idea: http://support.actiontiles.com/topics/1149-report-or-display-timestamp-of-last-event-for-sensors-etc/

Voted, I would like this as well.  Also voted for timestamp on the tile :-)  Event history is nice and while similar features may be available in the ST app, I'm guessing a lot of people who use ActionTiles don't use the ST app too much :-)  I would like some filtering capability if this feature is added.  Maybe give us a checkbox for each type we would like to see right on the "event history screen", such as: presence, contact sensors, motion sensors, all sensors, switches, etc...

Based on the old SmartTiles event history, here are some I would definitely uncheck because I didn't find them useful 99% of the time:  temperature, humidity

Might also be nice to somehow consolidate when there are a bunch of repeated events from a device like a motion sensor:

"Living Room Motion activity from 1700-1759"

Rather than 40 separate events

"Living Room Motion active 1700"

"Living Room Motion inactive 1703"

"Living Room Motion active 1704"

"Living Room Motion inactive 1707"

etc...

Thanks for the comments, Kevin...

Reducing the event display clutter of busy Things is a good point worth considering. Hopefully we can come up with a way to use an expand/collapse structure or drill-down / zoom-in functionality. These sort of idea enhancement and refinement is why we discuss Feature Requests in public. The initial implementation needs to focus on simple functionality first, of course.

this is the missing piece making me not using the actiontiles but rather sticking with smartthings app though I have bought the license 

Thank-you for purchasing and I appreciate knowing Event History Viewer is a beloved "missed feature" from SmartTiles.

I just have to reiterate that in our "scientific polls", for whatever reason ... Event History consistently ranked lowest on the list of desired features... though that list included stuff like PIN Protected Tiles (which we have now implemented).

Take that as a sign that we are, indeed, appreciative of your feedback and are making progress on new features and continuous improvement.

perhaps because you pose the question incorrectly

perhaps you don't discuss all the positive data and information that can be gleaned?

so that feature has been removed from actiontiles? (i am in trial period)

Event history is the glaring ommision.

I have a hard time believing it is the least requested.

It is my #1.

These are present state dashboards only.

There is no reason i shouldn't be able to how many times a door opened and closed.

How fast the battery drains (which is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to fast)

etc

I'd love to see this feature. If I put a contact sensor on the lid to our dog food container, my wife and I would be able to see the last time the dogs were fed.

I'm not sure if someone has posted this method yet, but here is the workaround I found:

Goal

I wanted a way to check when the last time our dogs were fed.

Solution

A link tile that takes me to a Google Sheet with the devices history listed.

Setup Instructions

I'm going to make this brief because I'm not sure if anyone is going to read this. If there are replies asking for more details I will provide them.

1. Using IFTTT, create an applet that will "Log door openings detected by your SmartThings to a Google Drive Spreadsheet" (link takes you to the applet creation page)
2. Go to the Google Sheet that IFTTT creates for you
3. Add this to any cell that is NOT in the "A" column:

   1. =FILTER( Sheet1!A:A , ROW(Sheet1!A:A) =MAX( FILTER( ROW(Sheet1!A:A) , NOT(ISBLANK(Sheet1!A:A)))))

4. This will display the last value of the "A" column
5. In another cell, add a link that takes you back to your panel
6. I'd recommend formatting the text of the cells to be large and easy to read
7. From Google Sheets, go to File > Publish to the web...
8. Adjust the settings however you want
9. Copy the link it provides you
10. On your Actions Tiles, create a link tile using the link to your spreadsheet

Here's what mine looks like:

Wow, this is a fantastic idea. Thanks for sharing!

I'm trying to understand the sheet formula but haven't figured it out.  Do you know how to modify it to show only 10 rows for example?

Your example inspired me to to use webcore&sheets... I have an event history working, I and understand how to filter by time:

=filter(Sheet1!A:B,Sheet1!A:A>minus(now(),1)) //1 day
=filter(Sheet1!A:B,Sheet1!A:A>minus(now(),(1/24))) //1 hour

But I haven't figured out how to filter last 10 events.  

With webcore you can set up the piston to log any events desired to the sheet.  I am logging ST mode changes, door open&close and motion active events to google sheets.

Would be nice if the Sheet's "table chart" could be formatted (font, background, etc), then we would have a nice image to drop into an AT media tile.

Thanks!

I used it all of the time in SmartTiles as a way to obtain a global snapshot of what had occurred/is occurring.  The native viewer contains a lot of noise that is difficult to sift thru and takes forever to load, that is if the app doesn’t crash before you get what’s you were looking for.  Would love Tom see it added, very surprised it was the lowest ranked feature request.  Regardless, ActionTiles is still fantastic and had it not been for SmartTiles and now ActionTiles, I would have undoubtedly moved to another platform by now.  It seems like post-Samsung acquisition, the burden has been placed on the user community for almost all device support/application development.  Without 3rd party apps, the product is completely inferior.  I have to think that 90% of customers are tech savvy, because I can’t imagine trying to use with only the native functionality.  It’s really a shame, I was a big fan pre-acquisition and have been a huge/loyal Samsung electronics guy in the past, certainly didn’t turn out as expected... Geesh, what started off as a compliment turned into a rant, sorry about that.  Anyways, thanks for a great product in ActionTiles and keep up the good work!

wow 3 years later and we are still looking for event history?? 

sooooooooooo bummed with smarttech.....

on going cost and maintenance......no data......

flipping a light switch doesn't seem so arduos now

I'd really like an easy way to look at a tile and know that a temperature reading is current. I.E., the sensor has reported recently, so I know for sure I'm not looking at a temperature that was recorded 24 hours ago because the device has stopped communicating. Thanks for all the good work!

Hi Fred,

Though the details haven't been worked out yet; I think your Comment is closer to this other different Feature Request. Please visit it and add your Votes and comments: http://support.actiontiles.com/topics/1149-report-or-display-timestamp-of-last-event-for-sensors-etc/

I have an open/close sensor in my mailbox to see when the mail was delivered. I wish there was a way to see if it opened today.

Even though I am using Action Tiles, I still have a Smart tiles app on my phone. I keep it there because I like to use the Event History tile.

I would like to see this feature added to Action Tiles.

FYI - you can create a shortcut tile in ActionTiles right to the SmartTiles event history :-)

Kevin1,

That sounds like something I could use. Can you explain how I would set that up?

Sorry fopr delay, just saw this question... 

Go to the SmartTiles, Event History, in your browser window, copy the long URL at top of screen.

In ActionTiles go to Builder(settings), MyShortcuts, Add, name it "Event History", paste in the URL you copied.  Then go into your Panel and add the shortcut.

Thinking that event history would be very useful for me, but as others have mentioned- just for a simple and quickie view.

why can't we dump the event history for each device into db?

even that export option would suit some peoples needs....program to dump every 7 days, write your own dashboard, excel, tabluea, power bi over it

I would like to have event history for my motion sensors. I would typically only care about the most recent time it detected motion.

I have two reasons to have the event history.

Mailbox delivery and driveway sensor, I would only be interested in if it was triggered that day for the mailbox and when it was triggered during the day for the driveway sensor.

I currently have a tile with a great mailbox icon that only activates for the split second the mailbox is open, rather than activates and stays on for the day, so that I know to check the mailbox.

I have a WebCore piston using similar technique to what @DankRadon did with IFTTT and Google Sheets.  I pick which devices and events I want to log in WebCore.  One tab of the Google Sheet is filtered to show just the past day.

If you set up the SmartThings SmartApp for GoogleSheets data logging you will see a URL which lets you dump any data into your GoogleSheet. I use this URL in WebCore to send the event data.  Looks like this.......

This is exactly what I'm after, specifically for door open/closed sensors.

Two thumbs way up on adding this feature.  Specifically I use it for people who are not signed up for smartthings and I don't want to add them to my account...but I DO want them to be able to see a few things, including history of a couple doors.

Quick Update:

Thanks everyone for the continuing discussion and Topic Votes!

The priority of this is affected by the usual factors: implementation complexity, storage and computing resource requirements, and coordination required with SmartThings - since any feasible implementation will require an update to the "ActionTiles V6 (Connect)" SmartApp. Updating the SmartApp is a risky activity due to ST's turnaround time as well as their currently in-progress evolution of the SmartThings Cloud to a new API.

At the moment, we have plenty of other valuable, non-trivial, Feature Requests that aren't so entangled, and thus, much easier to attend to. We have many initiatives in progress.

To retain our ability to flexibly fit this into our development at the time we feel it is most efficient and react to factors outside our control, we continue to leave this Feature unpromised and with no ETA. Any change in status will be noted here.

I think this is not a "non-trivial" request, I would love to see more drastic changes. Action-tiles at the moment is being left behind with community solutions such as House-panel that are resolving such challenges.

I have been with action tiles for over 1 year, Closer to 2, Made many recommendations to friends but since the initial wow factor i haven't seen changes beyond the cosmetic enhancements.

I would love to hear what valuable changes are being scoped ahead of request that have been ongoing for a year, 

I have not voted on this topic but i came across a use case and found this topic but realised this will not be possible based on the last statement.

If we are using our votes then we should at least en-devour to tackle them otherwise let us re-direct our votes.

A road-map would be great to highlight what changes we are expecting, It will at-least give us some indication of actiontiles agenda.

Thanks for you input, Bilal Bham!

I'll offer a few responses specific to some of the points and questions that you raised:

1. I assure you that this Event History Feature Request is "non-trivial" for us to implement. ActionTiles is successful and reliable. We won't make "drastic changes" without the time and resources needed to do it right and mitigate the inevitable risks. We avoid making even "trivial" changes without deliberate justification and care. The pinned posts in this Topic explain some of the extra complexity involved with this request.
2. House Panel is a clever creation. Ken and the other contributing developers have done an amazing job. We keep an eye on other dashboard projects to discover what features various different types of customers find valuable. We observe the real-world results of the implementations. Sometimes the results are particularly inspirational and noteworthy. Regardless, we do not let comparisons of ActionTiles to House Panel (etc) deflect our focus. This is like comparing SmartThings to Home Assistant, openHAB, Hubitat, HomeSeer, etc.. Those products are substantially different in ease of use, marketing, business strategy, pricing, etc.. SmartThings does not target the same consumers as other smart home platforms. Similarly, we do not claim that ActionTiles is appropriate for all consumers, including those who prefer the power-user / tinkerer fully-open self-hosted nature of House Panel. As ActionTiles evolves, we hope we can serve more diverse customers, but we also never expect to be the perfect tool for everyone. ActionTiles isn't being "left behind"; rather, we are charting our own course.
3. The "cosmetic enhancements" you've observed (tile and font sizing, color theme customization, icon selections, ...) in our multiple releases over the past 1.5 years, were priority for implementation particularly because these were the most popular requests! These took into account feedback on the Forum, Support Tickets, and customer surveys. We could probably do a better job of letting you know that these developments really have "wow'd" our customers; new and old!
4. We should also emphasize more often that there is continuous effort expended on the machinery under-the-hood and on implementing less prominent features, bug fixes, performance tweaks, and enhancing the foundation for further growth and continued reliability and security. Some of this development is extra critical: SmartThings is completely overhauling their SmartApp API and will eventually deprecate the current "Groovy API". The ActionTiles connector and back-end must be redesigned, re-coded, and extensively tested; or ActionTiles would just stop working one day!
5. As for a "road-map", well; just like Samsung, Apple, Amazon, and most other tech companies, we generally do not pre-announce Features until actually implemented ... or very, very close. Note that Samsung did not announce anything about the new SmartThings 2018 Hub until it was already delivered to store shelves and Amazon warehouses. Changes to the SmartThings Apps are only public once the update is already downloadable from the app stores. Our Policy on this is consistent and published in this KB: https://support.actiontiles.com/knowledge-bases/8/articles/1077-when-are-feature-ideas-in-the-forum-going-to-be-implemented
6. An open Feature Request does not mean that some R&D isn't already underway. Contributory comments like unique use cases and design compromise ideas, etc., are appreciated and are often helpful to us as we brainstorm. That's why we keep so many Topics open, including those not currently in active development. We understand the desire to ask "Why is this taking so long? (etc.)"; but, respectfully, such comments do not contribute any value to the topic. Timeline or priority inquiries do not influence our efforts or urgency.
7. The Topic Voting system is one factor that does help our design planning. Votes are budget limited to more accurately reflect what Customers feel is most important to them. If your priorities have changed, however, you can review your Votes and withdraw and reallocate them per this KB: https://support.actiontiles.com/knowledge-bases/8/articles/3912-how-do-i-find-what-i-voted-for

Please drop us a line at Support@ActionTiles.com if we can perhaps further address any questions.

Sincerely,

...Terry.

When I came here to add my vote for 'event history', I didn't realize I had two somewhat different ideas in mind. On the one hand, I envisioned what many others are asking for - a tmestamp on an event, and / or a history for that event such as when someone arrived, departed, etc. But what I also had in mind was the ability to chart / display event history; specifically, I envisaged a temperature chart that was nothing but a presentation of temperature / timestamp data, or a luminance or humidity chart over time. Is the latter (charting) a different feature request?

Event history is a prerequisite for Charting ... though thanks for mentioning it.

But there are ways to do charting using add-on services; and we may be helping folks figure this out if popular. I'll start a new Topic if so.

I use history within the SmartThings app almost everyday - for motion sensors and door open/close sensors to see when children (or the property manager) come and go. I am evaluating ActionTiles to be a simpler interface for less-technical Mom and that is a information that she uses all the time.

I have business sites with secured / controlled access. I have hundreds of motion, contact, leak, smoke, and temp sensors among others, and knowing the last event time as well as event history is a must. I try to get into ActionTiles every now again, hoping that updates will have plugged some holes. I do love it, but thus far just can't satisfy enough needs to justify the huge setup & maintenance time required. I do wish/hope though ....

In particular, the "last event time" (a must have for me) would help to eliminate the need to rely on the SmartThings interface. The ability to store/show event time "history" would nix my need to use Google Sheets so much (especially if I could chart temps).

I use mostly webCoRe, IFTTT and STs along with some custom VBA code to manage an insane amount of smart products - prob 500+ - across two business sites and 4 homes.

cheer chris!

it is amazing to me in 2020 there is not an easy easy way to use event history without us having to manage many different products to get the result.....and having to deal with things like IFTTT changing users policy midstream!

Another optional method is using Action tile shortcuts and linking to the newer Smartthings Web dashboard.  You can link directly to the device to see history and control it as well.