Using Logs and Reports

SharePoint utilizes logs to track key events, errors, and usage for the farm, site collections, and sites. SharePoint logs are an excellent tool for troubleshooting operations and identifying problems with your own custom applications. SharePoint logs can also be enabled to track usage data in the farm so that you can analyze the traffic for sites. In this section, I explain how to enable and configure the different logging and reporting mechanisms in SharePoint.

Working with the Unified Logging Service

When you are working with a SharePoint installation, you will undoubtedly experience errors on pages or issues with configurations that you do not immediately understand. For example, you may find that your profile imports are not running as expected or your search index is not being properly built. If you have a custom feature involved, the situation may be even more complicated. In all of these cases, you'll need good logging information to sort out the problem.