How to see which user listened to which recording

VICIdial automatically logs every time a user opens a Call recording through the admin interface. To see who listened to what and when, you use the Recording Access Log — a report under Admin → Reports that gives you a searchable, timestamped history of recording access events. It is the primary tool for answering questions like "did my QA team actually review these calls?" or "who opened this recording after the complaint was filed?"

Who can run this report

Access to the Recording Access Log is limited to users with Admin Utilities privileges — typically level 9 users or those in a User group that has the Admin Utilities permission enabled. This is intentional: the report reveals who has been reviewing which recordings, which is itself sensitive. A junior manager who can search for recordings should not automatically see the access audit trail for all other managers.

Step-by-step: pulling the access report

1. Log in with an account that has Admin Utilities access.
2. Navigate to Admin → Reports → Recording Access Log.
3. Set the access date range — the window when you think the recording was played back.
4. Optionally, enter a user ID to scope the report to one reviewer.
5. Optionally, set the recording date range to focus on calls from a specific period.
6. Submit the form. The results table shows every access event matching your filters.

How access events flow into the log

flowchart TD
  A[Manager clicks recording link] --> B[Web server serves audio file]
  B --> C[Access event written to log table]
  C --> D{Audit needed?}
  D -->|Yes| E[Run Recording Access Log report]
  D -->|No| F[Event stored silently]
  E --> G[Filter by user ID or date range]
  G --> H[See who accessed which recording]

Searching by recording date versus access date

The report offers two distinct date filters that are easy to confuse. Access date and time is when the user opened the file. Recording date and time is when the underlying call was originally recorded. Both filters can be used together or independently, and understanding the difference is key to getting useful results quickly.

For example: if you want to know whether anyone reviewed a call that happened last Tuesday, set the recording date to last Tuesday and leave the access date open. If you want to know what a particular manager was listening to yesterday afternoon, set the access date to yesterday and enter their user ID. Both scenarios produce focused, actionable results rather than the thousands of rows you would get from an open-ended query.

What the log does not capture

**Heads up:** The Recording Access Log only captures browser-based access through the VICIdial admin UI. It does not track direct filesystem access — if someone uses SSH or a mounted share to copy or play a file with a particular Recording format (WAV/MP3) directly from the server, that action is invisible to this report. For regulated environments where Two-party consent or PCI DSS obligations require a complete audit trail, layer in OS-level audit logging on the server to close this gap.

Connecting access logs to recording search

The Recording Access Log complements the recordings search screen, not replaces it. Admin → Recordings is how you find and play calls. The access log is how you audit that process afterward. Used together, they give you a full picture of what was recorded and who reviewed it — which is exactly what a compliance audit or legal discovery request will ask for.

For more on finding and playing recordings through the admin interface, see how to play back a call recording from the report screen. For the full context on how VICIdial's recording system works end to end, see VICIdial call recording explained.

Need a hosted VICIdial platform with built-in audit log access and recording management that your compliance team can rely on? See VICIfast pricing.