What the Recording Access Log shows and how to read it

VICIdial's Recording Access Log answers a specific compliance question: who listened to which Call recording, and when? Every time a user opens a recording through the admin interface, VICIdial logs that access event. The Recording Access Log report surfaces those events in a searchable table so managers and compliance teams can audit playback history without touching the database directly.

Where to find the report

Log in as a manager-level User group member with Admin Utilities privileges (level 9 access or equivalent). Navigate to Admin → Reports → Recording Access Log. The search form loads with date range inputs and a user ID field. This report is intentionally gated at the Admin Utilities level because the access log itself is sensitive: it reveals who has been reviewing which recordings, which could be part of an internal investigation or a legal hold request.

Search filters available

• Access date and time — the date and time range when the recording was accessed. Use this to audit activity during a specific shift or incident window.
• Recording date and time — the date and time the original call was recorded. Use this when you know which calls were sensitive and want to see who looked them up after the fact.
• User ID of the person accessing — narrow the log to one reviewer's activity. Useful when investigating whether a specific manager reviewed their assigned QA calls, or when a data breach investigation requires tracking one individual.

How access events are captured

sequenceDiagram
  participant U as Manager browser
  participant W as VICIdial web server
  participant DB as Database
  U->>W: Click recording filename link
  W->>DB: Serve file and log access event
  DB-->>W: Write user ID timestamp recording ID
  W-->>U: Audio stream begins
  note over DB: Recording Access Log row created

What the log entries contain

Each row in the Recording Access Log tells you the user ID of the person who accessed the file, the timestamp of that access, and a reference to the recording itself (which ties back to the vicidial_recordings table entry). This gives you a full chain of custody: from when the Call recording was created by Asterisk's MixMonitor process to every time a manager opened it through the web interface.

Practical uses

• Compliance audits — prove that only authorized personnel reviewed a recording containing payment card data or personally identifiable information.
• QA verification — confirm that supervisors actually listened to the calls they scored rather than just filling in scorecards without listening.
• Incident investigation — if a sensitive recording was allegedly mishandled, the access log shows a full timeline of everyone who opened it and when.

**Heads up:** The Recording Access Log only captures accesses that go through the VICIdial admin web interface. If someone downloads a file directly from the filesystem via SSH or a mounted network share, that access does not appear here. For regulated environments where Recording retention policies require complete audit coverage, layer OS-level filesystem access logging (such as Linux auditd) on top of this report to close that gap.

For the full picture of how recordings are created, stored, and retrieved in VICIdial, see VICIdial call recording explained.

To understand how to search for a specific recording before checking who accessed it, see how to find a specific call recording in VICIdial.

Running a compliant contact center means having audit trails you can produce on demand. See VICIfast pricing to see how managed hosting keeps your recording infrastructure audit-ready.