---
key: read-a-record-activity-history
title: See what happened on a record
audience: staff
section: getting-started
routes: ["/work-orders/:uid/:tab?/:itemUid?", "/work/projects/:uid/:tab?/:itemUid?", "/work/tasks/:uid/:tab?/:itemUid?", "/service-assets/:assetUid/:tab?/:itemUid?", "/work/portfolios/:uid/:tab?/:itemUid?"]
permissions: ["activity.org.view"]
since: 0.0.1
updated: 0.0.1
status: published
summary: Use a work order, project, task, service asset or portfolio's Activity tab to see who changed what and when, day by day, and open any entry for the full detail.
keywords: [history, activity, audit, who changed, change log, timeline, what happened, log]
related: [find-your-way-around-a-record, read-the-audit-log, see-recent-activity-across-accounts]
---

Open the record and press its **Activity** tab. For example, in the sidebar open **Operations**, then **Work Orders**, open the work order, and press **Activity**; the page address ends in `/activity`. Work orders, projects, tasks, service assets and portfolios all have this tab.

## Before you start

- Your role needs permission to view organization activity feeds. Without it the **Activity** tab is hidden. A service asset's activity also needs permission to see service asset activity.
- A customer's own page has an **Activity** tab too, but it is a different, customer-wide feed. The notes your team adds across all customers are under Account Activity ([[see-recent-activity-across-accounts]]).

## Steps

1. Press **Activity**. The newest entries come first, grouped under each day.
2. Read each entry: what happened, the time, and who did it. Changes Nova made by itself show **System**.
3. Scroll down; older entries load as you go.
4. Press an entry to open **Activity details**.

## What you see

- An entry with a **High priority** badge is highlighted: it is one to look at, such as a failure or a cancellation.
- **Activity details** shows the **Actor**, **When**, the **Resource** it touched and the **Action**, then **Changes** (the before and after of each field) and **Metadata**, each folded until you open it.
- **No activity yet.**: nothing has been recorded on this record. Press the refresh button beside the message to check again.

## If something looks different

- **Unable to load activity.**: press the refresh button beside it. If it keeps happening, reload the page.
- The tab is missing even though you have the permission: an admin hid it for this kind of record or for this one record ([[customize-tabs-on-one-record]]), or your organization turned activity off for this kind of record.
- You need the organization-wide record of every change, with filters: that is the audit log ([[read-the-audit-log]]).