What are Microsoft Entra audit logs?

  • Article

Microsoft Entra activity logs include audit logs, which is a comprehensive report on every logged event in Microsoft Entra ID. Changes to applications, groups, users, and licenses are all captured in the Microsoft Entra audit logs.

Two other activity logs are also available to help monitor the health of your tenant:

  • Sign-ins - Information about sign-ins and how your resources are used by your users.

This article gives you an overview of the audit logs, including what's required to access them and what information they provide.

License and role requirements

The required roles and licenses vary based on the report. Separate permissions are required to access monitoring and health data in Microsoft Graph. We recommend using a role with least privilege access to align with the Zero Trust guidance. For a full list of roles, see Least privileged roles by task.

Log / Report Roles Licenses
Audit logs Reports Reader
Security Reader
Security Administrator		 All editions of Microsoft Entra ID
Sign-in logs Reports Reader
Security Reader
Security Administrator		 All editions of Microsoft Entra ID
Custom security attribute audit logs* Attribute Log Administrator
Attribute Log Reader		 All editions of Microsoft Entra ID
Health Reports Reader
Security Reader
Helpdesk Administrator		 Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2
Microsoft Graph activity logs Security Administrator
Permissions to access data in the corresponding log destination		 Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2
Usage and insights Reports Reader
Security Reader
Security Administrator		 Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2

*Viewing the custom security attributes in the audit logs or creating diagnostic settings for custom security attributes requires one of the Attribute Log roles. You also need the appropriate role to view the standard audit logs.

What can you do with audit logs?

Audit logs in Microsoft Entra ID provide access to system activity records, often needed for compliance. You can get answers to questions related to users, groups, and applications.

Users:

  • What types of changes were recently applied to users?
  • How many users were changed?
  • How many passwords were changed?

Groups:

  • What groups were recently added?
  • Have the owners of group been changed?
  • What licenses are to a group or a user?

Applications:

  • What applications were, updated, or removed?
  • Has a service principal for an application changed?
  • Have the names of applications been changed?

Custom security attributes:

  • What changes were made to custom security attribute definitions or assignments?
  • What updates were made to attribute sets?
  • What custom attribute values were assigned to a user?

Note

Entries in the audit logs are system generated and can't be changed or deleted.

What do the logs show?

Audit logs default to the Directory tab, which displays the following information:

  • Date and time of the occurrence
  • Service that logged the occurrence
  • Category and name of the activity (what)
  • Status of the activity (success or failure)

A second tab for Custom Security displays audit logs for custom security attributes. To view data on this tab, you must have the Attribute Log Administrator or Attribute Log Reader role. This audit log shows all activities related to custom security attributes. For more information, see What are custom security attributes.

Screenshot of the audit logs, with the Directory and Custom Security tabs highlighted.

Microsoft 365 activity logs

You can view Microsoft 365 activity logs from the Microsoft 365 admin center. Even though Microsoft 365 activity and Microsoft Entra activity logs share many directory resources, only the Microsoft 365 admin center provides a full view of the Microsoft 365 activity logs.

You can also access the Microsoft 365 activity logs programmatically by using the Office 365 Management APIs.

Most standalone or bundled Microsoft 365 subscriptions have back-end dependencies on some subsystems within the Microsoft 365 datacenter boundary. The dependencies require some information write-back to keep directories in sync and essentially to help enable hassle-free onboarding in a subscription opt-in for Exchange Online. For these write-backs, audit log entries show actions taken by “Microsoft Substrate Management”. These audit log entries refer to create/update/delete operations executed by Exchange Online to Microsoft Entra ID. The entries are informational and don't require any action.