Spotfire Server: Understanding differences between Action Log and sql.log execution times for information links

Summary:

This article explains the differences in how execution times are recorded in the Spotfire action.log versus the Spotfire server's sql.log for Information Links. 
 

Details:

Users may notice a difference between execution times reported in the Action Log and those found in the sql.log when monitoring Information Link activity, for example:

sql.log:

--------------
2026-06-08T11:55:05,627+0000 [*dat-job-thread-2, <username>, #null, #6, a34b3432-4cf3-49c3-b8b9-cc5e7f128b83*]: Information Link 'sampledata' (9cc98737-a908-44d7-b8d1-283a1d6cebda) executed successfully, time: 6.115 seconds
--------------

--------------
2026-06-08T11:54:59,537+0000;<ip>;<username>;2026-06-08T11:54:59,536+0000;<ip>;info_link;load_il;true;955a45ab-76d1-394e-bd0b-5ea9ab4daaec;9cc98737-a908-44d7-b8d1-283a1d6cebda;/sampledata/sampledata;a34b3432-4cf3-49c3-b8b9-cc5e7f128b83;;;;;
2026-06-08T11:55:05,690+0000;<ip>;<username>;2026-06-08T11:55:05,689+0000;<ip>;info_link;get_data;true;955a45ab-76d1-394e-bd0b-5ea9ab4daaec;9cc98737-a908-44d7-b8d1-283a1d6cebda;/sampledata/sampledata;0000005856;0000370925;a34b3432-4cf3-49c3-b8b9-cc5e7f128b83;;;
--------------

From the above entries, we can notice that the execution time from the sql.log is 6.115 seconds and the execution time from the action.log is 0000005856 milliseconds, i.e., 5.856 seconds. Please note that the Action log entries for the execution of the Information Links record the duration in milliseconds.

Resolution:

The Action Log and sql.log serve different purposes and measure different stages of the data retrieval process:

Action Log: This log tracks the time taken to move data from the database server to the Spotfire application in discrete blocks. It is designed to reflect the user experience (e.g., how long the loading spinner is visible). Because data is fetched in multiple "Get Data" blocks, a single Action Log entry does not represent the entire execution.

SQL Log: This log tracks the total time the database server spends calculating and processing the query for the entire dataset combined. It is used to identify slow-performing databases or inefficient SQL queries.
 

Note: We may notice differences in execution time between these two files because the Action Log captures multiple events for a single Information Link (such as load_il followed by multiple get_data entries, etc.), the values will naturally differ from the aggregate time recorded in the sql.log.