When the Action for configuration monitoring is set to Email (see above), Admin Tools sends a notification email whenever your Global Configuration or a monitored component's options are changed. Since Admin Tools 7.9.0 this email also includes a summary of which options changed, listing the previous and the current value of each modified option.
The list of changes tries to render the previous and current state of each modified Global Configuration or component option using the same human-readable field labels and values that Joomla! itself shows in its interface. To do this it reads the configuration form (the XML which defines the options) and the language strings provided by Joomla! and the relevant extension. As a result, the email is rendered in the language of each recipient — the labels you see in the email are the same ones you would see in Joomla's backend, translated to the recipient's backend language.
Because this information is derived from Joomla's own forms, language files, and stored values, there are a few caveats you should be aware of. In every one of the cases below the option is still reported as having been modified; the only thing that may be missing or imperfect is how its label or its previous and current values are displayed.
Untranslated strings. The field labels and some of the values are language strings which have to be loaded by the extension providing the option. If an extension does not load its language strings in a way consistent with Joomla's best practices and assumptions, Admin Tools cannot load them either. In this case you may see the raw, untranslated language string (for example, a key such as COM_EXAMPLE_FIELD_SOMETHING_LABEL) instead of a human-readable label or value.
Compound and repeatable values. Not all field values can be rendered. Fields which hold a compound value — such as subforms and repeatable fields — appear as modified whenever any of their elements or rows is modified, but their changed value cannot be rendered. These fields are therefore reported as modified without showing their previous and current values.
Custom field types. Options which use a custom field type — one provided by an extension, rather than one of Joomla's core field types — cannot be rendered. Even when such a field extends one of the core field types for superficial reasons, we cannot know for sure what data type it really stores or how it should be displayed. A typical example is a field which stores an encrypted or encoded value but displays a different, human-readable value on the page. To avoid displaying a misleading or unsafe value, these fields are also reported as modified without showing their previous and current values.
Redacted secrets. Fields which are marked as passwords, or whose name alludes to them being passwords, secrets, or tokens, are redacted for security reasons. For these fields the email will tell you that the option changed without ever including the previous or the current value.
On the flip side, please keep in mind the following. If an extension stores a password, secret, or token in a field which is not a password field, is not a custom field type, and does not have a name which matches our heuristics for passwords, secrets, or tokens, then Admin Tools has no way of knowing that the value is sensitive. In this case the value will be output verbatim in the notification email. This is a limitation of how the extension chose to store its data, not something Admin Tools can reliably detect.
If you have customised the Admin Tools: Configuration Monitoring email template before upgrading to Admin Tools 7.9.0 you will need to edit it to include the list of changes. Please consult the migration instructions in the Email templates section.