I have to report back to our development team on Thursday on the auditing within SF. I have seen many threads but need to know if the auditing (as far as saving data to the audit tables) is working within the SF Framework. If so what we need to do to make it work. We can build our own viewer if one is not available yet.

The SFSAuditDataChanges, SFSAuditDataFields, and SFSAuditEvents are deployed to the same database as my other RBS tables.

I am assuming I need to turn on Auditing by user (although I really want this turned on for ALL users). In the security I can't find where I set this property. Where is it? Can it be set programatically?

Next I am assuming I need to set properties on each BO such as "AuditDataChanges". What properties need to be set on the BO?

Do any properties need to be set at the column level?

If these properties are all set, will the SF Framework automatically track new rows added, column changed and rows deleted in the 3 audit tables above? Or is there something that is needed to be done in addition to the above?

Is it possible to set a property the track changes and deletings but not additions?

Above my questions relate to tracking columns in tables and not events. IE.... tblCustomer.CustName

Finally, if I wanted to send a record to the 3 tables above such as "Attendee attemtped to register twice", what would be the method to have this reflected in the audit tables?

 

 

Also as an FYI, I do see where Auditing can be set in the Security Editor but these never seem to be enabled in the interface.

Hi Ross.

Yep, I have been using the Auditing feature extensively and am able to get the results I need.

I rolled my own viewer and basically I am using the InsertAuditEvent to log an Audit event whenever and wherever I need it.



So, places like AfterAddNew, AfterDelete, AppMain.UnhandledExceptionFound and so on will usually be the places I use for Auditing.

Thanks for the overall info but it would be helpful if you could answer the following questions:

 

I am assuming I need to turn on Auditing by user (although I really want this turned on for ALL users). In the security I can't find where I set this property. Where is it? Can it be set programatically? Whenever I see it in the Security Editor it is disabled.

Next I am assuming I need to set properties on each BO such as "AuditDataChanges". What properties need to be set on the BO?

Do any properties need to be set at the column level?

If these properties are all set, will the SF Framework automatically track new rows added, column changed and rows deleted in the 3 audit tables above? Or is there something that is needed to be done in addition to the above? If not, then what else do I need to do?

Is it possible to set a property the track changes and deletings but not additions?

Above my questions relate to tracking columns in tables and not events. IE.... tblCustomer.CustName.  Just an example with tblCustomer.CustName would be helpful.

Is there any writeup step by step to implement this feature?

Nope, I am not using any of these nor setting anything at the Security module. I am programmatically deciding what I want to audit and then adding an event to the Audit tables through the InserAuditEvent method.

You mentioned " I am programmatically deciding what I want to audit and then adding an event to the Audit tables through the InserAuditEvent ".

Is the reason you are not setting these as properties in the Security and BO because this was not fully implemented into the framework?

If the above does not work and as you pointed out that you are not using them, could you given me an example assuming 5 columns in a table that has a bo. IE.... tblCustomer with 5 columns. Where would you need to insert code to track changes that could show before and after, deleted rows, and added rows.

What I am asking here is what event code would need to be added and the also what that code would look like. I know that the best place for this code would be in a base bo and then have the bo's inherit from the base bo but to simplify my question just show me a single BO.

I am okay on what you showed on tracking the events. Now I need some on enumerating through the columns of a BO and determining if the column data has changed and if so then then command to send it to the log files. I also know that this would be more efficient done on the database, but need to know about the BO approach.

Yep, the original reason was that, and from then on I never got back to trying differently, so this is the way I am handling it.

This post will show you an example of before/after field values that you could use to check changes if you will audit that:

http://forum.strataframe.net/FindPost11127.aspx

As for deleted rows, added rows, I guess the BO's AfterDelete, AfterAddNew, AfterSave and so on would be the places. A base BO certainly would be wise for the task, and you can check the BO.TableName and properties like that to decide whether you want to audit or not.

Then is it correct to assume at this point that the SF Framework doesn't check all of the columns under the hood to determine what was changed in a row to update the log tables? IE... we would need to iterate through the current row and determine if a column changed and if so then pass the info to a command in SF to add a rows to the SFS tables?

I wouldn't be able to tell you if that is correct to assume currently, I would have to check with the guys to confirm it. I just gave you the way I am dealing with it.

Please check because our team needs to know what direction we are going to take and need to know what SF can do now or realistically in the next few months.