There are various ways to obtain audit trail data from Attaché. In this Knowledge Article 'Audit Trail' means a report detailing the Attaché user and System Date each time a change was made within Attaché.
Attaché does NOT record the Attaché user login and system date of creation of the record directly against transactions. Therefore, an audit trail cannot be obtained by simply extracting transaction data. However, the following data sources can be used to obtain audit trail data:
Update Information on Masterfile screens.
User Transaction Log.
Track Changes report.
Monitor file.
1. Update information shows on all Masterfile screens
Other non-transaction update information is recorded such as the last update on Masterfiles and Setup files. However, this is not an Audit Trail as it only records the last update. The above reports are needed for Audit Trail type data that record each update event.
2. User Transaction Log
The User Transaction Log is accessed from the Tools, System, User Transaction Log menu. It provides a basic task access type audit trail. It does not give transaction details, but will indicate which Attaché user accessed a company, which menu items within that company, as well as when that access started and finished.
The user may or may not have made any change or completed any transaction when accessing the task. Or they may have recorded several transactions. Only access to the task is recorded in this log.
The User Transaction log also must be activated to record its audit trail.
This can be done at Tools, Company, Track Changes, Tracking Options. Set one or both of Track User Company Access? and/or Track User Task Access? to Yes.
3. Track Changes
Track Changes is the most comprehensive option for an Audit Trail. It is NOT turned on by default. You must activate it for specific menu items and files. Otherwise, no audit data is recorded.
Be mindful that activating Track Changes for high volume files such as the Invoice & Order Detail table (the table that stores the lines on all Sales Orders, Invoices and Credit Notes), will cause your data file to increase in size much more rapidly and may impact system performance.
Using Track Changes requires an understanding of how data is stored within Attaché. For example, if you want to know the user and system date for each Customer Transaction, the file you need is called Customer Transactions, but sometimes the data you want to track may not be stored in such an obvious place, e.g.: emails for employees. Access recommends using the ODBC Data Dictionary to check which file the data you want tracked is located in. It is best practice to check that the right data is being collected after activating Track Changes. You could also test data collection in Sample Data or a test company first.
Be aware that Track Changes provides a field-by-field change report and so is highly detailed. However, the data can be summarised using ODBC, etc. to obtain a more meaningful report.
To activate Track Changes
Go to Tools, Company Track Changes, Track Files and select the files you want tracked
Go to Tools, Company Track Changes, Track Tasks and select the tasks you want tracked, e.g.: Transactions, Customers, Payments, Enter Payments
Ensure all Attaché users are signed out of Attaché, tracking will only start for a user when the user signs back in after steps 1 and 2 have been completed
Check tracking is working as expected by running the Tools, Company Track Changes, Track Changes Report after a transaction has been entered by a user.
📌Note 1: To ensure system performance is not unduly affected by Track Changes, run the Track Changes archive procedure at regular intervals at Tools, Company Track Changes, Track Changes Archive. This moves the tracking records from the live Track Changes Report to an Archive Report that can be kept without affecting system performance.
📌Note 2: The Track Changes Archive report can be deleted, so the menu items for deleting Track Changes Archive should be highly restricted.
4. Monitor File
The Monitor File is mentioned here as an alternative method to obtain audit trail data if Track Changes is not activated.
This file also needs to be activated to record data and will be active if you use Clearview. You can check for activation at Tools, Company Track Changes, Tracking Options in the Monitor File Options section.
While the data in the Monitor File is not recorded in a user-friendly format searching for key references like invoice numbers will most likely obtain the needed information.
If the file is active, you can use ODBC to view the data by extracting to Excel, etc.