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Audit Trail Features

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You can configure and activate Audit Trail from an administration screen.

Audit Scope

System administrators can specify the audit scope by the following means:

• Operations (such as update, new, delete, and copy) performed on business components
• Operations performed in a specific time period
• Only those operations performed by certain responsibilities, positions, or employees

Audit Trail Content

Audit Trail records the following information in selected business components:

• Field
• Row ID of the record being changed
• Operation being performed (Update/New/Delete/Copy)
• Original value
• Changed value
• User ID performing the operation
• Date and time the operation was performed

Audit Trail Constraints

The following cannot be audited:

• The underlying business component not derived from CSSBCBase. This is because Audit Trail's functionality resides only in business components of class CSSBCBase. The procedure To determine if a business component can be audited tells you how to determine whether or not a business component can be used in Audit Trail.
• Business components based on intersection tables.
• Virtual business components, because they are not derived from business components of class CSSBCBase.
• The merge action.
• Multivalue fields.
• Calculated fields. Typically, the value for a calculated field is derived from a table-based field. To audit a calculated field, you can audit the table-based field that was used to derive the calculated field.
• Record inserts, updates, and deletes performed through Enterprise Integration Manager (EIM), Assignment Manager or workflow policy actions (because these do not go through the Siebel Object Managers).

To determine if a business component can be audited

1. Launch Siebel Tools.
2. In the Object Explorer, navigate to the Business Component object type.
3. In the Object List Editor, select the business component.
4. In the Class field, look for CSSBCBase. If the class is CSSBCBase, the business component can be used for Audit Trail.

   CSSBCBase and CSSBusComp are the most basic class types. If there is a value in the Class field that is not CSSBCBase or CSSBusComp, then there is specialized functionality that has been written in C++ related to this class.

5. To see if this specialized class is related to CSSBCBase, drill down on the Class hyperlink.
6. In the Super Class field, look for CSSBCBase. If the class is not CSSBCBase, drill down on the Super Class hyperlink.

   If the Super Class is...	Then the business component...
   CSSBCBase	can be audited.
   CSSBusComp	cannot be audited.
   (blank)	cannot be audited.

   NOTE:  Repeat Step 6 until the Super Class field is either CSSBCBase, CSSBusComp, or blank.

Audit Trail for Siebel Remote and Siebel Replication Users

The following information applies to remote and replication users:

• Disconnected users can use Audit Trail as well as connected users. Audit Trail will stamp transactions with local machine time.
• Remote and replication users should not use file auditing mode, only database auditing mode.
• Audit trails are synchronized or replicated along with other data.
• If the transaction is rejected during the conflict resolution, the corresponding audit trail record is not discarded.

File Auditing and Database Auditing Modes

The following information applies to file auditing and database auditing modes:

• Database auditing writes transaction records directly to the database, while file auditing writes to the Siebel file system. You can later import these files into the database. (See To import audit trail items from a file into the Siebel database.) You can schedule import batch processes for these files using workflow processes. (See the ImportAll method in Table 12.)
• If you use file auditing mode, you have to import files into the database to have a comprehensive view and to be able to query for the information you need. Otherwise, you can view records only on a file-by-file basis.
• For systems in which every user is a connected user, file auditing mode yields better performance. Systems using Siebel Remote should use database auditing.
• Purging and archiving can be done at the database level.

Audit Trail Recovery in File Auditing Mode

When running in file auditing mode, instead of writing to the Siebel file system every time a new Audit Trail file is created, your Siebel application saves Audit Trail files to a file directory on the Object Manager to improve performance. When the Object Manager closes normally, these files are uploaded to the Siebel file system simultaneously.

If the Object Manager exits abnormally, Audit Trail keeps track of which files have been uploaded to the Siebel file system and which ones have not. The next time Audit Trail starts, any files that have not been uploaded are uploaded automatically.

Audit Trail Engine Business Service

The Audit Trail Engine business service is located in the Object Manager and stays active as long as the Object Manager is active. The purpose of the Audit Trail Engine business service is to capture changes (updates and deletes) to records and to store them in the designated format (database or Siebel file system, according to the audit trail mode selected). For the various data operations, if the auditing condition is met, the business component being audited triggers the Audit Trail Engine business service.

The methods listed in Table 12 are associated with the Audit Trail Engine business service. The Start, Stop, and ImportAll methods are accessible to an administrator and allow the performance of certain tasks.

Table 12.  Exposed Methods in the Audit Trail Engine Business Service

Method	Mode	Internal Use Only	Description
Start	Both		Starts the Audit Trail Engine.
Stop	Both		Stops the Audit Trail Engine.
ImportAll	File only		Imports all the associated Audit Trail Item business component records.
AddTrailEntry	Both	X	For the person specified, adds an audit trail entry to the pertinent data structure (unsaved audit list).
CommitTrail	Both	X	Removes the uncommitted elements from the unsaved list and puts them on the saved list, and writes to the database or file if the cache size has been reached.
CrashRecover	File only	X	Saves file from local system to the Siebel file system.
Kill Unsaved Trail	Both	X	Kills the unsaved audit trail; this happens on an UndoRecord.

The easiest way to use these methods is through a workflow process. If you want to stop or restart the Audit Trail Engine, create a new workflow process or reuse an existing one, and then create a business service node that implements the Stop method or the Start method. For more information about workflow processes, see Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide.

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