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Administering Oracle CRM On Demand > Application Customization > Record Type Application Customization Page > About the Information in Modified Fields on Records

About the Information in Modified Fields on Records

Oracle CRM On Demand uses the following system fields to store information about the most recent change to a record:

• Modified External
• Modified: Date
• Modified By
• Modified: Date External

In certain cases, Oracle CRM On Demand writes information to one or more of these fields to reflect a change to the record that is not caused by an explicit user action. For this reason, it is recommended that you do not rely on the information in these fields to track the changes that users make to records. Instead, use the audit trail feature to track the changes that users make to specific fields on records. For information about customizing the audit trail for record types, see Customizing the Audit Trail. For information about viewing the changes to field setup, roles, and access profiles, see Reviewing the Audit Trail for Administration Configuration Changes.

The following is an example of a system change to the Modified By field on a record. A user deletes an account that is linked to a contact record as the primary account for the contact. When the deleted account record is purged from the database, the link between the deleted account and the contact is removed from the database. After the link is removed from the database, the next time that the contact record is opened by any user, Oracle CRM On Demand selects another linked account as the primary account on the contact and writes the ID of the account to the primary account field. Or, if there are no accounts linked to the contact, then Oracle CRM On Demand updates the record to reflect that. Oracle CRM On Demand then updates the Modified By field with the name of the user who opened the contact record.

In addition, in the case of records that are owned by a group, the information in the system fields on the record might be updated automatically after a user is deleted from the group. If the name of the user who is deleted from the group appears in the Owner field on a shared record that the group owns, then the name in the Owner field on that record is changed to the name of another member of the group after the previous owner is deleted from the group. When such a change is made to the ownership of an opportunity record or a portfolio record, the system fields that store information about the most recent change to the record are updated, and the information shows that the record was updated by the Oracle Administrator user. However, in the case of the other record types that support groups, the system fields are not updated. For all record types that support groups, the change to the Owner field on the shared record is not tracked in the audit trail when the field is changed as a result of the user being deleted from the group, even if the Owner field is set up to be audited for the record type.

The Modified By field on a record can also show the name of a user who does not have the necessary access rights and privileges to update the record directly. For example, when the status of a user is changed from Active to Inactive or from Inactive to Active, the values in the Active Users and Inactive Users fields on the Company Profile page are updated. As a result of the changes to these fields, the Modified By field on the Company Profile page is updated to show the name of the user who updated the user record, even if the user who made that change does not have the necessary privilege to update the company profile.