Learn about the Audit Trail feature

The Audit Trail feature enables review of changes to PI AF objects, and certain system and security settings.

Administrative privileges are required to turn on or off Audit Trail and view audit information.

See Audit Trail implementation for instructions on how to enable Audit Trail.

Note: Audit Trail requires the use of SQL Server Change Data Capture (CDC), which is a feature of Microsoft SQL Server. Audit Trail does not capture changes related to enabling or disabling the CDC table.

What is audited?

The following PI AF objects are tracked when Audit Trail is enabled:

• Element objects:

  • Databases

  • Elements

  • Static attribute values that are not data references

  • Analyses

  • Notifications

  • Models

• Event frame objects:

  • Event frames

  • Transfers

  • Cases

• Library objects:

  • Templates

  • Enumeration sets

  • Reference types

  • Tables and table connections

  • Categories

What user actions are audited?

The following user actions are recorded when Audit Trail is enabled:

• When an AF object is added, modified, or deleted. For example, when an object is renamed or when its description is changed.

• Changes to the security rights for a system collection, a database collection or an individual object.

• Changes to the UOM database. For example, adding a UOM.

• Changes to the AF Server. For example, turning on the Audit Trail feature or removing a plug-in.

• When the Audit Trail feature is turned on

• Changes to an AF security certificate (when a certificate is added, modified or deleted)

• When an AF plug-in is added or deleted

• When a trusted AF plug-in provider is added or deleted

• When an AF database is deleted

• When analyses, legacy notifications or notification rules are enabled or disabled

When Audit Trail is enabled, you can view changes that are tracked and also export or copy and paste audit records to a file. See Review changes with the Audit Trail utility for how to view and export audit trail information using PI System Explorer.