User and Record History/Audit Trail

Maintenance Connection maintains a history of user activity and changes made to data, providing two features that allow you to view this history:

• Record History: The History button in each module provides access to the history of changes made to individual records. This feature provides the most expedient method to gain quick access to history from the perspective of the individual record. For example, all changes made to a specific work order.

  Upon initially accessing the feature, changes made to the currently selected record are displayed. Options allow you to expand the filter to view all records from the current module.

• User History: The User History feature, accessible from the Tools menu, provides a history of user activity in both modules and reports. This feature provides the most expedient method to gain quick access to history from the perspective of the user. User History can be filtered to find records by user, module, or date range.

Two preferences work in tandem to determine how audit history is retained and how much is retained. The default setting stores a history of 500,000 record changes, maximum.

Set the audit history preferences:

1. Select the Tools > Preferences from the Main Menu.

   The Preferences window opens.

2. Click the System folder in the Module/Category menu on the left.

   The page refreshes, displaying system preferences.

3. In the Settings category of preferences, select the Audit History Retention Method preference.

   The Set Preference window opens.

4. From the Current Value dropdown field, choose one of two retention methods:

   • Time Base (in months): This option retains record change history for a specified period of time

   • Record Based: This option retains history on a specified number of record changes

5. Click Apply.

   The Set Preference window closes and the changes are highlighted in the Preferences window.

6. Select the Audit History Retention Value preference.

   The Set Preference dialog box appears.

7. Input the desired value into the Current Value field.

   Based on the retention method chosen in the Audit History Retention Method preference, you can choose one of the following:

   • For a time-based retention method, specify the number of months to retain record change history.

   • For a record-based retention method, specify the number of record changes to retain.

   The maximum values allowed for retaining audit history data are either 120 months or 100 million record changes. Specifying a value higher than these maximums results in the system retaining the maximum values. Keep in mind that this control determines which audit records are kept. Setting this value too low could result in loss of audit data.

8. Click Apply.

   The Set Preference window closes and the changes are highlighted in the Preferences window.