Field Audit Trail Overview

The Field Audit Trail (FAT) makes it possible to track changes having been made to the database fields, when the changes were made, what the previous value was and which user made the change.

The FAT solution consists of these components:

• FAT Server

• FAT Manager

• The M3 BE program SES121

The FAT Server is running on the same physical server as M3 Foundation. One instance of the FAT Server is installed for every M3 BE environment. It is not dependent on the running state of M3 BE. If the FAT Server is shutdown by any reason, auditing trailing will continue to work as usual. However, the FAT Manager and SES121 will stop functioning.

The FAT Server is responsible for creating audits upon requests from the FAT Manager. It is also responsible for returning metadata on the audits as well as the data for field changes. The FAT Server uses a dedicated database schema in the M3 BE database where audit metadata is contained.

The schema is automatically created when installing the M3 BE environment from LifeCycle Manager.

The FAT Manager is the tool to use to create, modify or view audits of M3 BE and is a part of the M3 Foundation delivery. To save new or modified audits the M3 BE environment must be set to maintenance mode.

For more information about the FAT Manager, see M3 BE LifeCycle Manager User Guide.

The M3 BE program SES121 requests field data changes from the FAT Server. By clicking F9 on an audited field in any M3 BE program you can display changes for the selected field.