Track and Audit Record Changes in Dataverse

Understanding Audit Changes to Records in the Power Platform Environment

Author: Lewis Baybutt [MVP]

In the blog post, Lewis guides us through the process of enabling auditing in a Power Platform environment to observe changes made to records within the environment. More Details here.

To audit changes on a table level, one needs to access the Power Platform Admin Centre and navigate to 'environments' to find the appropriate audit environment. Subsequently, focus should be given to manage the auditing box, the second larger box from the top, titled ‘auditing’ to get started.

Next, the post outlines the various options available around auditing. This includes activating the option to start auditing and making decisions on the duration of log retention. It is crucial to note, for large scale changes on records by users, indefinite log retention might incur vast storage costs. The choice, however, remains in the user's hand.

Once auditing is enabled for a chosen environment, the next step is to activate it on the tables according to need. The author points out this step with the help of a table named 'Calculations Table' as an example, reiterating the importance of a good naming convention.

In conclusion, auditing provides insights into changes made on specific records within the table and even pinpoints the person who made the change. Lewis assures that this post is a comprehensive guide to getting started with auditing changes in the Power Platform environment and also encourages users to reach out for further assistance if needed.

• Enabling auditing in the Power platform environment
• Managing audit log retention period
• Customizing table properties for auditing
• Viewing recorded audit changes

About Microsoft's Power Platform

Microsoft's Power Platform

The Power Platform, provided by Microsoft, is an integral part of modern business ecosystems. It allows businesses to analyze, act, and automate data across their organization to achieve productivity. Businesses would want to ensure that the data changes are accurately tracked. Auditing is one of the techniques to ensure the robustness of data quality in such a vital environment. It allows tracking of all changes made to records, enabling transparency and accountability within the system. This becomes exceptionally beneficial when significant changes are being made.

Read the full article Audit changes to records in Dataverse

Learn about Audit changes to records in Dataverse

The auditing function in Microsoft Dataverse – the low-code, high power data platform from Microsoft – plays a crucial role in recording and tracking changes to an environment. In this guide, you will learn how to use auditing in your Power Platform environment, and specifically, how to monitor changes made to your table records in this database environment.

Here are some key steps on how to enable auditing in a Power Platform environment, a prerequisite for auditing changes at the table level. Firstly, navigate to the Power Platform Admin Centre at admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com. Click on environments and select the one in which auditing is to be enabled.

• You will see several options on the environment page, including access to settings and viewing the available resources. However, our area of interest is the box titled 'auditing’.
• Next, click on 'manage' from the 'auditing' box to explore the various auditing options.
• Activate the auditing option, and you're done setting up.

Your next decisions involve setting up how long to retain logs, bearing in mind the impact on storage space in the dataverse environment. Factors such as the number of users and the frequency of changes need to be considered. It's critical to strike a balance.

Once auditing is enabled in the environment, it can be activated on the tables of interest. This actionable guide chooses a table from a blog post about Power Fx Columns as an example. The first step requires heading to the unmanaged solution to make the table customisation. Open the table and select 'properties'.

The properties pane that appears will have an advanced settings option. Here, you should check the box marked 'audit changes to its data' under 'for this table', effectively enabling auditing on that table.

Having saved these changes and published all customisations in the solution, all that remains is knowing where to view these changes in an app. Navigate to a record on the table, and you can access the changes made via the 'Audit History'.

The Audit History displays all modifications made, the type of event, and even the user who executed the changes. The auditing function thus makes it easy to keep track of recent and older changes, making it invaluable to the Power Platform environment.

Hopefully, implementing these steps to enable auditing and subsequently viewing changes to records will be a smooth and high-impact process. If there are remaining questions or challenges, don't hesitate to ask for more clarification. Enjoy the power of auditing in your database systems!

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