The Audit Trail is a cool little security feature in Estimator that allows you to monitor the
changes made to a job in real time, from the date of your choice or from the date the job was created. It is a running log of every change, including the type of change, the affected bid items, the date and time the change was made and by whom. It also tells you the old value before anything was changed, the new value, and the overall change to the system.
SETTING UP AN AUDIT
To begin auditing your active job, go to the Security menu and click Audit Trail. This opens the Job Audit Trail Options window, which shows you the job’s bid date and time, its current total, and provides different options for setting up the audit.
The easiest way to start an audit is by clicking on the green Start auditing at current date and time button to the right of the Time field. If you wish to begin on a future day and time, then you can use the calendar and clock tools to make your selection.
However, you can just set it and forget it by telling Estimator to begin auditing your jobs the moment they are created.
Simply go to the Defaults menu > Preferences > Settings window and click the Start Audit Trail when new job is created check box.
VIEW AUDIT TRAIL ACTIVITY
Once you have begun an audit, you can monitor any changes to the job by opening the Job Audit Trail Options window and clicking the View Activity button in the lower left corner. This opens the Audit Trail Activity window, which displays all of the changes made to the job from the date the audit was initiated.
SET REFRESH RATE
From the Options menu, you can set the system to refresh the window at a specified interval, which is useful when you need to monitor the work of multiple users in real time.
The Sort by tabs at the top of the table allow you to sort the data by user ID, date and time, or by item code, and you can use the Jump to date field to view activity for a specific day. From the toolbar you can use the Filter button to narrow down the table information according to date range, computer name, item package, data file name or overall change.
If needed, you can export the activity data to a spreadsheet by clicking Export to Excel in the window’s context menu (check out our Excel Import/Export blog).
When you click on a line in the table, the panel at the bottom of the window displays the data specific to that entry, including file name, computer name, bid item code and description, and cost change.
SET UP A SOLUTION PRESENTATION...
The Audit Trail is just one of the many cool features that come standard with SharpeSoft Estimator. To learn more set up a free on line demonstration.
TIP: To learn how to protect your jobs from unwanted changes, see: Protect Your Job Information From Unauthorized Changes