Audit Log

The ExFlow Audit Log is built on top of the standard Business Central Change Log to provide an enhanced, user friendly log of changes made to documents in ExFlow. When activated, the Audit Log tracks all changes made to a document from import to posting. View document changes in either a summary format based on invoice states and actions, or view changes in a detailed format that tracks changes at the field level.

Activate Audit Log

To Activate the Audit Log, search and go to ExFlow Audit Log Setup.

ExFlow Audit Log Setup
Change Log Activated	Displays whether the standard Business Central Change Log is currently active or not.
Audit Log Template	Specifies the Audit Log Template that will be applied to the Change Log.
Period DateFormula	Specifies the date formula used to determine how old entries must be before they are removed by the "Delete Expired Entries" action.
Change Log Setup	Opens the standard Business Central Change Log Setup page, used to activate/deactivate change logging.
Audit Log Templates	Opens the list of Audit Log Templates.
Apply Template	Re-applies the selected Audit Log Template to the Change Log setup.
Delete Expired Entries	Deletes Audit Log entries older than the specified Period DateFormula.

In the ExFlow Audit Log Setup page:

• Select an Audit Log Template (see more information about audit log templates below)

• In the ribbon, click on “Change Log Setup”
  
  
  

• In the Change Log Setup page, toggle on “Change Log Activated”
  

The configuration in the selected Audit Log Template will be applied to the standard Business Central Change log. To view the applied change log configuration, in the Change Log Setup page, first click on “More options” then select Actions --> Setup --> Other --> Tables.

Audit Log Templates

An Audit Log template defines the tables and fields that will be tracked in ExFlow Audit Log. A default template “BASE” will be available for use, but additional custom templates may be created. Open the BASE template to see tables and fields included:

• Search on and go to “ExFlow Audit Log Templates”.

• In the ExFlow Audit Log Template list, click on the Code to open the template.

The “BASE” template cannot be changed but it can be copied to create a custom template.

Create a custom Template

To create a custom Template, the Base template must first be copied, then changes can be made to the newly created template.

• Open the “Base” Template
• Select “Copy Template” on the ribbon.
  
  

• Enter a New Template Name and a description.
  
  

• Open the newly created template.
  To log changes to all fields in a listed table, Toggle on the “Log All Fields” option.
  

To select certain fields to be logged:

Select the desired table, making sure the “Log All Fields” option is unchecked, then update the “Fields” section (lower portion of screen) as needed:
To add a field, click on “New Line” then select the desired field on the newly created line.
To remove a field, select the desired field then click on “Delete Line”.

To start using the custom template, go back to ExFlow Audit Log Setup, select the new template in the “Audit Log Template” field, then click “Change Log Setup” again so the tables and fields from the new template are applied.

Good to know: Turning on “Log All Fields” for many tables, or tracking a large number of fields, can create a lot of log entries over time. Only track the fields that are actually needed to keep the log easy to read and to limit the amount of data stored.

Monitor and Notify Fields

Each field line also has two additional options that tie the field into Business Central's standard Sensitive Field Monitoring feature, on top of the normal Audit Log tracking:

• Monitor Field – Flags the field as a monitored/sensitive field in Business Central. Changes to the field are then also recorded in the standard Field Monitoring log (Monitored Field Log Entries) and reported through telemetry, in addition to the normal Audit Log/Change Log entry. Use this for fields containing sensitive data, such as bank account numbers or approver assignments.

• Notify – When enabled together with “Monitor Field”, the recipient configured on Business Central's Field Monitoring Setup page receives an email notification whenever the field's value changes. This requires that email and Field Monitoring Setup (recipient and sending account) are already configured in Business Central; otherwise no notification is sent.

View the Audit Log for an ExFlow Document

Go to: ExFlow Approval Status History --> Related --> Audit Log

After a document has been posted, the audit log is accessible from the Approval Status History. At this point in the process, all actions from import through posting will be visible in the Summary View and all field level changes can be viewed from the Detailed View.

The Audit Log will be opened in Summary View, listing the document actions that have occurred since the document was imported (imported, verified, matched to receipt, etc.) with a date and time stamp indicating when the action occurred. The Area indicates where the document was in the ExFlow process when the action occurred.

The information in this view can be exported to Excel by selecting the “Export to Excel” action in the ribbon.

To view all standard Business Central change log entries for a single action line, drill down on the line by clicking on any field value in the line. If there were no changes recorded for the action, a “No changes found.” message will be displayed.

To see all changes made to the document, from the Summary View page, click on Detailed View --> View Full Document.

The Detailed View --> View Area will list all fields segregated into sections as follows:

• Header
  
• Lines
  
• Approvers
  

Each field will be presented as a separate line with columns that show all changes made to the field next to the action the change was related to. The most recent changes will be shown in the columns on the left. To view prior changes, scroll to the right to view additional columns. If there are a significant number of changes, click on Next Set to view additional changes.

In the example shown below, we can see that the most recent change (at 10:34:53 AM on 6/29/23) was made by user KONNIE:

• The approver was changed from SAM to MARK (see “Approver” row in screenshot below)
• The original approver (SAM) was assigned by the Approval Rule MARKETING (see “Added from Approval Rule” row in screenshot below)
• The new approver (MARK) was manually assigned by user KONNIE (see “Created In” row in screenshot below)

Note: The original value is shown on the left of the arrow and the new value is shown on the right.

Delete Expired Entries

Go to: ExFlow Audit Log Setup --> Delete Expired Entries

Similar to standard functionality, it is possible to enter a Period DateFormula in Audit Log Setup, to use when deleting old audit log entries.

For this example, seven years is added, and ExFlow Audit log entries older than seven year will be deleted when utilizing this function.

Audit Log in Approval Status History

Go to: ExFlow Approval Status History --> Related --> Audit Log

Once a document is posted, the Audit Log group under Related on the Approval Status History page gives quick access to the change and approval history for that document, without having to open the Detailed View described above. This is a convenient shortcut for investigating an already known posted document.

Action	Description
Audit Log	Opens the same Audit Log Summary/Detailed View described above, showing every action and field-level change recorded for the document. Useful for seeing exactly what was changed, and by whom.
Document Approval History	Generates a PDF showing the document together with its approval history. Useful for creating a printable or shareable record of who approved the document, for example for an external audit.
Document Approval Flow	Runs a report showing the approvers the document went through, in order. Useful for getting a quick overview of the approval flow for the document.
Document Approval Flow with Approval Rule	Same as “Document Approval Flow”, but also shows which Approval Rule added each approver. Useful for understanding why a specific approver was added to the document.