---
title: "Enabling Auditing"
slug: "enabling-auditing"
description: "This document shows how to configure the Decisions portal to enable and edit default auditing settings. Doing so will cause the system to audit transactions involving all entities. "
tags: ["Logging"]
updated: 2025-09-03T15:56:28Z
published: 2025-09-03T15:56:28Z
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://documentation.decisions.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Enabling Auditing

## Overview

Users may configure the **Portal** to enable default **Auditing**; this allows the System to audit transactions involving all **Entities**, such as Folders, Assets, and Tasks. Users can view an **Audit Report** by selecting an Entity and viewing the **Audit History**. Regarding the types of changes used for auditing, we use **MERGE SQL** commands whenever entities are saved to the database. The following list is changes used for auditing: Inserted, Updated, Deleted, Merge for data, Viewed for reports, Activity for logins/logouts, AD sync, module installation, password changes, import/export, and failed login attempts.

The examples below detail how to enable Auditing in the Portal and within Custom Data Structures.

System Audit Warning

System-level Auditing should be disabled when not needed. It will record large quantities of data, and can excessively fill up the audit_entity table.

---

## System Settings

1. From the **Designer Studio**, navigate to **System > Settings**.
2. Click **Auditing Settings**.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6ef8bcc1-6489-4486-9ad1-83acff7e5df0/Images/Documentation/2024-08-12_14h22_06.png)
3. From the **Edit Default Auditing** window, toggle the checkboxes for each desired **Audit**type under **Activity Auditing** and/or **Data Auditing**.

An Audit Type must be determined if Enable Auditing is selected under Data Auditing. In addition, when enabling Data auditing, this will not enable auditing at the system level and is required to record audit changes for a data structure. However, enabling any auditing action under**Activity Auditing**will enable auditing at the system level. This can lead to the audit_entity table filling rapidly and may lead to performance issues.

  

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6ef8bcc1-6489-4486-9ad1-83acff7e5df0/Images/Documentation/2024-08-12_14h26_27.png)
4. Under **Types To Audit**, click **ADD NEW**. Then, search for the data type or find it via the drop-down menu under **Type Name**. Click **OK**to save this choice.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6ef8bcc1-6489-4486-9ad1-83acff7e5df0/Images/Documentation/2024-08-12_14h28_03.png)
5. Under **SETTINGS**, select the desired **Process**setting.

| InTransaction | All the updates are stored in the same transaction. |
| --- | --- |
| Queued | The updates do not share the Transaction of the main update; they are updated quickly but in a different transaction. (If data integrity is primary, then doing InTransaction is best.) |
6. If desired, users may set the number of days that the Auditing Session's History Data is archived via the Auto Archive History after Days box.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6ef8bcc1-6489-4486-9ad1-83acff7e5df0/Images/Documentation/2024-08-12_14h29_09.png)
7. Click SAVE to save the Default Audit Settings. The System will now Audit the set Entity transactions automatically. Audited Data can be viewed by creating a Report that uses Audited Entities as its Data Source.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6ef8bcc1-6489-4486-9ad1-83acff7e5df0/Images/Documentation/2024-08-12_14h30_55.png)

---

## Custom Data Structures

Custom Data Structures can also be configured for Auditing.

1. From a **Designer Project**, right-click a pre-existing **Custom Data Structure**and select **Edit**or create a new Data Structure.
2. From the **ADVANCED**category in the Data Structure's **Properties**panel on the right, check the **Audit Changes**checkbox.

Any Create, Update, or Delete action taken against this Data Structure will now be recorded. A default Audit Report is made available to users under System > Administration > Auditing. The same information can be accessed by querying the audit_entity table on the Decisions database.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6ef8bcc1-6489-4486-9ad1-83acff7e5df0/Images/Documentation/2024-08-12_14h33_22.png)

---

## Activity Auditing

The below table covers the settings found when editing default audit settings.

| Setting | Description |
| --- | --- |
| Enable Audit for Report Executions | Viewing a Report will be recorded in the audit logs. |
| Enable Audit for User Login | User Logins will be recorded in the audit logs. |
| Enable Audit For Sessions | User Session creation and timeouts will be recorded in the audit logs. |
| Enable Audit for Log Settings | Any changes made to Log Settings from the portal will be recorded. |
| Enable Audit for Query Editor | Queries executed in the Query Editor will be recorded in the audit logs. |
| Enable Audit for Feature Installation | Installing features/modules will be recorded in the audit logs. |
| Enable Audit for Import Entities | Importing entities will be recorded in the audit logs. |
| Enable Audit for Export Entities | Exporting entities will be recorded in the audit logs. |

---

## Global Audit Report

The Global Audit Report can be found under **System -> Administration-> Auditing**. This Report shows all the audit records captured across the system.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6ef8bcc1-6489-4486-9ad1-83acff7e5df0/Images/Documentation/2024-08-12_14h34_31.png)

---

For further information on Settings, visit the [Decisions Forum](https://community.decisions.com/categories/Settings).