CFR 21 Part 11 Q/A ....

DBohner-(db)

Legendary Poster
Howdy,

I'm at a client that currently has CFR 21 Part 11 turned on for several tables. I've been asked to turn on auditing for a couple more table/columns....

I've been through the guide, several times, and my overly cautious mind keeps missing to grasp a step or two.

Paraphrased from the CFR 21 Admin Guide:
3.3.2
Fast Path P9500003
1 'Work with Audit Table', Click Add
2 On Audit Table Setup Director, "Next"
3 On Table Selection Form, Select Table, then "Next"
4 On Audit Table Information Form, make changes if necessary, then "Next" (this opens TDA in Audit Mode)
5 In TDA (Audit Mode), move the columns you want audited to the Columns Pane
6 In TDA (Audit Mode), you can right click columns in the Columns pane and turn on/off the 'Trigger'
7 Click Save, then Close in TDA (Audit Mode)
8 On the Work with Audit Table Configurations form, click "End"
9 Restart all Servers / Clients
?? Do we really need to restart, yet?

Note: The Audit Table is created in your Default Project.

*** Check-In the Audit Table
P9500003, Select Table, "Check In" row exit

*** Enable Auditing for Table (only for an environment that already has Auditing 'Enabled')
10 P9500003, Select Table
11 Row Exit, "Select Enable DB Auditing"
12 Restart all servers and clients


So, the questions:
A - Do we have to bounce All Servers / Clients (All Environments associated with 'System')? Or, is bouncing an environment sufficient?
B - What 'Generates' the Audit (A*) table? Does enabling it generate it or does the Developer / CNC have to Generate it via TDA?
C - Are Native Database Triggers being used (the documentation says 'yes', but it's not validated by the user community).
D - If the users decide to audit more columns on an already audited table, will the 'history' be wiped out during the revision process?
E - Do we Promote the Audit Table through environments?

What else have I forgotten?

(db)
 
Responses in Blue

So, the questions:
A - Do we have to bounce All Servers / Clients (All Environments associated with 'System')? Or, is bouncing an environment sufficient?

<font color="blue"> Just the environment should be sufficient. So if you were doing this in DV , just the DV web Server and Enterprise Server, assuming they are different from your production </font>



B - What 'Generates' the Audit (A*) table? Does enabling it generate it or does the Developer / CNC have to Generate it via TDA?

<font color="blue"> Enabling auditing on a table will create the actual A table on the back end. Disabling does not remove it though </font>

C - Are Native Database Triggers being used (the documentation says 'yes', but it's not validated by the user community).

<font color="blue"> Yes it creates native DB triggers on the table that is being audited. The triggers are on the _ADT table though. The underlying architecture of a table being audited is as below. If you are going audit the F0101, then it renames the original F0101 as F0101_ADT , this ADT table has some audit columns added to the end of the table. A view called F0101 is created which is based on the F0101_ADT table. The native DB triggers are added on the F0101_ADT table. The trigger code writes the before and after snapshots of the records to the A0101 table. </font>

D - If the users decide to audit more columns on an already audited table, will the 'history' be wiped out during the revision process?
<font color="blue"> No , it maintains the history. It appends new columns to the end of the A table. Those columns will not have any values for records that already exist </font>

E - Do we Promote the Audit Table through environments?
<font color="blue"> Yes the A objects can be promoted through OMW like a normal object. If setting up a new table you also have to remember to copy the audit configuration to the J environment assuming you are on 8.11 or higher. When enabling auditing on a table in a higher environment , the corresponding A object for that table should be present in that pathcode and also the specs should be available locally on that machine </font>
 
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