database changes report or audit log?

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bookkeeper-sheila
Posts: 64
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 4:29 pm
Location: Switzerland, FL

database changes report or audit log?

Post by bookkeeper-sheila »

The system administrator at our church would like to know if there is a way in PC+ to see who made updates to any database and what they updated since the last job was run. The problem is knowing who changed profiles or payables, in case something was typed in error.

The request is for a report that prints which user did it and when, the original data in the field, the new info in the field, and even the last time the field was changed since initial setup. Does this exist somewhere in a utility or in the membership module? It would be some sort of audit log, I would guess.

What we are trying to do is monitor the volunteers that come in to help us with attendance, or the occasional helper for contribution data-entry, as well as make sure we are doing our own tasks correctly.

An example would be that we have 5 smith families in our church. Right now, we do not know of a way to double-check ourselves to see if we have indeed changed the correct family (birthdays or phone number, etc.). If this update/audit-log could be run, we could have a history of these changes, should something be found later to be in error.

Any ideas or suggestions out there? Does anyone do this with a custom report or something? Thanks for listening!
Bookkeeper-Sheila
Switzerland Community Church

NeilZ
Posts: 10209
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
Contact:

Re: database changes report or audit log?

Post by NeilZ »

bookkeeper-sheila wrote:The system administrator at our church would like to know if there is a way in PC+ to see who made updates to any database and what they updated since the last job was run. The problem is knowing who changed profiles or payables, in case something was typed in error.

The request is for a report that prints which user did it and when, the original data in the field, the new info in the field, and even the last time the field was changed since initial setup. Does this exist somewhere in a utility or in the membership module? It would be some sort of audit log, I would guess.

What we are trying to do is monitor the volunteers that come in to help us with attendance, or the occasional helper for contribution data-entry, as well as make sure we are doing our own tasks correctly.

An example would be that we have 5 smith families in our church. Right now, we do not know of a way to double-check ourselves to see if we have indeed changed the correct family (birthdays or phone number, etc.). If this update/audit-log could be run, we could have a history of these changes, should something be found later to be in error.

Any ideas or suggestions out there? Does anyone do this with a custom report or something? Thanks for listening!
There's an audit system for Funds Accounting, and for overall System Changes, but nothing in the Membership area right now. I suspect that would involve a lot of overhead in the currrent system.

I do believe that is in the wishlist for future versions.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

pbumc
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:28 pm
Location: San Diego, CA

Re: database changes report or audit log?

Post by pbumc »

Eleven years later, I'm looking for the same feature in PC 11.55.

Or at a minimum, an indication of Last Update By and Last Update At (timestamp) for the Family and Personal records. I'd make these fields visible on all tabs but not editable, probably left justified in the bottom margin, at the same height as the Save/Cancel buttons. (It looks like the Family record has an Updated field but it's editable, not an auditing field.)

We've on our third PowerChurch admin in a year and it's becoming quite a challenge to figure out who has done what!
Mark Berry

NeilZ
Posts: 10209
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
Contact:

Re: database changes report or audit log?

Post by NeilZ »

pbumc wrote:
Wed Aug 12, 2020 5:47 pm
Eleven years later, I'm looking for the same feature in PC 11.55.

Or at a minimum, an indication of Last Update By and Last Update At (timestamp) for the Family and Personal records. I'd make these fields visible on all tabs but not editable, probably left justified in the bottom margin, at the same height as the Save/Cancel buttons. (It looks like the Family record has an Updated field but it's editable, not an auditing field.)

We've on our third PowerChurch admin in a year and it's becoming quite a challenge to figure out who has done what!
Always better to start a new topic. A post to an 11 year old topic is often dismissed as a spam post.

V12.x has a Membership Audit Log which lists what user did changes. Time to upgrade?
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

pbumc
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:28 pm
Location: San Diego, CA

Re: database changes report or audit log?

Post by pbumc »

Thanks, I'll look into v. 12!
Mark Berry

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