Alternatives to MSZnnn audit reports

[Raife]

We have turned on MIMS auditing for some systems administration, supplier and HR/payroll files, 53 files in total. We are using some of the related MSZnnn RDL report programs.

We are finding the output reports very voluminous and not very appropriate for keeping for a year in case there is a need to look back that far. They are not well formatted for automated searching.

We are looking for an alternative form of output from MSF034. Our best idea so far is a flat file with one record per new, changed or deleted field - able to be searched with a text editor - able to be loaded into M/S Excel and sorted, filtered and searched by file, field, date or userid.

I modified MSZ203 to give what we want - nearly a day's work and 52 MSZs to go!

Is there a variation of GENAUD or MSGENAUD that will generate programs that then produce flat files such as described?

Clever ideas for maintaining and processing audit data?

 

[oz1]

Rafie
We too had the same problems as you did. We have modified GENAUD to produce a flat file and at the end added a changed field which identifies the field names when the before and after fields do not match.
We have also developed a process to FTP these csv files from the MIMS Unix box to a fileserver and have set this up as a automatic monthly process.
Another change is that when the Audit reports are run, the users has an option to clean up the reported records from MSF034. This is a lot better solution than the Mincom supplied on which requires you dump all or none from MSF034.
If you want more details let me know.

 

[Calator]

We have customised all of the audit reports MSZ* for the same reasons as you described, while leaving the Mincom procedures unchanged. You will find that depending on the audited file, the changes to MSZ may range from minor to major re-writes.

Your idea of producing flat files instead of audit reports is quite clever!

 

[CindyMCC]

We have taken the same approach as Calator and have left the base processes the same, but customized reports. In some cases - for example price changes, we combine the audit results from more than one MIMS table to be able to see the entire effect of what was done, i.e. was a price change made just to the purchase order or also the permanent vendor pricing while screening out non-essential field changes from printing at all.

The audit feature is really great in adding a lot of useful information to help you monitor what is going on and cross check to be sure significant changes were made as they were intended, but it has so far required considerable customization to get the process in place. This would be an excellent place to look at some core changes.

 

[Raife]

oz1
I am particularly interested in your modified GENAUD.
Any related information you can provide would be very gratefully received.
Are you able to post source code to the forum?