Troubleshooting
Problem
The user can configure the Audit Trail by clicking "Maintain - System Audit Log - Configuration". User is presented with a menu of choices. What do these mean?
Symptom
Configuration
- Enable tracking of structure change details for System Audit Log > Reports
- Enable tracking of data change details for Audit Trail and Financial Analytics Publisher
- Delete data change details older than (days) [Delete]
Cause
The following information is copied from the on-line help:
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Audit Trail
In IBM® Cognos® Controller, it is possible to trace selected structure and data changes. This function makes it possible to see changes made on both an overview level and further in detail. You can also analyze the data changes both by function and user.
Configure Audit Trail
You can track structure and data changes using the audit trail functionality, and then search and view the changes in System Audit Log > Reports, or in System Audit Log > Browse. To do this you must enable the tracking of structure and data changes.
Audit Trail
In IBM® Cognos® Controller, it is possible to trace selected structure and data changes. This function makes it possible to see changes made on both an overview level and further in detail. You can also analyze the data changes both by function and user.
Configure Audit Trail
You can track structure and data changes using the audit trail functionality, and then search and view the changes in System Audit Log > Reports, or in System Audit Log > Browse. To do this you must enable the tracking of structure and data changes.
- Note: To enable the system audit log, you have set the system to single user mode.
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Enabling the tracking of structure changes
The audit trail of structure changes is disabled by default. To enable the audit trail you have to enable the tracking of structure change details.
The audit trail of structure changes is disabled by default. To enable the audit trail you have to enable the tracking of structure change details.
Steps:
- Click Maintain > System Audit Log > Configuration
- Select the Enable tracking of structure change details for System Audit Log > Reports check box.
- Click OK.
=> The structure tracking is enabled, and any changes are logged in the Maintain > System Audit Log > Browse window. Details for these changes are logged in the Maintain > Reports window.
- Note: Structure change details are always logged for Allocations, UDBR, Jobs and Subsets.
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Enabling the tracking of data changes
The audit trail of data changes is disabled by default. To enable the audit trail you have to enable the tracking of data change details.
The audit trail of data changes is disabled by default. To enable the audit trail you have to enable the tracking of data change details.
Steps:
- Click Maintain > System Audit Log > Configuration.
- Select the Enable tracking of data change details for Audit Trail and Financial Analytics Publisher check box.
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Deleting data change details
Data change details should be deleted regularly to keep the Controller database from getting too big.
- Note: This action puts a high load on the database server, so it is best to delete the data change details often and at a time when the system is not busy.
- Click Maintain > System Audit Log > Configuration.
- Enter the number of days of data details you want to keep.
- Click Delete.
Resolving The Problem
Question 1 - Does the option "Delete data change details older than (days)" delete the 'data change' information (data-change metadata) or does it also delete the 'structure change' information (structure-change metadata)?
Question 4 - Is it possible for to manually delete the data (outside of the Controller client GUI) ?
- Answer: It only deletes the 'data change' information (not structure changes)
- For more information on deleting 'structure change' information, see separate IBM Technote #6217598.
Question 2 - Do I need all other users off the system (downtime) to delete this data?
- Answer: Yes. To use this button, you need to be in 'single user mode'.
Question 3 - Is there any other supported method to delete this data (e.g. running a SQL script), other than using this button?
- Answer: No. The only supported method is to use the relevant button (inside the Controller GUI).
Question 4 - Is it possible for to manually delete the data (outside of the Controller client GUI) ?
- Answer: It is *possible* to delete the data manually, but (again) remember this is NOT officially supported by IBM.
- This button deletes data from the database table "xdbtrickle". This table is used by FAP.
- This "Delete data change details older than (days)" button deletes data older than 24 hours (1 day). Recent (last 24 hours) data is used by FAP.
- Therefore, if the customer wrote/ran a script that deleted all the data (including the last 24 hour's data) then this could potentially cause problems (if someone is working with FAP and all of a sudden all that data used by the FAP service is gone).
Question 5 - Does the option "Delete data change details older than (days)" delete the data automatically?
For example, if I set it to be '30', then does it automatically delete data (older than 30 days) in the background (with no user intervention)?
- Answer: No. This is a manual process. Data is only deleted when a user manually clicks the 'Delete' button.
Related Information
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Document Information
Modified date:
28 May 2020
UID
swg21573278