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Impact of Configuration Changes on Audit Trails

The impact of changes in the audit settings varies depending on the specific circumstances. The issues typically arise when changes made to audit settings are implemented at runtime without requiring all users to exit the system (LN). As a result, some users may continue to generate audit trails using the old configuration, while those who log in after the changes take effect will create audit trails based on the new configuration.

Changes in User Profiles

Below is a summary table that illustrates the effects of these changes for a specific table within a company:

Companies are developing procedures for entering data into an ERP system and for archiving manuals, drawings, specs, and other hard-copy documents. However, in many cases there is no defined procedures to store historical electronic data. Archiving electronic data should be an integral part of your business processes. 

Generally, archiving is the process of moving historical data from the operational environment to a special archive environment. At home, you might move old bank statements from a closet in your study to a box in the attic. At the office, you might store old hard copies of purchase orders in a room far from your own desk. Just because you no longer need the information in your daily work, does not mean you can dispose of the information. In terms of electronic data in your ERP system, archiving means moving historic data from the operational company to a special archive company; in that way, the historic data will be out of your way and safely stored. To free up disk space on your machine after you have archived the data, you can also move the historic data to an external medium.

Archiving strategy:

To utilize the Security Rules Optimization feature, a system administrator can assign security codes to 100 pre-defined user groups. User groups are created in the Group Security Maintenance (SYS603) program. All users assigned to this group possess the same level of security.   

A system administrator can assign security codes for up to 100 of the user groups. All user groups over 100 are still administered by all security reject/allow rules assigned to them but are not able to utilize the optimized process. 

Each of the security codes and access levels are assigned to user groups and are mapped to the account strings and stored in the Account Cross Reference (CEA106D1) file.   

Once security codes have been assigned, the system administrator must: 

• Determine which level each group is allowed access.

• Determine which segment values/account strings are assigned to which user groups.

• Create security rules for specific segment values/account strings and assign these groups to the created rules.

• Select the rules to be processed.  Processing can be done in either batch mode or interactively.

• The Security Rules flag must be on in the CEA Control Parameters program before any rules are effective. 

The audit server logs all database actions that change the contents of a table in so-called audit files. The Exchange module can use these audit files, which are useful in a multisite environment because the databases on all sites must have identical data. These audit files can also be used in data conversions.

Only the updates in a specific period are exchanged, which leads to an improvement in performance. Specify this period in the Export Data (Non-Regular) (daxch0233m000) and Export Data (on a Regular Basis) (daxch0234m000) sessions. Changes such as insert, update, and delete are processed and written into the ASCII files. Actions such as drop, clear, and create tables are ignored.

Audit control data is added to the resulting ASCII file. This data consists of a batchline ID, transaction ID, sequence ID, and an indicator. The control data is added at the beginning of each line and is formatted like other data fields such as the enclosing and separator characters.

An update writes two lines to the ASCII file. One line contains the key fields and old values of the updated fields. The other line contains the new values of the key fields and updated fields, even if a key field does not change.

The batchline ID is used for recognition when processing the ASCII files. The transaction and sequence IDs are used to ensure that the transactions are replayed in the same order as on the exporting site. The indicator defines the type of action that is executed on the table. Use the letter I to insert; use the letter D to delete; use the letter U to update with old values; and use the letter N to update with new values.

This feature resolves or resets a purchase order or requisition that is no longer being processed, but the system still indicates it is 'in use'. The user selects Purchase Order/Requisition in Use Maintenance, PUR940D, from the Purchasing Management Menu, PUR, located in the Special Processing sub-menu. The user then enters an order or requisition to remove the 'In Use' status.