Audit Trails

An audit trail is a detailed analysis of all changes that are made to reports or report objects. CDM supports blacklining. The Audit Trail feature records every submission to the CDM database, along with the user name and the date of submission.

You can use an audit trail to view a list of all changes submitted by users for a report object. You can also view a version of a report object in the application it was created in, or compare two versions of Word or Excel objects.

View an Audit Trail

You can create an audit trail for a report object in CDM, and use the audit trail to view a list of all changes for the report object.

1. Open the report that you want to work with.
2. In the report tree on the left, double-click to open the report object that you want to create an audit trail for.
3. In the Report Object tab on the ribbon, click Object Audit Trail. The Report Object Audit window opens.
4. You can perform several types of tasks with the data:
   • To view report object versions in the application they were created in, select a version of the report object and click View.
   • To compare two versions of Excel or Word objects, select two versions of the report object and click Compare.
   • To copy the data into Microsoft Excel for further analysis, click Export to Microsoft Excel.

View Versions of a Report Object

You can view versions of a report object in CDM in the application that the report object was created in.

1. Open the report that you want to work with.
2. Open the report object that you want to view versions of.
3. In the Report Object tab on the ribbon, click Object Audit Trail.
4. In the Report Object Audit window, select a version of the report object and click View. The report object opens in the application that it was created in.

Compare Two Versions of a Report Object

You can use the audit trail from an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint object to compare two versions of the object in CDM.

1. Open the report that you want to work with.
2. Open the Excel, Word, or PowerPoint object that you want compare versions for.
3. In the Report Object tab on the ribbon, click Object Audit Trail.
4. In the Report Object Audit window, click the two versions that you want to compare while pressing the CTRL key.
5. Click Compare. The comparison works differently depending on what type of report object you are comparing.
   • If you are comparing two Word objects, the two versions open in a comparison view within a single instance of Microsoft™ Word.
   • If you are comparing Excel object versions or PowerPoint object versions, click Open Containing Folder to find the two versions of the Excel files and open the files for comparison. Alternatively, click Open Documents and the two versions will open in separate instances of Microsoft Excel.

Restore Version from Audit for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Objects

You can use an audit trail to restore an earlier version of all changes for a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint report object in a report in CDM. When you restore an earlier version it becomes your working copy. All versions still exist in the CDM database and can also be restored as required.

To restore a report object version from an audit trail:

1. Open the report that you want to work with.
2. Open the Excel, Word, or PowerPoint object of which you want to restore an earlier version.
3. Click Object Audit Trail in the Report Object tab on the ribbon.
4. In the Report Object Audit window, select an audit version and click View to identify it as the version you want to restore.
5. With the identified audit version selected, click Restore.
6. A prompt is displayed to confirm the restore is completed. Click OK to close the prompt.
7. The Report Object Audit window displays the restored version with an updated time stamp and Restore Object from Audit displayed in the Operation Type column.
8. Close the Report Object Audit window. The report object displays content from the version you restored.

Note: Desktop publishing and XBRL tags that have been created on the report object after the creation date of the restored audit entry are orphaned and need to be recreated.