Auditing Fields in CRM

Sometimes records get updated in CRM, and users may want to know when the changes were made, who made the changes, and what the prior information was. CRM allows you to collect this data in an entity called Audit History. To collect this information does require the system to process and store this information, so it is not recommended that you audit everything. However, the entities that are most frequently edited by multiple users, entities that can be edited by customers on the portal, or entities that contain the data most important to customers and users are usually good to keep track of.

Auditing can be enabled for your system and then can be limited to specific entities and even limited to fields on those entities. This article will address how to enable auditing in these three areas.

1. Enable Auditing for CRM

Most organizations do choose to audit at least some entities, but you can enable or disable the auditing feature for the whole CRM system.

1.1. Navigate Settings > Administration > System Settings and click the Auditing Tab

1.2. Select the Options That Fit Your Needs

Audit Settings

Start Auditing - Check this box to allow auditing to begin for any entities/fields enabled for auditing. No auditing will occur regardless of entity settings if this box is not checked.
Audit user access - Check this box to track when users access CRM and whether or not the user accessed CRM through the web application or Dynamics CRM for Outlook.

Enable Auditing in the following areas (this allows you to select groups of entities rather than selecting them one by one. These areas will include Microsoft Entities only, not custom entities which will need to be updated individually. If you don't usually use the entities in the group you can leave the box unchecked, if you don't want to enable everything in the group you can still select the desired entities individually and leave all of these unchecked. )

Common Entities - Account, Contact, Lead, Marketing List, Product, Quick Campaign, Report, Sales Literature, Security Role, User
Sales Entities - Competitor, Invoice, Opportunity, Order, Quote
Marketing Entities - Campaign
Customer Service Entities - Article, Case, Client Feedback, Contract Service

Clicking the link for Entity and Field Audit Settings will take you to the customizations sections and opens a view where you can see all the entities and a column with their audit status.

2. Enable Auditing for an Individual Entity

2.1. Navigate to Solutions and select the Unmanaged Solution (if available) otherwise Navigate to Customizations > Customize the System to Access the Default Solution

Either way will activate your changes in your CRM. Making changes in an unmanaged solution when available, simply allows that information to be stored in a way that can be extracted by your project management team so that the changes are reflected in future upgrades and code rollouts. Clicking the link in the previous step will take you to the Default Solution.

2.2. Click the Arrow beside Entities to View Available Entities and Audit Status

2.3. Open the Entity and Scroll Down to the Data Services Tab to Make Updates to Audit Status

If the box is checked, Auditing is enabled, if it is not checked Auditing is disabled. The warning lets you know that auditing has not been enabled in the System Settings yet.

2.4. Click Save

3. Auditing Fields within the Entity

3.1. Click the Arrow Next to the Entity you want to Edit and Click Fields

There you can view a list of all fields and their audit status.

3.2. Open the Field Record you want to Update and adjust the Auditing Toggle to the Correct Setting

3.3. Click Save

4. Don't Forget to Publish All Customizations When Updating Entities and/or Entity Fields

If you skip this step your updates will not take effect and you will not see the changes to auditing you selected even if you correctly saved the changes to the records.