Configuring auditing for a property

You can audit the changes to a specific property of a class. If you audit a specific property instead of the entire class, you can audit only those properties you are interested in. Auditing a specific property reduces the size of the audit log. Audit processing clients can retrieve granular audit information instead of retrieving the entire before or after snapshot of an audited object.

When you configure an event class to audit a specific property, Content Engine extends the audit log database table with a column corresponding to the property. When an audited event is triggered on its source object, Content Engine stores an instance of the event in the table and copies the value of the property being audited from the source object to the applicable column in the event instance.

An audited property must be mapped to a corresponding event property. You typically map a custom property to the corresponding property template on the event class. System properties do not have preexisting property templates, therefore, you must create a corresponding property template for the system property you want to audit.

See Guidelines for configuring auditing for some guidelines to consider when you create an audit definition.

To configure a specific property for auditing

In addition to the basic setup requirements for auditing a class, property auditing requires configuration of the event class and the class of the source object. The following procedure assumes that the property you want to audit is not created yet.

  1. Create a custom property template. See Create a property template for more information about creating a property template.
  2. Assign this custom property to an event of the Object Change Event class or one of its subclasses. The Object Change Event class is located in the Other Classes > Event folder. See Assign properties to a class for more instructions for assigning properties to a class.
  3. If the property you want to audit is not a system property, assign this custom property to a class that you want to audit.
  4. On the Property Definitions tab of the class you want to audit, select this property definition and click Edit. On the More tab, set the Audit As property to the custom property template that you assigned to the event class.