Translog
Track Exactly Who Did What, When!
As it’s name implies, Translog keeps a running audit trail (or log of the various tasks users perform in Simple Accounting. This allows administrators to monitor when events occur anywhere in the system. This can be invaluable in managing both security and performance.
Background
One of the most common questions we get is ‘who did what?’. Usually this comes about in situations such as ‘the big customer’ complains of an improper billing and everyone wants to know, ‘Who is responsible for this?’ And of course, there are many, far less dramatic situations which will invariably come up where you need to be able to audit all changes made to a particular piece of information.
As your business grows, it’s also important to track the speed of your software. Users may complain of slow performance but not be sure as to the cause. To solve this sort of problem traditionally requires an expensive diagnosis by a trained database consultant.
How It Works
TransLog solves these sorts of problems by keeping a running audit trail of all changes to your data. It can be configured to monitor any or all processes and to track any or all users.
For example, you can specify that you wish to track all edits to Sales Orders for all users in the CSR group, but not edits to Product Specs. Another common example: if users complain of slow performance, you can refer to Translog to easily track down which processes are the cause.
A complete set of reports is included which allows the manager to track changes to specific tables or even down to individual transactions. A typical example: you might want a list of every Sales Order which was edited after entry, from creation, through billing and payment.
Translog is now easier than ever. A Translog menu has been added to every browse box. Just right click on any master record or transaction and instantly see all changes to that data! Another first for SAFE—complete auditing of database changes made SIMPLE.
NO FREE LUNCH
Translog does add a certain amount of overhead to your server CPU load. This amount is directly related to how much of your data you wish to track: Monitor a few processes and there is almost no impact. Monitor a large percentage of activity and the overhead is greater. The following table gives you a typical impact on workload:
| Database Version | Performance Reduction |
|---|---|
| SQL Server Express MSDE (for 1-4 users) |
15-20% |
| SQL Server 2000 | 10% |
| SQL Server 2008/2012 | 0-5% |
To compensate, you may want to consider doing all the normal things we suggest for improving performance: Faster server hard disk, faster network cards, network switches instead of hubs, etc.
Conclusion
As your business grows, the ability to track transactions and record updates in a comprehensive way becomes more and more important. TransLog gives you this capability at a bargain price, with the caveat that your hardware be powerful enough to support the added disk activity. Of course, for the majority of you who will most benefit from this SAFExtension, this level of hardware should be in place.
STANDARD EQUIPMENT?
If you don’t have Translog, you still can learn quite a lot about ‘who is doing what, when.’ Out of the box, Simple Accounting tracks the Last Revision Date, Last Revision Time, and Last Revised By Date for many records and transactions. For example, you can easily view the last time a Customer was edited and who made the change from the Customer Browse. In the same way, you can review the last person to edit an A/P Bill (usually this would be right before a payment was made against the Bill.)
But what specific changes were made to a record, or for tracking performance of your system, Translog is the way to go!
