The Audit Trail is a log of actions taken by users.

In the Main Menu, click Tools, Audit Trail.

For the Audit Trail to contain complete information, Users must be set up and security Permissions assigned to User Groups.

Filtering Options:

• From/To date: Show logs for a specific date range.
• Permission: Show logs for a specific permission. See Audit Trail Permissions.
• User: Show logs made by a specific logged-on user.
• LogSource: Show logs by a specific automated process (e.g., eServices, HL7, etc).
• Patient: Only entries for the entered patient are shown. If blank, all entries are shown regardless of the attached patient.
  • Current: Enters the current patient (the patient who was selected before Audit Trail was opened) into the filter, and only entries attached to this patient are shown.
  • Find: Opens Select Patient to choose a patient to apply to the filter.
  • All: Remove current patient filter to display entries regardless of the attached patient.
• Limit Rows: Determines the maximum number of Audit Trail entries to display. Set the Number of Audit Trail entries displayed in Preferences to change the default number.
• Previous From Date / To Date: Search by the date a permission was last edited. If blank, all entries are shown, up to the Limit Rows filter.

Click Refresh to update results after altering filters.

Click Print to print the Audit Trail to the default printer.

Only users with the Audit Trail permission can view the main Audit Trail. There are also several smaller Audit Trails that don't require the permission:

• Appointment Audit Trail (a log of when an appointment was created, moved, or edited). See Edit Appointment.
• Chart Audit Trail (a log of changes made in a patient's Chart). See Show Chart Views.
• Insurance Audit Trail (a log of changes to the insurance plan). See Insurance Plan.
• Task level Audit Trail (a log of changes made to a task, if using the Task system). See Task Window.

If using a Report Server, enable the preference, Audit Trail uses Reporting Server, to run the Audit Trail on the report server rather than the local machine.

Audit Trail Results

Actions are listed by date/time, with the most recent change at the end of the list. Some actions may result in two log entries, one with details, and one with the last date edited.

Log Result Columns:

• Date/Time: When the action occurred (date and time).
• Patient: The patient who was accessed or affected, if any.
• User: The logged-in user when the action was performed, if any. If this shows as an unknown user, it is typically triggered by an automated service from within the program. For example, automated eConfirmations change the confirmation status of an appointment, and an unknown user is logged.
• Permission: The name of the tracked security permission. Not all permissions are tracked.
• Computer: The workstation where the action was taken, if any. For some Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) users both the computer being remote connected from and the computer being remote connected to may be recorded.
• Log Text: Additional information about the action taken, if any.
• Log Source: Automated process that triggered the creation of the Audit Trail entry if any.
• Last Edit: Date and time of last edit if any. If this is blank, there is no data to display. This can happen when the item doesn't track dates or when an item is new and has no previous modifications.

Audit Trail Integrity

Open Dental checks to verify the integrity of the Audit Trail data.

• Black text indicates trusted entries; meaning Open Dental has checked and no changes have been made to the log entry since it was created.
• Red text indicates non-trusted entries, meaning this log entry failed the check to prove the entry is unchanged. This means the entry was changed outside of Open Dental to something different than the original entry. Some red entries are made by an Open Dental conversion. Other red entries are not made by Open Dental and may be malicious or not legitimate.

Audit Trail entries are never changed within Open Dental and should never be changed outside of Open Dental.