ClickTime's Audit Trail Module can be used to generate a report that captures virtually every save, edit, and deletion that takes place in your account. This is a requirement for organizations that wish to use ClickTime's DCAA Compliance features (more details on ClickTime's DCAA Compliance features can be found here), but it can be added to any account. It can be provided during an audit to clarify which employee logged hours, and when they did so, as well as if you are interested in more details about how your team uses ClickTime.
ClickTime's Audit Log reports store data prior to 2018 in one file, and data for 2018 going forward in another. Running a report that spans two years will result in two separate files to review.
There is generally an additional cost for access to the Audit Trail Module. ClickTime offers a trial of all additional features, so if you are interested in a trial of the Audit Trail Module, please contact ClickTime Support to get started.
Enabling Audit Trail
Running the Audit Log Report
Understanding the Audit Log Report
All Audit Trail Fields
In order to make sure that Audit Trail is tracking your changes, you will want to confirm that it is enabled. This can be done from the Company --> Preferences page by expanding the "Security" section:
To track information, check the first box to "enable audit logging".
Most organizations will also likely wish to check the second box to "allow changes (not logged) to billing rates, costs, etc that affect historical time and expense entries".
Enabling this setting will allow Administrators (and Managers with sufficient permissions - more details here) to make certain changes to existing time entries (such as Billing Rate or Cost Rate).
If you do not check this box, you will not see the option to apply rate changes to historical time entries for Billing Rates or Cost Rates.
This is covered in more detail in the Billing Rates and Cost Rates Help Articles.
Customers who are using ClickTime's DCAA Compliancy options must have the Audit Log Module and are strongly encouraged to enable it. They will not see the option to allow historical changes.
Please note that Audit Trail cannot be turned on to capture actions that have already occurred. The Audit Log reports will only contain information for actions that took place when the Audit Trail features were enabled. It cannot capture data retroactively.
Once Audit Log is enabled, you will have the ability to generate an Audit Log report in .xls format using a variety of methods. This includes every action that was taken by any person in your account for a period of time, or to get specific information on a timesheet, expense sheet, Person, Client, Project, Task, or Division.
Company-Wide Audit Log Report
Individual Audit Log Reports
Please note: As of March 2018, ClickTime will store all Audit Log data for years before 2018 in one report, and all Audit Log data for 2018 going forward. Running a report that includes data from 2018 and before will result in two separate files being created.
You must have Administrative access to the ClickTime account in order to run the Audit Log report for the entire organization. To run this for all activity in a specific time period, go to the Company --> Reports page and expand the "Miscellaneous" section of the page. The Audit Log Report will be near the bottom:
Click "Run Report" on the pop-up to be brought to the criteria page. Enter your date range and then click "Run Report" again:
You will be brought to a page that indicates "Your report is being generated. You will receive an email when the report is ready for download". Click "Back to Reports" to be returned to the Company --> Reports page. ClickTime will email you when your report is finished running so you can continue working until it is ready.
After receiving the email, go back to the Company --> Reports page and you will see a new link (or links if you ran it for multiple years) indicating your reports are ready. The reports will be available from this page for 24 hours - click on the link to be taken to the download page.
Then save the report to your computer so you can open it in Excel.
Please note: Depending on the number of users in your account, the Audit Log Report can take a very long time to run for multiple days. We recommend keeping the time period as small as possible if you wish to view the results soon. We do not recommend running the report for more than a month at a time regardless of account size.
In addition to the Company Wide reports, several pages will allow you to download an Audit Log report that is specific to the page you are viewing. This includes all actions taken for a specific Timesheet (Managers with permission to "Review Timesheets" will see this option):
You can download an Audit Log for all actions taken for a specific Expense Sheet (Managers with the ability to "Review Expenses" will see this option):
You can run the report to see when someone was added to the system and any changes made to their account using the "Actions" option from the Person Details (only Administrators will see this option):
You can run a report to see when a specific Client, Project, Task, or Division was added to the system, as well any changes that were made (Managers would need the ability to "Add & Edit" these pages to see the "Download Audit Log" option):
Click the link to be brought to the Audit Log Download page where you can save the file(s) to your computer and open them in Excel:
Understanding the Audit Log Report
Now that you have downloaded your Audit Log Report, you can open it in Excel. This may take a little while depending on the size of the file.
Audit Log Reports are very detailed, so it can take a little practice getting used to understanding them. This guide will cover the details that are most helpful when reviewing an Audit Log report. You can always contact ClickTime Support if you have specific questions about what an Audit Log report is indicating. Click the links below to go the appropriate section of the page:
Basics
Fields
New Actions
Edits
Miscellaneous / Best Practices
ClickTime tracks each piece of information as a different line. The report will separate specific actions by the color of the data row. In the below example, we are seeing four unique logins from three different people:
If you see multiple rows with the same color, that indicates that all actions were taken together. Below we are displaying two different time entries that were saved by the same employee:
In addition to the color coding, we can also see these are distinct actions by the timestamp column:
These timestamps are currently showing the time the action took place in Pacific Time.
The Column Headers will be helpful in understanding what you are viewing. In addition to the timestamp, the report will show you who took the action and what the action was:
In the following examples we've hidden some of the columns so it is easier to see which updates were made. More info on the data in the columns is available below.
For time entries, you can see what Timesheet was modified both by date range of the timesheet, and by timesheet owner. This can be helpful to confirm if someone made a change to someone else's timesheet:
When a time entry is saved, each aspect of the time entry is noted in its own row. Below we see all details for a time entry, including the Date of the entry, the Project and Task used, as well as the Billing Rate and Cost Rate that were included with the time entry. In this example the employee used Start/End Times so those values are included as well:
In situations where someone saved more than one time entry at the same time, the Audit Log report will group all relevant fields in the same color. Below we see an example of someone who saved 1 hour to the Acme "Advertising" Project, as well as 3 hours to the Virtucom "Architecture Project 2" Project.
In addition to the more obvious information (hours logged, Project used, etc), we also code each time entry with a unique Time Entry ID, which is identified:
This field can be helpful if you see the "Update TimeEntry" action, as you can reference the time entry ID to see what the original entry was:
In addition to time entries, the report can also show you when Company Preferences were changed or if something about a Person/Client/Project/Task/Division was edited. In the below example, Carl changed the name of a Project from "Digital Advertising" to "Digital Advertising & Media":
Miscellaneous / Best Practices
- As mentioned above, Audit Logs for large companies can take quite a while to run. For best results, we recommend running the Audit Log for a small time period if you wish to use the file to look at actual updates. In situations where you are preparing for an Audit, you can run it for a longer period of time and wait for the email to update you.
- There are a lot of fields that can be useful when closely tracking data, but are probably not needed when simply reviewing your team's work. Typically ClickTime recommends "hiding" columns that have backend data, such as TransactionID, LogID, UserID, TimesheetID, TimesheetUserID to make the file easier to read.
- The LogDate column will show you the time an action took place in Pacific Time, down to the millisecond. Excel will typically not display fractions of a second, but you can click into the field to see the unique Timestamp:
- When you sort by Person, that may skew the color-coding, so paying attention to the timestamp is very important in understanding when an action took place.
Here is a list of all the fields contained in an Audit Log report:
- TransactionID: A unique number to track all related transactions.
- LogID: A unique number that tracks the actual update on a row-by-row basis. While the TransactionID is the same for each save, the LogID is unique to each row in the Audit Log report.
- LogDate: The exact moment that the action/save took place.
- UserID: Unique ID of the user who took the action. UserID can also be seen in the URL of the Person Details page.
- User Name: Name of the user who took the action.
- Action: The Type of Action that was taken (for example, Login, Add Time Entry, Update TimeEntry, Delete TimeEntry, etc).
- Action Comment: Clarifying information on the Action taken (for example, "NewLogin"). This field will also capture any comments entered when using DCAA Compatibility (such as when you enter a time entry in the past or future).
- TimesheetID: Unique ID of the Timesheet that is being edited. This can also be retrieved in the Customizable Data Export tool (more details here).
- Timesheet Start Date: Start Date of the Timesheet that is being updated.
- Timesheet End Date: End Date of the Timesheet that is being updated.
- Timesheet UserID: Unique ID of the user whose Timesheet is being updated. This is the same information as the "UserID" field.
- Timesheet User Name: Name of the user whose Timesheet is being updated. This is helpful when someone has made changes to someone else's timesheets in Override Mode.
- Item: The part of ClickTime that is affected by the action. This can include an indication that someone has logged into the Website, created/edited a TimeEntry, updated a person/etc.
- Item ID: The unique ID of the Item that is being affected by the action. This can be useful when grouping all edits to the same TimeEntry/employee/etc.
- Field Name: The name of the field affected by the action. This is useful in determining what was added to the database or edited. It is especially helpful when understanding the specific time entries that were added or edited.
- Original ID: This field is only used when something has been changed. It is the unique ID of the value of the field prior to edits. If the time entry is new, this field will be blank.
- Original Value: This is the display of the field that was edited prior to the change. For example, the name of the Project used prior to editing, or the number of hours that was then updated. If the time entry is new, this field will be blank.
- New ID: The internal ID of the field that was added to the system, or the updated ID of a value that was changed.
- New value: The value that was added to the system, or the new value after the edit was saved.
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