User manual

What is Change Log, and how do you set it up?

With Change Log, you can track all direct modifications a user makes to data in the database. You specify each table and field you want the system to log, and then you activate the change log. The change log is based on changes to the data in the table that you track.

Find out more about Change Log.

Setup

1. In the BC search box, type “Change Log Setup.”
2. On the Change Log Setup page, click “Setup” -> “Tables.”
3. Here, you will find a list of BC tables. You can select tables and configure them to record Insertion, Modification, and Deletion logs. Tables can be filtered by ID or name.
4. Within the table setup, you have the option to choose “All Fields” to record change logs for all fields on the table, or “Some Fields” to record change logs for specific fields. When selecting “Some Fields,” click on the Edit List button (Represented by the three dots on the right) to display available table fields. Select the tick box for each field. In the “Log Modification” logs will be recorded for the Name, Contract, and Credit Limit fields on the customer table.
5. Once you have finished setting up, navigate back to “Edit” -> “Change Log Setup” -> “Change Log Activated” button.
6. It’s important to close and reopen the BC session to start recording the change log as per the setup!

Record System Information
A) In the second factbox “Record System Information”, you can see who has created (and is therefore the owner of) any record, and when it was made.

B) You can also see when it was last modified and by whom.

Hidden Fields
In the “Hidden Fields” factbox, you can see if you or your administrators have set up filters for the change log, which should be visible on the current page (Change Inspector). “User Fields Filters” (A) shows filters set for your own account.

Clicking on the value next to “User Fields Filters” (B) will redirect you to the page where you can modify these filters. Clicking on the “Field No. filter” field will redirect you to the list of all fields for the current table, where you can choose which fields you do not want to see when using the Change Inspector page. Once you select some fields and click OK, these fields will be excluded from the page.

You can also set up “Hidden Global Fields Filters” (C), which are only visible to the filter administrator (explained in “Change Log User Setup”). These filters are used when you want to restrict specific users from seeing changes to some fields.

Field Configuration
In BC X-RAY you can also set up whether the user should be notified (A), restricted (B), permitted (C), or if a reason should be required when a field is changed (D). This setup can be viewed in the “Field Configuration” factbox on the right side of the screen. Clicking “Setup” (1) in the “Field Configuration” factbox will redirect you to the setup cards for the Current Field in the table or to All Fields.

Another way to access Field Configuration is through Search (1) -> “BC X-RAY Setup” (2) -> Click the “BC X-Ray Setup [TBC]” (3) option -> Click the “Standard Setup” dropdown (4) -> “Table Field Setup” (5).

Notification
If you wish to notify users about changes in a particular field, you must activate “email notification”. Then, navigate to action pane -> “Related” (1) -> “User Notification Setup” (2) to configure which users will receive notifications about the changes. Additionally, you can specify whether a user should be notified about a specific type of change. For instance, if you want a user to be notified when an item is blocked, you can write “yes” into the “Changed To” field in your language, or you can write “true” in any language. You can also determine whether users should be notified about changes from a blank value by activating the “Notification on changes from Blank” field.

In BC X-RAY, you can decide whether a change should be considered part of the record creation process by using the “Notification Window” (3) field. Furthermore, if you wish to be immediately notified about changes in fields that are of high importance to you, you can set the “Notification to be Sent” (4) to “Immediately”. Conversely, for less critical fields where you prefer to have an overview of changes, you can specify “Notification to be Sent” to either “Hourly” or “Daily”.

Restricted/Permitted
To restrict a user from changing the current field, enable the “Restricted” field. Additionally, you can navigate to the actions pane -> “Related” (1) -> “Restricted Users” (2) to specify who should be restricted and view the current restricted users list. Similarly, you can permit users (3) to change the current field. This would be applicable in scenarios where you want to restrict all users except one. In such cases, instead of selecting all users to be restricted, you can choose just one or more users who are permitted to make changes to the current field.

Reason
If you also require users to provide a reason for the change when modifying the current field, you can activate the “Reason Activated” (1) option. Furthermore, if you want a reason for changes from a blank value, you must activate the “Reason Required for Changes from Blank” (2) setting.

Entries by User (1)
This factbox displays the number of times the user has modified the current record. These numbers are calculated based on the filters set using the “Hide Current Field” action or by actions that filter by “Type of Change.” Clicking the number lets you view the changes made by that user.

Entries by Fields (1)
This factbox displays how many times the field has been changed on the current record. These numbers are calculated based on the filters set using the “Hide Current Field” action or by actions that filter by “Type of Change.” Clicking the number lets you see the changes made to that field.

Remote Setup (1)
This factbox indicates whether Cosmos integration is activated and whether remote entries should be displayed on the page. Clicking on “Setup” (A) will redirect you to the “BC X-Ray Setup” page. Clicking “History” (B) shows you the changes made to that setup.

Additionally, in this factbox, you can view the number of local and remote change log entries loaded on the page. This count is not based on any filters. Furthermore, you can observe the status of the “Upload Job Queue entry” (C).

Email Notification Received (1)
If you have set up notifications, you will see who (A) was notified of a change and when (B).

Actions on Change Inspector

There are several actions here, including:

• 1. “Find Change Log Entries”: This action opens a page where you can select multiple filters to find specific change logs.
• 2. “Print”: Allows for printing.
• 3. Actions designed to provide a better overview of change log entries on the page, these include:

  “Hide Current Field”: Hides the currently selected field. Filters set up with these actions can be saved in the setup and will be automatically hidden when accessing the Change Inspector page with the same table. Global users can set up filters that apply to each user.

  To view hidden change logs, use the “Clear All Field No. Filters” action, which will reset all filters set up by this functionality.

  Clicking on “Clear All Field No. Filters” shows change log entries that were hidden and will be highlighted in “Field No.” in bold red coloring, indicating entries filtered by global filters; in contrast, light red coloring represents entries hidden by your filters. “Reset Field No. Filters” reapplies filters from setup.

  “Field No. Filters Setup”: Opens the “Field No. Filters Setup” page, where you can see filters for your user, and in case you are a global user, you can also see the global filters.

  You can modify the filters by clicking on the “Field No. Filter” field value. This will open a new page called “Select Fields”. If you already have some filters set up, you will only see those. By clicking on the “Show all” action, you will see all the fields available for the current page.

  By clicking on “Selected”, you can choose which field number you do not want to see on the Change Inspector page.

  When you are done selecting, click OK to save. If you also click OK on “Field No. Filters Setup” then the filters will be automatically applied on the Change Inspector page.

• 4. You can also filter by “Type of Change”. This can be done by the actions in the next group, where you can select “Modification”, “Insertion”, “Deletion”, or all.
• 5. In “Actions” –> “Trace Current Field”: Highlights the current field for better tracing of changes.
• 6. In the “Related” section, you will find the “BC X-Ray Setup” action, which provides access to the “BC X-Ray Setup” page.

If you click the “Find Change Log Entries” button, you can select multiple filters to filter change logs:

• A) “Table No.”: Choose the desired table, and it will show only the changes for that table.
• B) “Primary Key Filters”: Dynamically shown based on the selected table. For example, if you choose the customer in the “Table No.”, only one field will be displayed in the “Primary Key Filters” “No.” If you choose “Sales line” in the table number, it will show different “Primary Key Filters.”
• C) “Field No.”: Filter by specific field number. There is also an option to filter by what was changed from and what was changed to.
• D) Filter on “Type of change” by activating “Filter on Change Type” and selecting “Type of Change”.
• E) “From” and “To” date and time filters: See what changes have been made in the selected period.
• F) “Username” filter: To see the changes made by a specific employee.
• G) Cosmos users: Can specify whether to search the “Local” or “Remote” database.
• Continued below (find, show related record, reset filters, BC X-Ray Setup) + setup.

Below the “Find Change Log Entries” page, you have access to multiple actions:

• A) Click on the “Find” action, and it will filter through the change logs using filters that were set up in the header. This displays a list of change log entries found within the selected filters.
• B) Clicking on “Show Related Record” takes you to the page from where you can access the card for the related record.
• C) “Reset Filters” resets all the filters and deletes all the entries that were found.
• D) Clicking “Clear User Field No. Filters” or the other buttons in that dropdown menu lets you clear and reset filters per Field.
• “BC X-Ray Setup” opens the “BC X-Ray Setup” page.

“BC X-RAY Setup“

1. “Local Database”
Back in the BC X-RAY Setup you’ll find a group named “Local Database” where you can find information about the change log entries that are stored locally. For example:

A. “Number of Records” shows the number of change log entries saved in the local database.

B. “Last Update by Refresh Calculations At” shows when the “Refresh Calculations” was executed.

C. “Oldest Data Created At” reflects the timestamp when the first change log entry was created among those stored locally.

D. “Newest Data Created At” shows the timestamp of the most recent change log entry created among those stored locally.

E. In “Timelapse for Change No.” you can specify the time in seconds that affects the change number displayed on the Change Inspector page.

2. “Remote Database”
In the “Remote Database” section, you can specify the necessary information for connecting to the remote database.

A. “General”
“Active”: Specify whether uploading to the remote database is activated.

“Number of Records”: Indicates the total number of change log entries saved in the remote database.

“Last Upload At”: Displays the timestamp of the last upload execution.

“Remaining Records to Upload”: Shows the number of change logs yet to be uploaded to Azure Cosmos Database. This is calculated based on the setup.

“Remaining Upload Duration”: Estimates the approximate time required to upload remaining records to the remote database.

B. “Azure”
“URL”: Enter the connection string to your Azure Cosmos database, which can be obtained from your provider.

“Primary Key”: Specify the primary key for Azure Cosmos Database, which can be obtained from your provider.

C. “Change Logs”
“Database Name” and “Container Name”: Provide information about the database in Azure Cosmos, which can be obtained from your provider.

If the “Show Remote Data” toggle is activated, change log entries retrieved from the Azure Cosmos database will also be displayed on the Change Inspector page.

3. “Transfer Sequence”
In the field “Transfer Entries Older Than”, you can specify how old the change log entries should be before they will be transferred to Azure Cosmos. For example, if set to 3 days, only the change log entries older than 3 days will be transferred to Azure Cosmos.

You can also define the “Maximum No. of Entries Transferred at Once” to determine how many change log entries should be transferred in each upload run.

If “Transfer System Tables” is activated, then the tables in the 2 billion range will be transferred.

If “Delete Local Data on Upload” is activated, then change log entries transferred to Azure Cosmos will be deleted from the local database.

The “Upload Job Queue Entry” section shows the information from the Job Queue Entry related to the upload process.

“BC X-RAY Setup” Actions
1. The “Standard Setup” dropdown action will open the change log setup page.

Clicking on the “Tables setup” action will open “Change Log Setup (Table) List”.

“Table Field Setup” opens the “Table Field Setup” page, as described above in the doc.

Using the “Field No. Filter Setup” action opens the “Field No. Filter Setup” page with all setup filters visible.

The “Factbox Visibility Setup” action will open the page “Factbox Visibility Setup” where you can specify which Factboxes to display on the Change Inspector page.

2. Clicking on the “User Setup” action opens a page where you can set up which user is a “Global Administrator” and/or which user should receive usage reports.

You can also specify who should be notified if someone fails to make a change to a field, and who can modify the Setups in our factboxes.

1. The “Assisted Setup” action will open the page “Change Log Setup Wizard”, which will guide you through the standard change log setup.

The “Assisted Cosmos Setup” action will open the page “Cosmos Connection Setup Wizard”, which will guide you through the advanced change log setup.

2. “Create Job Queue Entry for Upload” will create a Job queue entry for upload with suggested settings.

“Open Job Queue Entry for Upload” will open a standard Job queue entry card page.

“Delete Job Queue Entry for Upload” will delete a Job queue entry for upload.

3. “Refresh Calculations” will update fields such as “Number of Records (Local)”, “Last Count Date Time”, “Remaining Records to Upload”, and “Approximate Upload Duration”.

4. In the “Related” section, you can see multiple actions:

“Find Change Log Entries” will open the “Find Change Log Entries” page.

The “Change Log Entries” action opens the standard “Change Log Entries” page.

The last action, “Change Long Entries”, will open the Change Inspector page.

When you click on the “Standard Setup” dropdown (5) -> “Tables Setup” (6), you can see the standard page with added functionalities.

There are five main sections of this view:

1. The ‘Log Insertion’, ‘Log Modification’, and ‘Log Deletion’ columns let you quickly set what logs are kept for each table.

2. Here you can see the number of Records and filter fields for each table.

3. “Change Logs Exists”: When checked, it means that a change log entry exists for the current table.

4. “Transfer to Remote”: Specifies if the table should be transferred to Azure Cosmos during the upload.

5. “First Change Date/Time” and “Last Change Date/Time”: Shows when the first and the last change log entry for the current table was created and if it is still saved in the local database.

Actions
On the same page, clicking on “Change Log Advanced” (1) opens an action pane where you can see several options:

Clicking on the Change Log dropdown (2) gives you the following options:

“Change Log Entries for Table”: Shows all change log entries for the current table number.

“Change Log Entries for Setup”: Shows changes for the current record.

Transfer – Activate

Clicking on the “Transfer – Activate” dropdown (1) gives you the following options:

“Transfer-Activate All” (2): Activates “Transfer to Remote” for every table configured for change log tracking.

“Transfer- Activate Marked” (3): Activates transfer to the remote database for all marked tables configured for change log tracking.

Transfer – Deactivate

Clicking on the “Transfer – Deactivate” dropdown (1) gives you the following options:

“Transfer-Deactivate All” (2): Deactivates “Transfer to Remote” for all tables configured for change log tracking.

“Transfer- Deactivate Marked” (3): Deactivates “Transfer to Remote” for all tables that are configured for change log tracking

Settings

Clicking on the “Clear all Settings” dropdown (1) gives you the following options:

“Clear All Settings” (2): Disables change log tracking on all tables.

“Add Default Settings on all” (3): Applies the settings from the imported file only to tables not previously set up.

“Add Default Settings on Unspecified” (4): Applies the settings from the imported file only to tables not previously set up.

“Export Settings” (5): Exports the current settings as a file on your computer.

Table Field Setup

Clicking on the “Table Field Setup” dropdown (1) gives you the following options:

“Table Field Setup for Table” (2): Opens the “Table Fields Setup” page for the current table.

“Table Field Setup” (3): Opens the “Table Field Setup” page for all tables.

TBC Process BC X-RAY Usage

When the Inspector Page is utilised, a usage log is created automatically. You can manage these logs by configuring the “TBC Process BC X-RAY Usage” codeunit as a job queue. Within the “Parameter String,” you specify actions for the logs: “Send,” “Delete,” or “Send & Delete.”

“Send” entails sending an email on the first day of each month with all usage logs for BC X-RAY since its inception, up to that day.

This email is dispatched to users who have opted to receive usage reports in the “Change Log User Setup.”

“Delete” will delete all usage logs on the first day of a month, with all the previous usage logs saved from the beginning of BC X-RAY usage.

“Send & Delete” will send an email containing all usage logs on the first day of each month and automatically delete them from the database.