pete Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 Can your MIS provide a usable audit trail to prove/disprove an action by an end-user / MIS admin should you need to? I don't mean "Jeff logged on at 3pm and then logged off at 3:30pm". I mean "Jeff logged on at 3pm, modified the address for StudentA and then printed off AddressReport". And is this functionality exposed such that an end-user (or MIS admin) could choose Jeff and a date range and see a list of changes without needing third-party code / software? I know SIMS can't - I'm just wondering if all of them lack this (IMO) pretty important functionality.
creese Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 SIMS does, but only fully in the Dinner Money 7 module.
Ketlane Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 SchoolBase doesn't, but will do in the very near future. The change-log file becomes enormous pretty quickly, but having an audit trail is a occasionally very useful.
wesleyw Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 The way SIMS works with SQL there is no way of finding out which specific user changed things in say the Students details, profiles, assessment or behaviour which I have to agree with Pete that it's far from satisfactory in this regard not much we can do about it though sadly. Wes
creese Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 The way SIMS works with SQL there is no way of finding out which specific user changed things in say the Students details, profiles, assessment or behaviour which I have to agree with Pete that it's far from satisfactory in this regard not much we can do about it though sadly. How does it manage with Dinner Money 7? That has a pretty comprehensive log of changes.
wesleyw Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 Think that is seperate from the main SIMS operations. The audit trail is one of the things we've been requesting for years. Wes
creese Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 Think that is seperate from the main SIMS operations. The audit trail is one of the things we've been requesting for years. DM7 is not separate from from Core SIMS.
creese Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 The system it uses to communicate to SQL is. Okay. Thanks
pete Posted October 20, 2011 Author Posted October 20, 2011 DM7 is not separate from from Core SIMS. Yes, but the better auditing is because cash is involved, not a wholesale committment to auditing.
creese Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 Yes, but the better auditing is because cash is involved, not a wholesale committment to auditing. I realise that, I spend a lot of time trying to get that idea through to 50 odd schools. They think they can do anything they want, so the fact there is an audit trail helps a lot.
bcruise Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 I've asked my support company for SIMS & they say that there is no "good" audit trail in SIMS, so you can see whp has done what.
TheScarfedOne Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 @philneal afaik there is now an audit trail in SIMS, and you view it.from system manager 7. The boss will confirm though
matt40k Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 That is only Logon info. Lesson marks has an audit trail, like other areas of SIMS - like creese said, DM7 is another. I believe there are plans a foot to improve Sysman7 to start to bring them into one area. Just have to remember, if it audits everything - like user x query student y - it's going to get VERY big VERY quickly. So it may only store "important" stuff.
creese Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 I believe there are plans a foot to improve Sysman7 to start to bring them into one area. Just have to remember, if it audits everything - like user x query student y - it's going to get VERY big VERY quickly. So it may only store "important" stuff. With the number of users now, even in the smallest primary, the number of transaction daily will be enormous. If logging is to be brought in it will need a lot of thought. ho is going to clean up the logs and who is to say the person under investigation isn't going to clean them. I know it's all down to rights but many schools are a long way from accepting how important correct access rights are. The number of schools that say 'can you make so & so a user of SIMS'.
pete Posted October 20, 2011 Author Posted October 20, 2011 Just so long as they let us ship it to a secure logserver I'll be happy. (No, keeping it on the (possibly compromised) system isn't a good idea).
matt40k Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 Just so long as they let us ship it to a secure logserver I'll be happy. (No, keeping it on the (possibly compromised) system isn't a good idea). That would be nice, for a centrally hosted environment. Let's just hope they (ie whoever setup the logserver), was smart enough not to use the same OS as the SIMS server and\or join it to the domain. Otherwise that would be a waste.
GNewnham Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 iSAMS has an audit trail which is accessed once you have clicked on the pupil record. Here is an extract from one pupil. I have cleared the actual userid and ip address but it does show both of these items. Updated Contact# 5504 userid ip address 31 Aug 10 [14:29] Updated Nutfield in field: TxtAcademicHouse userid ip address 15 Jul 10 [11:12] Updated SR11 in field: TxtForm userid ip address 15 Jul 10 [11:12] Updated 13 in field: IntNcYear userid ip address 15 Jul 10 [11:12] Added SR11 in field: Future Form userid ip address 15 Jul 10 [10:42] Added Nutfield in field: Future Academic House userid ip address 15 Jul 10 [10:39] Updated Contact# 5504 userid ip address 22 Feb 10 [09:59] Update: on 'CUSTOM_7' from ' ' to 'M28NXXjH' userid ip address 31 Jan 10 [17:18] Added 109562951 in field: Passport Number userid ip address 28 Jan 10 [09:51] Added Child in field: Passport Type userid ip address 28 Jan 10 [09:51] Added British Citizen in field: txtpassportnationality userid ip address 28 Jan 10 [09:51] Added Passport ID #1 userid ip address 28 Jan 10 [09:51] Updated Contact# 5504 userid ip address 24 Nov 09 [09:22 There are also similar audit trails of subject set changes but there are several areas of the system that do not have any audit facility available. 1
pete Posted October 21, 2011 Author Posted October 21, 2011 That would be nice, for a centrally hosted environment. Let's just hope they (ie whoever setup the logserver), was smart enough not to use the same OS as the SIMS server and\or join it to the domain. Otherwise that would be a waste. I mean compromised not so much from the OS level (though that's an issue), but more from a "sufficient SIMS permissions to purge built-in logging", either on purpose or because they got a message saying "ooh, you've got a lot of logs". We log ship via SSL as standard to Linux hosts. Having all the logs in one places (and being able to regex / filter through them to get an idea of what things were happening at the same time) makes troubleshooting and auditing easier.
matt40k Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 The thing about audit log is that you provide that something has happened and ideally by who. If your doing it for the point of view of someone doing something malicious, the thing to remember is a school isn't a business. In business if I, for example, changed someones data that I wasn't suppose to, I would be in the job centre tomorrow. In a school, a teacher would get a smacked wrist. Having said that, they are alot of beniefts of having all the logs in the same place.
Ketlane Posted October 22, 2011 Posted October 22, 2011 SchoolBase doesn't, but will do in the very near future. The change-log file becomes enormous pretty quickly, but having an audit trail is a occasionally very useful. Forgot to say it already displays who made the last change - and the date/time of the change - to data relevant to the Admissions Register.
Bromcom_John Posted October 24, 2011 Posted October 24, 2011 Our MIS has data item auditing, coupled with user capacity to draw out reports (rather than SQL drilling) of said audits which will include "Who made the change" "When was the change made" "What was it changed from " "What was it changed to" This is in addition to the web service audits available to the systems admin which also cover "Who accessed which pages and when" "Did anyone, of a given role, access an inordinate number of data items, suspicious activity" The audits cover most of the core data items, attendance, personnel details, student data etc. A full breakdown of auditted data items can be provided but I would rather do that via PM as more than the above may be construed as undue advertising. Regards John
36Degrees Posted November 14, 2011 Posted November 14, 2011 Lesson marks has an audit trail, like other areas of SIMS. Does that mean I can see who has amended a register in Lesson Monitor and when? If so, how would I see that information?
matt40k Posted November 15, 2011 Posted November 15, 2011 Yes, Reports > Lesson Monitor \ Attendance > Module Reports > History of Changes Report 1
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now