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c#sql-serverasp.net-mvcasp.net-mvc-2audit

Best way to implement form editing and auditing all edits?

I'm starting a new project which will need to allow edits on forms but to keep track of the original and who did what edits and where (p.s. I wouldn't be able to use any extra software other than visual studio 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio so no point suggesting any addition software, this is purely a code or table design minded question) .

I'm a perfectionist and I know some possible routes to achieve this will prob change my overall project design but I'm not sure if the ideas I have on how to implement this are best so I like to hear others opinions on below ideas and your own ideas on the quickest most effective way to implement above problem.

Ideas:-

  1. I'd set it up so that when they edit it would display all existing ranges of data from textboxs to radiobuttons and even some drop downs and the value which they had and then on submit it would copy the original record via the Id into a achieve table, create the new record and then delete the original from the main table.

  2. I figure some way to add X amount of comments to any section of the form and each would have a timestamp and username from win auth recorded at the bottom.

Edit - My intention was to get a variety of solutions but I suppose once I'm able to start on the editing section of this project if the single solution given works then I'll mark that correct.

Solution

  • I'm not sure whether this is what you are looking for but I have the need to log all changes to data (for audit reasons) and the way I have implemented this is to create a new 'History' table in SQL Server that will store the record ID, username of person who changed it, whether they added/modified/deleted something and when this happened etc.

    In the code to add/edit/delete things in my database I always call ObjectContext.SaveChanges (I use Entity Framework 4) so what I have implemented is an extension to this method that uses various parts of the ObjectStateManager to get the information required about the entity that has changed and inserts the details into the History table. You then just need to query this table in the database to display details of what has changed.