Before jumping into the concept of auditing, you first must be aware of the term curation. The term curation in terms of documentation basically implies to having an original document and being able to change the content of that document as per their requirement, purpose or necessity. But then at the same time there must be a provision to keep a track of all the changes and so as to who made those changes? ‘Metadata’ is what helps us in this – the metadata of the document usually shows the detail of the document like who is the author, when was it created and more as per requirement. This ability to keep track of documents is Alfresco auditing. It provides features to give you a detailed history of who and when changes were made in the document ensuring the credibility of the information as well as security. How Alfresco supports Auditing? Alfresco provides this unique auditing feature to track user activities on a document as per our requirement. 1. Data Producers: This entity generates the data that needs to be audited, but they have no clue where the data is supposed to be stored. 2. Data Extractor: These components are present to take input and provide an output (which may or may not be transformed). One such simple example of an extractor is SimpleValueDataExtractor. 3. Data Generators: These entities also produce audit data when datapath is active but it is not entirely dependent on data path value. org.alfresco.repo.audit.generator and beans auditModel.generator.* declared in alfresco/audit-services-context.xml contains a full list of all such DataGenerators present in alfresco. 4. Audit Services: It is very important to retrieve data from the database. After the data is stored in Alfresco it is important that it can be retrieved from the database to generate report or display it on the dashlet directly. 5. Data Paths: These are basically the mappings of audit data with application. Whenever a particular path from application is active or it is being invoked then the respective auditing component is invoked and will track auditing data. Enabling Auditing: To enable auditing permanently you have to go to the alfresco-global.properties file and set – audit.alfresco-access.enabled=true - Auditing is enabled by default. The audit.enabled property provides a way to enable or disable the auditing framework. Enabling this property however does not imply that it will necessarily result in the generation of audit data. - To enable the audit data generation you will need to enable the audit.alfresco-access.enabled property. - Once the global properties file have been configured and saved, you need to restart the Alfresco server, for auditing to be fully enabled. - You can check the status of auditing conveniently from the command line by using a tool such as curl to access the Audit Control web script. curl -u admin:password “http://localhost:8080/alfresco/service/api/audit/control”

2. Enterprises are moving towards
the goal of going paperless.
So it has become imperative for
small to large scale enterprises
to seek refuge in online
document management
system.
Introduction

3. Alfresco today has become a
synonym for document management
system.Document management is
crucial but there are several other
factors relating to a document.
How Alfresco Helps?
One such important factor is content
auditing.

4. What Is Auditing?
Auditing is basically about
keeping track of documents
along with activities done on
those documents. Its about
keeping record of who did what
and when on a document.

5. Curation
The term curation in terms of
documentation basically implies to
having an original document and being
able to change the content of that
document as per their requirement,
purpose or necessity.
Before jumping into the concept of auditing, you first must be aware of the term
curation….

6. Metadata
Metadata is what helps us in this – the
metadata of the document usually shows the
detail of the document like who is the author,
when was it created and more as per
requirement.
There must be a provision to keep a track of all the changes and so as to who made
those changes?

7. What does Alfresco Auditing do?
It provides features to give you a
detailed history -- who and when
changes were made in the document
ensuring the credibility of the information
as well as security.
This ability to keep track of documents is Alfresco auditing.

8. How Alfresco supports Auditing?
Alfresco Auditing Architecture.
1. Data Producers: This entity generates the
data that needs to be audited.
2. Data Extractor: These components are
present to take input and provide an
output.Example of an extractor is
SimpleValueDataExtractor.
3. Data Generators: These entities also produce
audit data when datapath is active but it is not
entirely dependent on data path value.

9. 4. Audit Services: It is vital to retrieve data
from the database. After the data is stored in
Alfresco it is important that it can be retrieved
from the database to generate report or
display it on the dashlet directly.
5. Data Paths: These are basically the
mappings of audit data with application.
Whenever a particular path from application
is active or it is being invoked then the
respective auditing component is invoked
and will track auditing data.
How Alfresco supports Auditing?

10. How to Enabling Auditing?
To enable auditing permanently you
have to go to the alfresco-
global.properties file and set –
audit.alfresco-access.enabled=true.

11. Steps To Enable Auditing
Auditing is enabled by default. The audit.enabled property provides a
way to enable or disable the auditing framework. Enabling this
property however does not imply that it will necessarily result in the
generation of audit data.
To enable the audit data generation you will need to enable the
audit.alfresco-access.enabled property.
Once the global properties file have been configured and saved, you
need to restart the Alfresco server, for auditing to be fully enabled.
You can check the status of auditing conveniently from the command line
by using a tool such as curl to access the Audit Control web script.
curl -u admin:password
“http://localhost:8080/alfresco/service/api/audit/control”

12. Alfresco can be used to audit actions performed on your
content and folders as well. In accordance to the
architecture described above the data producer-
org.alfresco.repo.audit.access.AccessAuditor gathers
together lower events into user recognizable events.
A detailed view of content auditing

13. ● A default audit configuration file located at
/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/audit/alfresco-
audit-access.xml. is provided that persists
audit data for general use.
● It can be configured to extract additional data
of interest. For ease of use, the login success,
login failure and logout events also persist by
the default configuration.
A detailed view of content auditing

14. ● Default audit filter settings are also
provided for the AccessAuditor data
producer, so that internal events are
not reported.
● These settings may be customized
(by setting global properties) to
include or exclude auditing of
specific areas of the repository,
users or some other value included
in the audit data created by
AccessAuditor.
A detailed view of content auditing

15. No additional functionality is provided for
the retrieval of persisted audit data, as all
data is stored in the standard way, so is
accessible via the AuditService search,
audit web scripts, database queries and
Alfresco Explorer show_audit.ftl preview.
A detailed view of content auditing

16. The audit trail of individual content may be
viewed from within Alfresco Explorer. Locate the
content and select the option “Preview in
Template”, using the show_audit.ftl preview.
A detailed view of content auditing

17. What is Versioning?
Talking about auditing we come across a
general query i.e. what if a lot of changes
were made and we needed the previous
document for comparison as well. That is the
moment which gives rise to the concept of
versioning. When you make changes in a
document then according to your need a
prior few version of your documents can be
saved.

18. The content in Alfresco DM is not generally
marked as ‘versionable’ by default when new
content is added. The content must be
specifically marked as being versionable
before versions can be created. Using the
Alfresco Explorer (JSF client UI) you can
select “View Details” on a content item and
then “Version History -> Allow Versioning”
What is Versioning?

19. Conclusion
Alfresco has these impressive features of auditing and
versioning all under one roof which not only ensures
credibility but also the security of data in a way that most
enterprises may find helpful.

20. Pratyush is Co-Founder and Director at Algoworks.
He is responsible for managing, growing open source technologies
and Salesforce CRM team .He provides consulting and advisory to
clients looking for services relating to CRM and ECM

21. Choose Algoworks For As Your Technology
Partner!!
Call us at: +1-877-284-1028
Mail us at: sales@algoworks.com
support@algoworks.com
Official Blog Link: http://www.algoworks.com/blog/alfresco-content-auditing