In SCADA systems it is crucial to be able to monitor important actions performed in the process of the industrial plant. The IGSS V8 SCADA solution includes the new Audit Trail module that offers a thorough recording of important actions done by its system operators.

What is recorded

The Audit Trail module can easily be customized to record any of the following operator actions:

• Acknowledgement of process alarms
• Commands send to the process PLCs
• Operators login or logout
• Changes in data collection settings
• Operator notes written – for example alarm notes or maintenance notes
• Changes in analog alarm limits
• System start/stop

The recorded audit trails are shown in a list in the Audit Trail window. Filtering in this list is flexible and can be performed on many different system parameters. This is useful to track certain operator actions and detect any irregularities in the process control. Below is listed some of the information available for each record of an audit trail:

• Operator – which operator has performed the action
• IGSS Object – which object is influenced
• IGSS Operator station – from where has the action been performed
• Action Type – what has been done
• Approved by – which second person has approved the action

Additional features for the Audit Trail module

In the following is listed some extra features which is also included in the Audit Trail module:

• Time interval – The time period for which audit trails to be listed is easily selected. This is either done from the fast predefined time periods (i.e. last hour, today, this week etc.) or by flexible user-defined time periods.
• Views – To benefit from the Audit Trail information as easy and quickly as possible, you can create a number of user defined views. Each view will remember your filter conditions and the selected time interval for the Audit Trail data.
• Required note on operator actions – Audit Trail can be configured to require operators to write an operator note when a certain action is performed in the process.
• SQL Database – The Audit Trail data is stored in a separate SQL database.
• Access directly from Supervise – Audit Trail can be accessed, for a specific object, directly from the Supervise module as illustrated below: 

Accessing Audit Trail from Supervise