Introduction to Audit Events

FTE Tree creates robust and reportable audit trails for many changes made by the system or users in your organization. While many audit events are auto-generated by the system, such as when a position is approved, configurable audit events selected or entered by a user are available in the following locations and situations when the object or its attributes are created or updated:

  • Users
  • Departments
  • Job Codes
  • Positions
  • Compensation
  • Employees
  • Approval Requests
  • Requisitions

Configuring Audit Event Settings

Although they share common functionality, audit events are filtered and configured independently for each available use location listed above. Appropriate permissions are required to update these settings. To configure audit events, navigate to Settings and use the Audit Events link for the appropriate section. For each use location and type, you can configure the entry fields to be visible and/or required.

Two types of user-entered audit events are available:

  • Event Note Text Field: A free text field where your users can type any content they wish.
  • Event Note Choice Field: A choice field where users select from a list of predefined choices configured by your organization.

The following options are available for configuration in both fields unless otherwise noted:

  • Use Location: This value is predefined and identifies where the note fields are used. For example, 'Position Create' is used when a new position is created.

  • Enabled: Selecting this option shows the note field on the form. Deselecting the option hides it.

  • Label: This is the name of the form field to be displayed. The default value is "Audit Event Type" for the choice field and "Audit Event Note" for the text field.

  • Help Text: Enter any help text you wish to be displayed under the field in the form. The default is none.

  • Is Required: Selecting this option makes the note field required. For the event note choice field, this option cannot be enabled until at least one choice has been added to the choice group.

  • Choice Group: This applies only to the event note choice field and contains the group of choice values your users can select from. The choice field cannot be enabled until at least one choice has been added to the group. These are updated using the same methodology as other choice groups in the application.

Note: Audit event notes are different from comments. Audit event notes are tied to specific data changes and explain why a change was made, while comments are standalone conversations on a record for collaboration and discussion.

Event Linking and Traceability

When a user action triggers downstream system actions, FTE Tree links these events together for full traceability. For example, when an organization is created, the system automatically sets up departments, roles, default settings, and other configuration. Each of these setup actions is recorded as a separate audit event and linked back to the original "Organization Created" event.

On audit history pages, linked events appear as an expandable "related events" section beneath the triggering event. Each related event shows the event name, the affected object, and whether it was performed by a user or the system.

When viewing an entity's audit history (such as a department's history), if an event was triggered by a parent action (such as organization setup), you will see a "Triggered by" note providing context about why the change occurred.

Email notification events also appear as related events. When an action triggers an email notification (such as an approval request being submitted), the email delivery outcome appears as a linked event beneath the triggering action. This includes whether the email was successfully sent, or if it was not sent and why (for example, the recipient opted out or their email address had a prior bounce). For more details on email delivery statuses, see Messages and Notifications.

User Activity

Organization administrators can view a comprehensive activity log for any user in the organization. Navigate to Settings > Users, select a user, and click the Activity tab. This page shows all audit events associated with that user, with filtering by category, date range, and text search.

File Attachments and Security

FTE Tree provides functionality throughout the application to attach files to items such as dashboard messages, approval workflows, and approval requests.

We use highly secure storage to protect the files that you upload. Your files are encrypted in transit to our storage servers and stored encrypted at rest. Secure, time-limited download links are provided every time a download link is presented. These links allow only authorized users to access the appropriate file for a limited time period (15 minutes) before the link expires.

To protect the integrity of our servers, we generally limit the number and size of file uploads per item to 10 files of 25 MB each. Please contact us if you need the limits increased.

Need Help?

For any questions about audit events or data integrity, please contact us or email us at support@ftetree.com.