Tip of the Month for: January 2016
Answers Maintenance Logging
Changes made in key maintenance programs are logged by Answers. When users make changes in Customer Maintenance, Vendor Maintenance, Inventory Maintenance, and Answers Software Configuration programs, the changes made to the respective master files is logged. This information can sometimes be very useful and helpful to determine when and why an item, or customer, or vendor, or configuration setting was edited.
All of the changes made can by viewed in the Maintenance Log Viewer. The log viewer shows the date, time, user, field changed, the old value and the new value. This can also be helpful in changes were made inadvertently to get the settings back the way they need to be. There is also a printable report and an export to Excel option.
No options are required to be set to enable the logging, the maintenance programs mentioned automatically log the changed. Additionally, the Customer Mass Maintenance changes and the Customer # conversions are logged. Vendor number conversions are logged. Inventory logs the Price File Import changes, mass maintenance changes, Stock # conversions, and Batch Price Cost changes.
The maintenance logs were a new feature added in Answers 4.6, so only changes made after updating to Answers 4.6 will be logged.
Additionally, Answers also has logs on the Order Entry and Purchase Order Entry programs that can be used to track changes made to orders, quotes, transfers, and purchase orders. There is a log viewer that can be displayed, printed, or exported to Excel for those functions.
There is also an Inventory Quantity Log Viewer that tracks any program making changes to the quantity of an item. This log will show all the changes from various programs that change the quantities on the items.
All of the log viewers can be found under System Management > Answers Logs.