Glossary
What is audit log?
An audit log is a chronological record of actions in a system: who did what and when, such as signing in, changing permissions or opening a dashboard. It supports control, investigation and accountability.
Audit log explained
A good audit log records, for every event, who did it, what happened, when and what it concerned. Think of signing in and out, inviting or removing users, changing permissions and opening sensitive data.
The log is only useful if it cannot be altered afterwards and if someone actually looks at it. Agree who reviews the log, how long you keep it and which events trigger immediate action.
With AI, an audit log becomes more important. If an AI application answers questions or writes queries, you want to be able to see which question was asked, which query was run and whether anything was blocked. That helps with oversight and with obligations under the GDPR and the AI Act.
Example
Acme Groothandel's customer admin sees in the audit log that a dealer opened the purchasing dashboard three times yesterday and that a colleague added a new user to the "Board" profile. Because the latter was not agreed, she reverses it immediately.
Audit log in ENABLE
ENABLE has an activity log for customer admins and an event log for platform management, including embed sessions. Every executed, blocked or failed query in the SQL Explorer is recorded in the audit log, as are publications in the Data API.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What does an audit log contain?
For each event: who did it, what happened, when and on which object. For example signing in, changing permissions, opening a dashboard or running a query.
How long should you keep an audit log?
There is no single fixed period that always applies; it depends on legislation, sector and your own policy. Set a retention period and bear in mind that an audit log itself contains personal data.
What is the difference between an audit log and an ordinary log file?
An audit log records user actions for oversight and accountability. An ordinary log file mainly records technical events and errors, for developers and administrators.
Further reading
- PlatformPower BI row-level security and dashboard accessAccess profiles, Power BI row-level security, two-factor authentication and an audit log.Read more
- SolutionAI governance: control over data, AI and accessWho sees what, what the AI receives and who approves: practical AI and data governance.Read more
- PlatformPower BI monitoring: health and usageRefresh status for everyone; health and usage monitored daily by platform admins.Read more
- ResourcesAI Act and GDPR for AI on business dataIf you use AI on business data in the EU, two sets of rules apply: the AI Act, which sets requirements for AI systems based on their risk, and the GDPR, which applies as soon as personal data is processed. For most internal analytics applications, the focus is mainly on AI literacy, transparency and the GDPR basics: a lawful basis, a data processing agreement, data minimisation and, where necessary, a DPIA. This article is a practical orientation, not legal advice.Read more
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