Re: User transactions tracking in BPCS v4

Zahouani,

You may want to consider ACS (Audit Control System) from SSA. We have been 
using it
for several years and although it is not the most friendly of tools it does 
produce
what you are looking for.

It operates off of journals and in doing so has the disadvantage in that the 
files
you wish to audit must be journalled (both before and after images) which 
impacts
both disk space and performance. It does however tell you who changed, deleted 
or
created a particular record within a file, when they did it, which program they 
used
and what fields they changed within it

We do use ACS occasionally for audit purposes but find that we use it more for
problem determination and analysis.

And before anyone asks - yes it is (according to SSA) Y2K compliant!!

Hope this helps.

Andrew Murphy
Teleplan
Havant UK.


Zahouani Saadaoui-Z wrote:

> Al,
> thanks for your input. I am going to try to be more specific on the needs I 
>have
> and explain the context.
> In fact I am IT auditor and I would like, during audits, to be able to know 
>for
> certains critical transactions (like posting invoices, creating customers...)
> who has created the document (like who has posted the invoice number 999999 
>the
> 22/09/1999...).
> Now in case of fraud for instance, it is not possible to find out who keyed 
>the
> transactions in BPCS.
> What I would like to work out is a tracking mecanism that would add a user ID 
>to
> the document created for critical transactions, and that would not be too much
> resource consuming.
> Any idea on how to do that? Thanks for your help.
>
> Regards,
> - Zahouani.
>
> From: macwheel99@aol.com on 09/21/99 06:58 PM
>
> Please respond to bpcs-l@midrange.com
>
> To:   bpcs-l@midrange.com
> cc:    (bcc: Zahouani Saadaoui-Z/PGI)
> Subject:  Re: User transactions tracking in BPCS v4
>
> >From Al Macintyre 405 CD on AS/436 V4R3
>
> > Subj:  User transactions tracking in BPCS v4
> >  From:    saadaoui.z@pg.com (Zahouani Saadaoui-Z)
> >
> >        Hi,
> >
> >        I am looking for a solution that would enable the tracking of users
> >        transactions in BPCS v4 (which is not possible in that system).
>
> Some tracking is built-in ... take a look at the layout of the BPCS files.
> Either DSPFFD ITH to *PRINT
> or WRKMBRPDM QDDSSRC BPCS405CDS or wherever your base source is
>
> We have query reports like totals only - who did what types of transactions
> last month - certain people are supposed to be doing certain types of
> transactions as part of their job & others on an exception basis ... if we
> find a sudden or rapid rise in cycle count adjustments by someone whose job
> is other than doing cycle count adjustments for example, then there is a
> review of the scenario with that person to make sure they did not find an
> unauthorized short cut to resolving a scenario that should be done some other
> way.
>
> BPCS V4 security has some holes.  We are a multi-faciilty company in which
> some users are authorized to do a wide range of transactions at the facility
> at which they are based, and are authorized to LOOK at data in other
> facilities but not update anything there.  We have not figured out how to
> enforce that, but we can query on the user-id within inventory history ...
> running a total only number of transactions by user by facility each month,
> to catch any no-nos, after the fact.
>
> Not all transactions have a history that includes the name of the user who
> keyed in that transaction - FLT labor for example has who did the factory
> labor, not who keyed in the reporting.  But many files have fields that we
> are not using for any purpose, and could use for some other purpose & in fact
> we are doing so, in which we used the literals sub-system to re-label the
> field on the BPCS screens & reports (this does not work automatically on uses
> of external files outside BPCS like Query ... we have to massage that a bit).
>
> >        If you have worked on that kind of add ons to BPCS,
>
> I worked on that kind of thing in BPCS/36 using internally described files
> ... that system had some "dead space" at the end of most files & we plugged
> in stuff that is native to BPCS/400 & some stuff not yet invented in
> BPCS/400.  For example we were particularly interested in changes to customer
> orders ... who was the last person to change this order & when did they do it
> with what program?
>
> This was because of a scenario that we have since resolved outside of BPCS,
> involving too many cooks working at cross-purposes ... the sales dept has
> been reorganized so that now certain people are in charge of the data for
> certain groups of customers.
>
> However the 400 has changed the landscape on what is easy / pain in neck to
> muck with - I have zero current interest in changing the layout of BPCS/400
> files, like adding any fields.  If I was persuaded to do any such tracking
> today, I would probably do it with a separate file ... I am in fact doing
> something similar, by adding members whose naming convention does not
> conflict with BPCS native naming conventions, in which a member in a logical
> points to a member of the same name in a physical.
>
> >  or if you know
> > other solutions to easily track user transactions in the system, please let
> > me know.
> >
> >        Cheers,
> >
> >        - Zahouani
>
> It depends on the level of detail you need.
>
> If you want to know which users were on the computer system today, but don't
> much care what they were doing, check out DSPJOB F4
>
> If you want to know who is in ORD500 INV500 etc. RIGHT NOW then check out
> http://www.precosis.com.au/piu1.htm = Display Active BPCS Jobs
>
> Many jobs generate some kind of audit trail of what was changed, like ORD500
> INV100 etc. ... we generally delete ours without printing ... you could
> transfer yours to a PC, clean out a lot of data & just save what you need to
> track which customer orders were updated today & by whom, and by item # who
> was the last person to update it.
>
> Have you been to IBM/400 classes with "DB2" in the title?  Business rules can
> be established at the file level ... Any time ANYONE updates this file by ANY
> means (BPCS program, DFU, interactive SQL, you name it) capture some
> particulars about who is doing what.
>
> Hope I have been somewhat helpful - perhaps you could be a bit more explicit
> on what you are looking for, so answers can be a bit less vague.
>
> Al Macintyre
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--
Andrew Murphy
TELEPLAN
D850 Business Process and Systems
01705 486363 x3334 Location:26/20
Mailto:Andrew_Murphy@uk.xyratex.com
http://www.xyratex.com


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