ControlPoint 8.8.1 - User Guide

Auditing Activities and Changes in Your SharePoint Environment

SharePoint captures activities and changes to the environment via the following mechanisms:

·the Audit Log, which focuses on activities performed by SharePoint users.

·the Change Log, which focuses on changes made to the SharePoint environment.  

ControlPoint provides functionality that enables you to view contents of audit logs and change logs, which is not currently available in SharePoint.

Events Captured in SharePoint Logs

The following tables identify the log(s) where different types of events are recorded and the event codes used to identify them.

NOTE: Be aware that some events may not appear immediately in analysis results, as it can take several minutes for them to be recorded in the SharePoint log.

Add/Delete Site Collections, Sites, Libraries and Lists

Add/Delete Document and List Items

Other Actions on Document and List Items

Add/Delete/Change Users and Permissions

Add Content Types and Columns

SharePoint Search Activity

Audit Settings

Analyzing Audit Log Contents

The ControlPoint Audit Log analysis extends SharePoint's built-in audit logging by letting you easily view entries written to the audit log.  You can focus your analysis on specific event types, and even limit the scope to include only certain objects (sites, lists, documents, etc.).

Audit logging must be enabled for each site collection whose events you want to log.  You can enable audit logging for multiple site collections at a time via the ControlPoint Manage Audit Settings action or Set Site Collection Properties action.

To generate an Audit Log analysis:

1Select the object(s) for which you want to view audited events.  

NOTES:

§If the scope of your analysis includes site collections that have been deleted, audit events associated with that site collection will no longer exist.

§As with all ControlPoint analyses, if you initiated the analysis from the farm, Web application, or site collection level, all child items will be included by default.  If you initiated the analysis at the site level, only information for that site (not its subsites) will be included.  You can, however, use the Change Selection option to further refine your scope.

2Choose Audit and Alerts > Audit Log.

3Specify one or more of the following parameters for your analysis:

§select both a Start and End date ( ) and time ( ) for which you want to report

NOTE: The time period for which you can generate an audit log analysis depends on how many days audit data is retained.  The ControlPoint default is 0 (meaning that audit data is never deleted), but the ControlPoint Application Administrator can specify a different value via ControlPoint Configuration Settings.  

§select the User(s) whose actions you want to audit (or leave blank for all users)

§enter a relative URL (note that you can enter a url down to the item level; you can also use an asterisk (*) at the beginning and end of a url as wildcards)

EXAMPLES

§sites/al*

§sites/alpha/shared documents/xcrSummaryReport.pdf

§select one or more Event types from the list box.  Refer to the topic Events Captured in SharePoint Log.  

CAUTION:  Although you have the option of viewing ALL events, if you select this option your result set may be extremely large.  One reason is that SharePoint records some events (such as a View) as a series of several events.  Also, some event types (such as Update) may encompass a wide variety of events.

Analyzing Change Log Contents

The ControlPoint Change Log lets you view the contents of SharePoint change logs for one or more selected event types.

To generate a Change Log analysis:

1Select the object(s) for which you want to view change log entries.  

2Choose Audit & Alerts > Change Log Analysis.

3Specify one or more of the following parameters for your analysis:

§select both a Start and End date ( ) and time ( ) for which you want to report

The time period for which you can generate a change log analysis depends on how many days change log data is retained.  ControlPoint relies on the history maintained by SharePoint.  SharePoint for Office 365 retains Change Log data for 60 days.

§enter a relative URL (note that you can enter a url down to the item level; you can also use an asterisk (*) at the beginning and end of a url as wildcards)

EXAMPLES

§sites/al*

§sites/alpha/shared documents/SharePointPlanning.docx

§select one or more Event types from the list box.  Refer to the topic Events Captured in SharePoint Logs  for guidance in selecting the appropriate event type(s).

Now you can:

·run the operation immediately (by clicking the [Run Now] button)

OR

·schedule the operation to run at a later time or on a recurring basis.

OR

·save the operation as XML Instructions that can be run at a later time.

Information in the Change Log Analysis

The ControlPoint Change Log Analysis contains the following information:

·the Date and time that the event occurred

·the Scope of the event

·the Event type

·the individual the event was Performed By

NOTE:  For many event types, SharePoint change logging does not record the user who performed the event.  In such cases, the value "None" will appear in the Performed By column.

·the name of the Site Collection and Site on/within which the event occurred.

·the URL for the item (if applicable).