A chronological record of changes made to data, documents or systems that provides traceability and accountability.
An Audit Trail is a secure chronological record that captures the creation, modification, approval and deletion of information within a system. It records who performed an action, what was changed, when the change occurred and, where applicable, why the change was made, providing complete traceability throughout the lifecycle of the information.
Audit Trails support regulatory compliance, improve governance, enable forensic investigations and provide confidence in the integrity of engineering, maintenance and operational information.
Audit Trails are essential for regulated industries where engineering, maintenance and operational decisions must be demonstrably traceable. Modern enterprise systems typically generate Audit Trails automatically for critical transactions.
An Audit Trail records the history of changes and should not be confused with version control, which manages document or software revisions.
Data Governance; Document Management; Cybersecurity; Regulatory compliance; Asset Information Management; Quality Management.
Tracking revisions to engineering documents.; Recording changes to maintenance records.; Logging updates to asset master data.; Maintaining inspection history for regulatory audits.
ISO 9001; FDA 21 CFR Part 11
VisualAIM connects glossary concepts to the asset records, inspection histories, and workflows they describe.