Field Level Audit Trail

[datalink]

I have a status field in a system that seems to change for reasons that no one can quite explain. Clearly an operator or a script of some sort is inadvertently touching the data in that field. To help troubleshoot I'd like to set up a field level audit trail to record the contents and modification history of that field over time.

I seem recall that folks use the evaluate function to create a trail like this, but I'm unable to replicate the process. Can anyone help with this technique, or provide some other tip that will allow me to track data on that one field's history?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Kris M]

If you run a ddr you might be able to see what scripts modify the field your concerned about.

If thats too tedious then http://www.beezwax.net/solutions/inspectorPro or http://www.goya.com.au/baseelements kick butt when it comes to diagnosing problems with complex solutions.

If its a script that is doing it you will be able to find it with those tools.

If its a person that is doing it then restrict who has permission to modify the value in the field with filemaker's security settings and wait for the first person to report a problem modifying the status field.

[jdu98a]

I've got two replies. One is a shot in the dark, and the other might help if the first one is wrong.

First, and this has happened to me more than once which is why I thought of it, do you have an import script that imports records into the table containing the status field? If so, have you recently added new fields to the table from which the records are being imported. Filemaker likes to add any new fields added to a table automatically to any existing import scripts without telling you. I've had this happen to me and I couldn't figure out why field values were changing until I checked the import script step.

If that isn't it maybe you could create a script trigger on the status field set to "OnObjectModify". You could just have the script pop up a comment with the text "[fieldName] is being modified!" That solution wouldn't catch every possibility, but it should catch most.