Analysing Task Audit, Data Audit and Process Flow History

Question

Hi,
Internal Audit dept has requested a bunch of information, that we need to compile from Task Audit, Data Audit and Process Flow History logs. We do have all the info available, however not in a format that allows proper "reporting" of log information. What is the best way to handle HFM logs so that we can quickly filter and export required audit information?
We do have housekeeping in place, so the logs are partial "live" db tables, and partial purged tables that were exported to Excel to archive the historical log info.
Many Thanks.

Answer 1

I thought I posted this Friday, but I just noticed I never hit the 'Post Message Button', ha ha.
This info below will help you translate some of the information in the tables, etc. You could report on it from the Audit tables directly or move them to another appropriate data table for analysis later. The concensus, though I disagree, is that you will suffer performance issues if your audit tables get too big, so you want to move them periodically. You can do this using a scheduled Task, manual process, etc.
I personally just dump it to another table and report on it from there. As mentioned above, you'll need to translate some of the information as it is not 'human readable' in the database.
For instance, if I wanted to pull Metadata Load, Rules Load, Member List load, you could run a query like this. (NOTE: strAppName should be equal to the name of your application .... )
The main tricks to know at least for task audit table are figuring out how to convert times and determing which activity code corresponds to the user friendly name.
-- Declare working variables --
declare @dtStartDate as nvarchar(20)
declare @dtEndDate as nvarchar(20)
declare @strAppName as nvarchar(20)
declare @strSQL as nvarchar(4000)
-- Initialize working variables --
set @dtStartDate = '1/1/2012'
set @dtEndDate = '8/31/2012'
set @strAppName = 'YourAppNameHere'
--Get Rules Load, Metadata, Member List
set @strSQL = '
select sUserName as "User", ''Rules Load'' as Activity, cast(StartTime-2 as smalldatetime) as "Time Start",
      cast(EndTime-2 as smalldatetime) as ''Time End'', ServerName, strDescription, strModuleName
   from ' + @strAppName + '_task_audit ta, hsv_activity_users au
   where au.lUserID = ta.ActivityUserID and activitycode in (1)
        and cast(StartTime-2 as smalldatetime) between ''' + @dtStartDate + ''' and ''' + @dtEndDate + '''
union all
select sUserName as "User", ''Metadata Load'' as Activity, cast(StartTime-2 as smalldatetime) as "Time Start",
      cast(EndTime-2 as smalldatetime) as ''Time End'', ServerName, strDescription, strModuleName
   from ' + @strAppName + '_task_audit ta, hsv_activity_users au
   where au.lUserID = ta.ActivityUserID and activitycode in (21)
        and cast(StartTime-2 as smalldatetime) between ''' + @dtStartDate + ''' and ''' + @dtEndDate + '''
union all
select sUserName as "User", ''Memberlist Load'' as Activity, cast(StartTime-2 as smalldatetime) as "Time Start",
      cast(EndTime-2 as smalldatetime) as ''Time End'', ServerName, strDescription, strModuleName
   from ' + @strAppName + '_task_audit ta, hsv_activity_users au
   where au.lUserID = ta.ActivityUserID and activitycode in (23)
        and cast(StartTime-2 as smalldatetime) between ''' + @dtStartDate + ''' and ''' + @dtEndDate + ''''
exec sp_executesql @strSQLIn regards to activity codes, here's a quick breakdown on those ....
ActivityID     ActivityName
0     Idle
1     Rules Load
2     Rules Scan
3     Rules Extract
4     Consolidation
5     Chart Logic
6     Translation
7     Custom Logic
8     Allocate
9     Data Load
10     Data Extract
11     Data Extract via HAL
12     Data Entry
13     Data Retrieval
14     Data Clear
15     Data Copy
16     Journal Entry
17     Journal Retrieval
18     Journal Posting
19     Journal Unposting
20     Journal Template Entry
21     Metadata Load
22     Metadata Extract
23     Member List Load
24     Member List Scan
25     Member List Extract
26     Security Load
27     Security Scan
28     Security Extract
29     Logon
30     Logon Failure
31     Logoff
32     External
33     Metadata Scan
34     Data Scan
35     Extended Analytics Export
36     Extended Analytics Schema Delete
37     Transactions Load
38     Transactions Extract
39     Document Attachments
40     Document Detachments
41     Create Transactions
42     Edit Transactions
43     Delete Transactions
44     Post Transactions
45     Unpost Transactions
46     Delete Invalid Records
47     Data Audit Purged
48     Task Audit Purged
49     Post All Transactions
50     Unpost All Transactions
51     Delete All Transactions
52     Unmatch All Transactions
53     Auto Match by ID
54     Auto Match by Account
55     Intercompany Matching Report by ID
56     Intercompany Matching Report by Acct
57     Intercompany Transaction Report
58     Manual Match
59     Unmatch Selected
60     Manage IC Periods
61     Lock/Unlock IC Entities
62     Manage IC Reason Codes
63     Null