Auditing
Whether you are automating target systems or managing them manually, it is vitally important to have an audit trail of what has changed in regards to user accounts and memberships. NIM provides a robust auditing framework that keeps track of changes made to your target systems, whether from an automated process, or actions manually taken through NIM applications.
Target System Auditing
Most actions taken on a target system are logged to NIM's internal auditing database. Activities launched from jobs, the scheduler, and applications are logged into the audit database.
Important
One exception are actions launched from a mapping's Run tab. Actions manually launched from the Run tab of a mapping are not logged to the audit database, nor are they written back to NIM's internal vault.
Information logged to the audit database includes the date and time of the activity, which target system was affected, which objects (e.g., user accounts or groups) were affected, which attributes were changed, as well as those attributes' old and new values. In the case of groups, the act of adding or removing memberships to a particular group is logged.
Application Activity Auditing
NIM's applications provide administrators the ability to delegate simplify complex tasks and delegate them to non-technical personnel. Actions taken against target systems within these applications are logged for auditing purposes. Each target system action is logged, timestamped, and associated with the following information:
The name of the user who initiated the action
The application that was used
The date and time of the action
Which target system objects were affected
The old and new values of affected attributes (if applicable)
The group memberships that were changed (if applicable)
A description of the action
Action Descriptions
Every action launched within an application is logged to the auditing database. Each action is associated with the user who launched the action, the date and time they launched it, a description of the action, and—if applicable—a target system.
Unlike the other pieces of data that are logged, action descriptions are customizable and are set by NIM administrators or app developers, as shown in the screenshot below. When adding an action to a NIM app, it is important to provide relevant details on what the action is doing. This way, auditors can tell, at a glance, what actions took place.
Auditing Database Tables
NIM stores all auditing data within its own database. The tables of this database are queryable through the use of auditing queries. The diagram below shows the structure and relationships of NIM's auditing tables for your reference.
