Configure audit settings for a site collection

Auditing enable us to capture action taken on various object in SharePoint such as Adding, editing, deleting, check in and check out etc. Administrator can review these audit information to produce various reports for business requirement and records management.

Site administrator can track various documents in libraries throughout the site collection. Administrator can generate a customized audit report about an individual record, item, column, content type, search or permissions. Predefined reports in excel can be used to review the audit log.

The audit log can captures the following information for the events that are selected to be audited.

• Item name and location
• Site from which an event originated
• Item type (for example, list or document)
• User ID associated with the event
• Event date and time
• Action taken on the item

There is no way by which you can modify the added entries where as Administrator can delete unwanted entries using SOM.

Configure audit settings for a site collection

1. On the site collection home page, click Site actions, point to Site settings, and then click Modify All Site Settings.
2. On the Site Settings page, in the Site Collection Administration section, click Site collection audit settings.
   
   
   
3. On Audit Setting page, select appropriate option for your site collection
   
   
   
   1. Audit Log Trimming:
      1. Select “Yes” if you want to control the size of audit log. The schedule for audit log trimming is configured by your server administrator.
      2. You can also specify the number of days of audit log data to retain, this means if you specify the 3 days then only last three days log will be kept in audit log.
      3. This also provides the facility to copy your audit log data in specified particular document library before trimming started by job.
   2. Documents and Items: Here you can specify the events that we need to capture for Documents or List/Library Items.
      
      Following are the events that you can on/off on List/Library Items.

      Opening or downloading documents, viewing items in lists, or viewing item properties Editing items Checking out or checking in items Moving or copying items to another location in the site Deleting or restoring items

   3. Lists, Libraries, and Sites: Here you can specify the events that we need to capture whenever there is change on List, Library, Sites or Content Types.
      
      Following are the events that you can on/off on Lists, Libraries, and Sites
      
      

      Editing content types and columns Searching site content Editing users and permissions

      
      
4. When you select an event to be audited, It will be audited for every item in the site collection each time the event occurs.

Note: This can potentially generate a large number of audit events, particularly when the setting for viewing items or item properties is enabled.

You can also see,

Configure audit settings for a individual List/Library Viewing audit log report