Monday, February 14, 2011

Alfresco Test Day 4 - Transferring - documentation of transfer activities

Today I am testing the feature allowing documentation of transfer activities in an electronic format that can be saved as a record. This feature is important as it provides an automated audit trail of movements, and relates to the Generally Accepted Record Keeping Principles (GARP) of Complaince and Integrity.

If a record were ever transferred for inappropriate reasons (unathorized disposal of a valued or controversial record), this audit trail should identify who, where, and when it was transferred.

I created two folders under different categories, downloaded multiple documents to one folder, then used the "Copy to...", "Move to..." and "File to..." actions to move several documents to the other folder. I then viewed the audit log for the copied document.

Both times I tried to copy, my initial attempt failed, but worked on second try. I was unable to successfully Move a document. Below is the error message I received. There must be a bug in the system and I will be forwarding this problem to the Alfresco community page for a fix. I'll update this page if it gets worked out.



I rate this test as a conditoinal PASS
The "Move to..." action failed. However, the audit logs tracked all changes and was available to view and print, as required.

Records Manager
  • There are audit logs for Series, Category, Folder, and Document. Here is as sample audit log for a document.



  • The audit log at the category level, the first row describes the current metadata for the category. Below that, all moves, adds and changes, including added folders, and action to all folders, is recorded. This would be a useful report showing folder activity.
  • The audit log at the folder level, similarly the first row describes the current metadata for the file. Below that, all moves, adds and changes, including added documents (records) is recorded.
  • The audit log at the document (record) level shows all changes to the document.
Business User
  • "Copy to.." and "File to..." allow you to copy your document to a different folder. Every time I tried this, I had to do the action twice to get past the fail.
  • "Move to..." failed every time I tried it. I will report this bug to the developers. 
  • Thankfully the audit log function is for your reassurance only. Your Records and Information Management professionals are responsible to monitor the logs for complaince.

Developer
  • The "Move to..." activity fails, that must be fixed.
  • I would like to see a new summary audit log of all activity (for a specified time period) including series, category, folder, and document. The columns might be: Time stamp,Unique Record Identifer, level (Series, Category, Folder, or Document),  Type of change, and User. The Records Manager then could then scan the list for audit checks and reference the Unique Record Identifier for details.
  • I noted that a copied record did not track it's source as a "previous value". This reduces the value of the audit log as there is no way to track back copies to their original source.

Notes
Checking standard DOD 5015.2, Feature C2.2.7.5.5, C2.2.9.1.3, C2.2.9.1 and MoReq 3.4.15, 3.4.16, 3.4.29, 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.4, 4.2.6, 4.2.8, 4.2.9, 4.2.10, 4.2.11. Relates to GARP Compliance, Integrity.