Create an audit log for a column

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
1

Hi guys

I need to trace the updates made by a user to a specific field (column). Does anyone have an idea?

I made some attempts using actions and workflow but I can’t intercept “before update” and “after update” events.

Any support will be appreciated

2

How do you want to trace them?

  • Send an email/notification alerting you about the change
  • create a running list, an edit history if you will, about the column

What were you thinking?

I’ve had success with the latter option, here’s what I did:

  1. I created a column (longtext) to hold the history of something
  2. I created an action that concatenates what’s already in the column with some data about who’s making the update (the time, their email, maybe a small summary if possible)
  3. I setup a workflow that watches for before and after changes, and if one is detected it triggers the history making action

I’ve had success with this, and it sounds like you might have gone the same route - perhaps it’s just a matter of getting all the pieces aligned.

For the workflow, the condition needs to be something like this:

[_thisrow_before].[Column1] <> [_thisrow_after].[Column1]

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3

Great! It’s exactly what I need. I didn’t know about [_thisrow_before] and [_thisrow_after].
Thanks a lot

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