GMP & Compliance
Reading the audit trail
Where Crown records who changed what and when, how to read a record's own history from its drawer, and what the Changes and Reads tabs show.
Crown records who did what, and when, as a by-product of normal work. You don't switch it on and you can't switch it off — every change to a tracked record lands on the audit trail automatically, with the person, the timestamp, and what actually changed.
This is the thing an inspector is really testing when they ask how you know a record wasn't altered after the fact.
The fastest route: a record's own history
Most of the time you don't want the whole log, you want the story of one record — this batch, this lot, this lab test.
Open the record and look for its history section, usually near the bottom of the drawer. It shows that record's changes in order: what changed, who changed it, when, and the reason where one was required. For records that have children — a lab test's results, a receipt's line items — the history pulls those in too, so you see the whole picture in one place rather than hunting for the related record.
The Audit page
For everything else, open Audit from the main menu. It has two tabs.
Changes
Every recorded change across your workspace, newest first:
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| When | The timestamp, in your company's timezone. |
| Table | Which kind of record was touched. |
| Op | Whether the record was created, updated, or deleted. |
| Significance | How consequential the change was — minor, major, or critical. |
| Changed | Which fields actually changed. |
| Actor | Who did it. |
| Reason | The reason they gave, where the action required one. |
Filter by table, by significance, or by a specific record ID. Filtering to critical is the quickest way to see the decisions that carry weight — releases, dispositions, signed closures — without the routine edits around them.
Reads
The Reads tab records who looked at sensitive records, not just who changed them. It shows when, who, which table, which record, how it was accessed, and from where.
For recipes and formulations, access itself is worth recording — a formulation doesn't have to be altered to be taken. This is the tab that answers "who has been looking at this?"
What this gives you in an inspection
Three questions come up, and the audit trail answers all three:
- "Who recorded this?" — every entry carries its actor, which is why each person needs their own sign-in rather than a shared one.
- "Has this been changed since?" — the history shows every version, so a correction reads as a correction rather than quietly replacing what was there.
- "Why was it changed?" — the reason is captured at the moment of the change, not reconstructed afterwards.
What's next
For the readiness view of your whole system rather than individual records, see QMS completeness and Compliance health on your dashboard.
Frequently asked questions
Can anyone edit or delete the audit trail in Crown QMS?
No. The audit log is append-only and protected at the database level — updates and deletions are refused outright, for every user including admins. That is what makes it worth showing an inspector.
Where do I see the history of one specific record?
Open that record and look for its history section. Most drawers show the record's own change history in place, which is usually faster than searching the full audit page for it.
What does the Reads tab show?
Who looked at sensitive records, not just who changed them. It's visible to Admins only, and it exists because for recipes and formulations, access itself is the thing worth recording.