Application events include application-context and application-defined events. You must enable application-context events and insert code into the application to trigger the events to be recorded. For application-defined events, you must define and enable the events, and then you must insert code into the application to trigger the events to be recorded.

You can define application events to be stored in the same database where an applications database events are recorded or in a database used specifically for application events; or you can record the events in any combination of an applications connected databases.

Once you enable application event auditing, you can audit the following:

  • Application-defined events—Allows you to create your own application events for which there is no corresponding database operation; allows you to have full control over the granularity and detail of the audit data recorded; and allows you to group events into ranges for simplification of reporting.
  • Audit event groups—Allows you to define (within the application) audit event groups, which can be used to establish a collection of related application or database audit events. For example, starting an update on a DataSet as part of a business task might change multiple table records in multiple databases. By starting and ending an audit event group around the DataSet UPDATE operation, you can later audit all audit event records that were involved in that single application operation.
  • Application context—Allows you to record what application or business task the user was performing when the auditing event occurred. In viewing the context in which a change occurred, you can better determine whether the change was legitimate.

The application event and the application context audit data can be recorded together with the database audited events for consolidated reporting. The custom application audit data can also be managed fully by the supplied auditing tools for configuration, archiving, and reporting. For more information, see Configure OpenEdge auditing, Query and Report Audit Data, and Manage the OpenEdge Database.