The auditing policy feature helps organizations analyze how their content management systems are used by logging events and operations that are performed on documents and list items. Organizations can configure the Auditing policy feature to log events such as when a document or item is edited, viewed, checked in, checked out, deleted, or has its permissions changed. All of the audit information is stored in a single audit log on the server, and site administrators can run reports on it.

 

Once auditing is placed on a list or library the audit log information can be viewed by performing the following steps:

1. Navigate to the top level site within your site collection by clicking on Site Actions –> Site Settings (if you are using a MOSS template you will then need to click Modify All Site Settings).
2. In the Site Collection Administration section click Audit log reports.
   
3. On the View Auditing Reports page you can click on the type of auditing report and open it in Excel.
   
4. If a report does not contain any data you will receive the following message:
   
5. If the report contains data a dialog box will appear as follows:
   
6. When you open the file each report will have at least two separate sheets of data regarding the policy information. In this example Sheet 1 is called Audit Data - Table and shows basic information regarding the transactions.
   
   Sheet 2 is called Report Data and provides detailed information regarding each auditing transaction.