Audit log

Every action, every approval, every version — captured for audit, accessible on demand.

When a regulator, an auditor, or an internal inspector asks “who approved this document, in what role, against which version, on what date?” — the answer is either immediately available from the audit log or the product is failing at its job. docs365.ai takes the first position. Every document has an audit log attached to it, and the log is accessible directly from the document’s context menu.

What’s captured

For every document, the audit log records every significant event:

• Creation — when the document was first instantiated, by whom, from which template.
• Edit events — who made changes, when, to what. Co-authoring activity, @mentions, resolved comment threads.
• Approval events — who approved or rejected, in which role, against which version, with what comments. Each step of a sequential approval flow is a separate event.
• Publication events — when the document moved from the editing area to the public area, and the approved version number at that moment.
• Archive events — when a document was retired, by whom, superseded by which new version.
• Reminder events — when expiration emails were sent, to whom, and the document’s state at that moment.
• Signature events (when DocuSign is used) — who signed, under what authentication, with what cryptographic binding.

Each event is tied to a named Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) identity — no “system” or “automated” actor substituting for a real person.

Accessible directly from the document

There’s no separate admin console, no report to run, no query to write. A user with permission opens the document in the library, clicks the three-dot menu, and selects Audit. The log renders. Filter by event type, by user, by date range. Export if needed.

This accessibility matters in practice. During a surveillance audit, the auditor asks about a specific document and the Quality Manager produces the log in thirty seconds — not after a week of archaeology.

What the log is used for

ISO 9001 surveillance. Clause 8.5 (Control of Documented Information) requires evidence that the document-control process has been followed. The audit log is that evidence.

21 CFR Part 11 (for pharma customers). Part 11 requires a “secure, computer-generated, time-stamped audit trail” that records operator entries and actions that create, modify, or delete electronic records. Our audit log provides the capability customers use in their Part 11 compliance program — with validation posture remaining with the customer’s QA team.

HIPAA audit controls (for healthcare). §164.312(b) requires mechanisms that record and examine activity in systems that contain PHI. For the document-management portion of that requirement, the audit log produces the evidence.

GDPR Article 5(2) accountability. Controllers must be able to demonstrate compliance. The audit log produces the demonstration, for the documented-information portion.

SOX Section 404 testing. External auditors reviewing internal-controls documentation use the audit log as evidence that documented controls operated as designed.

Internal audit and management review. Beyond regulatory contexts, the log is the dataset for any management question about document discipline — “how long are our approvals taking?”, “which documents are being modified most often?”, “are we getting the approval evidence we need?”

Immutable-by-design

The log is append-only. Events cannot be edited or deleted by users, regardless of their permission level. The integrity of the log is the integrity of the audit evidence.

Ties to named users, not generic accounts

Every event names a specific Entra (Azure AD) identity — not “admin,” not “system,” not a shared account. For regulatory contexts that require attribution to individuals (21 CFR Part 11, HIPAA, many audit frameworks), this is a prerequisite. Customers who operate with shared accounts for some workflows should be aware: shared-account activity weakens the audit-log’s attribution value.

Power BI reporting on the log

On Enterprise plans and above, a Power BI dashboard visualizes the audit log at aggregate scale — approvals per week, average approval time by document type, rejections as a share of approvals, activity trends. Useful for management reporting and for spotting drift before it becomes a finding.

Related features

• Sequential approval — every approval event is written to the audit log.
• Versioning — the version each event applied to is captured.
• Power BI reporting — the aggregate view of audit-log data.
• ISO 9001 compliance page — how the audit log supports clause 8.5.

Lifecycle stage: Govern →