Applies to
Capabilities
Who can use this capability
Resourcing Administrators can activate Approvals.
Audit approvals
You can download a detailed audit log of all changes related to time and expense approvals.
Who can use this?
Plans:
- Resource Management
Permissions:
Resourcing Administrators can activate Approvals.
Find out if this capability is included in Smartsheet Regions or Smartsheet Gov.
Your organization may need to audit approval records to demonstrate a compliant approval process.
Unlike reports, which only represent the current approval state for each time entry, the approvals audit log captures every change event (submission, rejection, approval, etc.) and the associated rejection or approval comments, dates and users making the changes. The log is useful in supporting compliance-related processes.
At the beginning of each month, Resource Management generates a CSV file containing an audit log for the previous month. Prior months can be downloaded at any time.
Current month audit logs cannot be generated until the following month.
Download approval audit logs
- Open Account Settings.
- If you are working in Resource Management in Smartsheet, select the kebab menu in the top right corner, then select Account Settings.
- If you are working in standalone Resource Management, select Settings > Account Settings.
- In account settings, scroll down to approval workflow and then select Access Audit Logs.
- In the new window, choose the month and year for the time and expense entries you wish to audit.
- The audit log will be processed and, once available, a download link will appear in the list of recent requests. A link to the file will also be sent to the requester’s email.
- Select Download to access the audit log file.
The time period applies to the dates for the time entry records, not the dates when they were submitted or approved. Since time and expenses can be approved or rejected much later than the month during which the entries were submitted, audit log files for a given month may differ due to entries being approved after the log was downloaded. When conducting an audit, it is recommended to request and download new audit logs in order to capture the most up-to-date changes.
Understand approval audit logs
Approval audit logs contain time entry and/or expense records (depending which are being tracked) along with the history of changes to the approval status for those entries. This means the same time or expense entry record will likely have multiple rows in the audit log - one for each time the approval status changed for that entry.
For example, if a user submits a time entry for approval which is then rejected, modified, resubmitted, and then approved, there will be a row for each of those approval state changes (changing from pending to rejected back to pending and finally to approved).
The audit log contains multiple columns that describe the various properties of the time or expense entry as well as the users making changes to the record. Below is a description of what each of the columns in the audit log represent.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| action | Shows whether the record was created or updated |
| approvable_id | The unique identifier for the specific time or expense entry |
| approvable_date | The date of the time or expense entry |
| approval_id | The unique identifier for the approval record |
| approved_at | The time and date when the record was approved |
| approved_by_email | The email of the user who approved the entry |
| approved_by_id | The user ID of the user who approved the entry |
| approved_by_name | The name of the user who approved the entry |
| client_name | The client for the project for the time or expense entry |
| comment | The rejection or approval notes provided by the approver (if any) |
| created_at | The time and date when the entry was originally created |
| current_user_email | The email of the user who performed the action that generated the current row |
| current_user_id | The user ID of the user who performed the action that generated the current row |
| current_user_name | The name of the user who performed the action that generated the current row in the audit log |
| expense_item_amount | The expense amount |
| expense_item_category | The category (if any) recorded with the expense entry |
| expense_item_notes | Notes provided with the expense (if any) |
| organization_id | The ID of the current organization |
| phase_name | The phase (if any) for the time or expense entry |
| project_name | The name of the project for the time or expense entry |
| status | The approval status at that time |
| submitted_at | The time and date when the entry was submitted for approval |
| submitted_by_email | The email for the user who submitted the entry for approval (this can also be the manager submitted time or expenses on behalf of someone else) |
| submitted_by_id | The user ID for the user who submitted the entry for approval (this can also be the manager submitted time or expenses on behalf of someone else) |
| submitted_by_name | The name of the user who submitted the entry for approval (this can also be the manager submitted time or expenses on behalf of someone else) |
| time_entry_category | The category (if any) recorded with the time entry |
| time_entry_difference | The positive or negative difference between the time entered and the time that was scheduled |
| time_entry_incurred_hours | The time amount entered |
| time_entry_notes | Notes provided with the time entry (if any) |
| time_entry_scheduled_hours | The scheduled hours associated with the time entry (if any) |
| updated_at | Date and time when the entry was updated |
| approvable_user_id | The user ID associated with the time or expense entry |
| approvable_user_name | The name of the user associated with the time or expense entry |
| approvable_user_email | The email of the user associated with the time or expense entry |
| approvable_user_employee_number | The employee number of the user associated with the time or expense entry |
| approvable_user_discipline | The discipline of the user associated with the time or expense entry |
| approvable_user_role | The role of the user associated with the time or expense entry |
| assignable_id | The ID of the project for the time or expense entry |
| parent_id | The ID of the project if the assignment was for a phase |