Audit Trails

Chromeleon maintains an event log called the Audit Trail. The Audit Trail includes the following information:

Audit Trail entries for Preconditions:

 

Device settings before a sample run, such as the column oven temperature (settings are displayed against a light blue background)

 

 Note:

These entries are displayed in the Daily Audit Trail and Sample Audit Trail only.

 

Audit Trail entries for a sample run:

 

System messages, such as:

  • Restart of Chromeleon after booting the computer

  • Start of sample processing

Warning

Error

Abort Error (batch or program is aborted)

Post-acquisition step

Next command in the batch

 

Instruction performed. The color indicates the filter level. The message is displayed from this level on:

Green: Normal

Yellow: Advanced

Red: Expert

Color-coding is not yet supported for manual and triggered commands.

Command performed manually from the control panel or F8 dialog box

Triggered command

Fulfilled Trigger condition

IF construct or Branch command performed manually from the control panel or F8 dialog box

Protocol; comments about program steps or descriptions of chromatographic conditions

Message on the screen that the user must confirm

Log command performed by either the user or the Device Driver

 

 Tip: 

When samples overlap, entries relating to the current sample and at least one sample in preparation have a yellow background. (For more information about sample overlapping, refer to Device Control/Practical Tips for Device Control/Autosampler Control  Overlapping Samples.)

Each item is stored with the current time of the Chromeleon server PC. Information gathered during data acquisition or sample batch processing also includes the associated retention time.

The Audit Trail information is stored continuously both over the entire workday and for the processing time of a single sample. Chromeleon supports the following Audit Trails:

 The Daily Audit Trail

 The Sample Audit Trail

 

Audit trails can be displayed in the Browser (as Daily or Sample Audit Trails), on a control panel, or in a report or Printer Layout (as a sample log only).

To define the extent and type of the Audit Trail display, select the display filter (Normal, Advanced, Expert, or Error and Warning) on the context menu. The Advanced and Expert options are not available for Audit Trails created with Chromeleon 4.0 or lower.

In addition, you can select one of the following options on the context menu: