Search for a specific user's changes and reverse them

Description

Think of needing to do an undo on a sheet, but on a larger scale. This feature requires that the system maintains a detailed record of changes made by individual users, permitting administrators to locate and potentially undo particular alterations. This requirement is critical for audit purposes, system integrity, and effective administration.

Example Use Case

Scenario: A global company budgets for multiple departments and regions. One of its staff inputs incorrect data, generating inaccurate reports which distort the company's financial performance.

Solution: Thanks to the budget software's ability to track specific users' changes, an administrator can search for this user's changes, identify the erroneous data, and reverse the changes. As a result, accurate reports are restored, and the company can make informed decisions again.

Considerations

Most products on the market have an audit trail that tracks user activity. Data such as user identification, time, action performed (add, edit, delete), field name, and value changes are common and are essentially table stakes for a planning or consolidation tool. In some cases, the system will only provide that data when looking at a specific cell. In others, reports can be created that factor in users, time, and so on.

Taking this a step further, being able to essentially ctrl-z your way back to where the system was before the user made edits is incredibly powerful and not all that common. So many factors play a part in this. Which dependencies should we factor into this mass undo? What if another user made changed based on the inputs you'd like to reverse?

There are systems that will display all the dependencies before committing to a change, but that typically falls on the largest enterprise solutions. And even then, it can be limited.

Questions to Ask a Vendor

• Reversal Actions: How easily can specific changes be reversed in your system, and who has the authority to initiate such reversals?
• Audit Trail Functionality: Describe your system's audit trail capabilities. How detailed are the tracked changes, and how easily can they be accessed for review?
• System Integrity: Does reversing changes pose any threat to the system's integrity or disrupt other parts of the software not directly associated with the changes?