Transaction Log Query for Non Admin

[johnboyone]

Hi All

I am wondering if anyone can think of a way of having users read the transaction log without being an ADMIN.

Our clients want to be able to query the transaction log in a very similiar way to how the transaction log query window works.

We have quite a few users and the number of requests for viewing this information is overwhelming the ADMINS. Obviously we cannot make EVERYONE and ADMIN, though.

Hase anyone ever built such a thing? Perhaps using the API? Failing that, does anyone have any ideas as to how to go about such a thing?

Please advise.

Thanks!
John

[lotsaram]

If you only need users to be able to query the transaction logs as opposed to actually being able to back out records then the best solution is to load the logs to a relational database and let the users query the database. This is easy to implement and can provide for a much nicer and faster experience querying the transaction logs and removes any locking/hanging in TM1 from lengthy log queries.

[LoadzaGrunt]

Once you start to allow non-Admin users to look at the transactions you need to ask yourself if there are any security issues...

Using the relational store as Lotsa suggests is great if there are no issues, otherwise you start to have problems having to rework TM1 security into some sort of ETL logic for the transaction database and then keep it in sync with TM1 going forward.

[lotsaram]

Once you start to allow non-Admin users to look at the transactions you need to ask yourself if there are any security issues

I thought that went without saying but thanks for pointing it out! (Maybe I assume too much ...)

[johnboyone]

Hi
Thanks for the responses.

The assumption that there are no security concerns is valid for my purposes here and now (although the question was definitely worth asking)

I had thought about the idea of loading the t-logs into a database table and then building an interface to query that table. The challenge I have with that is that the CURRENT log file is locked by the TM1 process, and I cannot seem to find a way to read this file to load the contents into my table. Obviously bringing the server down, loading the log file, and bringing the service back up is not an elegant approach. This is why I think that I need to use the API, although my preliminary research did not turn up any way of reading from log objects.

I'm not a super-heavyweight programmer, but if someone can point me in a viable direction, I think I can likely figure something out.

Frankly, I would have hoped that the software would allow a way of allowing controlled access to the logs without giving everyone ADMIN access to the entire server.

Thanks!

John

[kpk]

"The challenge I have with that is that the CURRENT log file is locked by the TM1 process, and I cannot seem to find a way to read this file to load the contents into my table."
SaveDataAll save the current log with timestamp and open a new empty one.

"I had thought about the idea of loading the t-logs into a database table and then building an interface to query that table."
Instead of building an interface from scrach you can create a drill process to retrieve the required data from you SQL database.

[lotsaram]

Instead of building an interface from scratch you can create a drill process to retrieve the required data from you SQL database.

I thought about mentioning that but didn't want to overcomplicate things initially. It can be a good solution as the drill throughs are built within TM1 they can be made to reference and respect TM1 security which addresses some areas of security concern raised by Loadza.

[johnboyone]

Hi.

Thanks again for all the replies. Creating the drill through is a great idea (simpler than my original thought, and the simplest solutions are almost always the best)

However, unless I am missing something, I still don't see how to address the fact that the current log file is locked (how can my ETL process read that locked file?)

Is there any way of circumventing that without bringing the service down?

I would love some advice on that....

John

[johnboyone]

oh...wait...I just saw the idea of the savedata all mentioned above to unlock the current file. I should read more carefully before posting replies....

I will try some of these things out. Thanks, all!

John