Audit trails tell you who did what, when, where, and how, in the form of collected audit data. The audit data is stored in standard OpenEdge database tables, which makes it easy to query and report on the data. You can assign a globally unique database ID (GUID) to each OpenEdge database either when you create the database or later; if the audit data records are moved to an archive, you can use the GUID to identify in which database the audit data originated.

The audit policy is the configuration that OpenEdge components use to know what to place in the audit trail. OpenEdge places data in the audit trail only when the policy directs it to do so. No auditing is turned on in the policy until the administrator expressly turns it on.