Audit Trail of an Attachment Field!?

[hhzyousafi]

I have been using Access for quite some time now and I am able to usually work around many of the issues that come with being a small timer, like me, taking his best shot at Access; however one issue I have had absolutely no luck with is auditing a new and/or change made to an "Attachment Field". I have successfully been able to audit every type of field with the exception of the "Attachment Field". Is this even possible? Am I in way over my head on this one?

 

[AlexHedley]

Are you tracking the changes of other fields using another Table storing original value, new value, date, user etc? i.e. Audit Table

What do you wish to track in the attachment field?
Just the name change, if it's updated, the difference between the files etc?

 

[hhzyousafi]

Hi Alex,

Thank you for the quick response. Yes I am tracking all changes in every table. I am tracking the old value, the new value, the type of entry (i.e. new, delete, or update). Ideally I would like to track the original file and the new file.

Regards,

Zohair Yousafi

 

[AlexHedley]

Hi

Could I clarify:

Ideally I would like to track the original file and the new file.

Do you mean changes in the actual file or just if the filename has changed?

 

[hhzyousafi]

Well let's assume I originally added a Word Document as an attachment but I later remembered that I should have put an Excel Document as an attachment instead. In this scenario the "tblAuditTrail" would have the original file (the Word Document) and the new file (Excel Document) whereas the table where the user makes the change would simply have the new file.

Does that make sense?

 

[AlexHedley]

You could just log the difference of filenames in an After Update event like you would any other field?

 

[hhzyousafi]

Thanks for the reply Alex but that doesn't really solve the problem. Thank you for trying. Anyone else?

 

[AlexHedley]

So you wish to store every file attached even if it was incorrect?
I'd not store them as actual attachments (this can bloat the db) but instead path/filenames, with a date added, then you could just display the newest file.
If you do want them as the attachment field just have a separate table linking to your main one and have a 1-Many so you can add as many attachments as you like, then again only show the latest.