Provide administrators with a visible audit trail for data lock/unlock and Data Capture Policy changes

Description:

Data lock periods are an important governance control used to protect historical ESG data from modification after review, sign-off and reporting activities have been completed.

Currently, administrators can be affected by changes to Data Capture Policy lock dates but do not have visibility of a corresponding audit trail within the Envizi user interface. As a result, when lock dates are changed, it can be difficult to determine:

• Who made the change
• When the change occurred
• What the previous lock date was
• What the new lock date is
• Why the change was made

This creates challenges for data governance, auditability, troubleshooting and investigation of issues affecting reporting processes.

Suggested Enhancement

Provide an administrator-accessible audit log for Data Capture Policy and lock/unlock activities, including:

• User who performed the action
• Date and time of the change
• Previous value
• New value
• Type of action (lock, unlock, change lock date)
• Optional reason/comment for the change

Ideally, this information should be available directly within the Envizi application and exportable for audit purposes.

Business Value

Many organisations use lock periods as a key control to protect reported ESG data. Visibility of lock-related changes would:

• Improve governance and accountability
• Support internal and external audits
• Simplify investigation of data issues
• Increase confidence in historical reported data
• Reduce reliance on IBM support for backend investigations
• Align with common audit trail expectations for enterprise reporting systems

This enhancement would provide administrators with the transparency required to effectively manage and monitor controls around historical reporting data.