To find who changed a record, check its audit history—not just its “last modified” field. In Microsoft Dataverse, that history can show who made a change, when it happened, which operation occurred, and, for audited fields, the old and new values. But auditing must be enabled at the right levels, the viewer needs permission, and retained history may be delayed, truncated, or deleted.
What a record audit trail can tell you
A useful audit entry ties an operation to a specific record and user. Dataverse audit records include the user who changed the data, the time, the audited record, and the operation. For audited data changes, details can also include the prior and new values. Microsoft documents create, update, and delete events, as well as record sharing changes, many-to-many associations and disassociations, security-role changes, and user access logging. Which events and field values you can inspect depends on what auditing is configured to capture.
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In Dataverse, the audit table is read-only, according to Microsoft’s developer documentation. Its CreatedOn field records when the operation took place, UserId identifies the user, ObjectId identifies the audited record, and Operation identifies the event. Microsoft enhanced CreatedOn accuracy in July 2025 to include milliseconds, helping distinguish the sequence of multiple operations in a transaction.
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A record’s last-modified value can tell you when something was last updated, but it does not necessarily provide a change-by-change account or show what a field said before an edit. An audit history is a separate capability: administrators configure what is logged, and access to the log is permissioned. Do not assume that every low-code platform, or every table and field within one platform, captures the same details.
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How to check a record’s audit history in Dataverse
Inspect an individual record
- Confirm that auditing is enabled for the environment and the relevant table and columns.
- In the model-driven app, open the record and choose Related > Audit History. The user needs the View Audit History privilege.
- Filter the history by field when you are looking for a particular value change.
- Check the operation, user, and time alongside the field details. If the entry is not visible immediately, allow for a delay before treating it as missing.
Review environment-wide activity
The environment-wide Audit Summary view requires the View Audit Summary privilege. It is distinct from the per-record history view and can also display entries with a delay. Microsoft describes these access paths and their permissions in its Dataverse auditing overview.
Check configuration when an entry is missing
Dataverse supports auditing at organization, table, and column scope. Enabling it for the environment alone does not guarantee that the expected field history will be captured: verify the relevant table and columns as well. Dataverse supports auditing on all custom tables and most customizable tables and columns. For updates, Microsoft says an audit record is created when a new column value differs from its old value. The Dataverse auditing overview for developers also identifies environment settings for enabling auditing, setting retention days, and enabling and scheduling access logging.
What can make the history incomplete or unavailable
- Auditing was not enabled at the needed scope. If the table or column was not audited, the expected field-level evidence may not exist.
- The viewer lacks the required privilege. Record history and environment-wide summary have different viewing privileges.
- The entry has not appeared yet. Microsoft warns that audit views may show records after a delay because audit data is stored in log storage.
- Retention or deletion removed the evidence. Audit data consumes log storage capacity. Retention is configurable, and administrators can delete all history for a record or delete logs by table, access log, or date. Once deleted, the affected history is no longer available for investigation.
- A large value was truncated. Microsoft says certain large attribute values may be capped at 5 KB or about 5,000 characters, with an ellipsis indicating truncation. A truncated value cannot be used to restore the original value.
Microsoft’s administration documentation covers storage, delayed display, permissions, and deletion. Its retrieval documentation describes audit data and the truncation limit. Treat retention as an environment setting to verify, not a universal guarantee that records will remain available indefinitely.
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Dataverse developers can retrieve audit data through the Web API or .NET SDK. The response shape matters: the Web API’s audit-detail derived types do not return the inherited AuditRecord navigation property that carries actor and time information. The .NET SDK sample obtains those details from the audit record. An application relying only on a Web API audit-detail response should not assume it contains who changed the data and when; follow Microsoft’s retrieval guidance for the appropriate route.
Microsoft says audit-log export through the Dataverse interface is not currently supported; its guidance points to the Web API or .NET SDK for retrieval. Build and verify the retrieval workflow you actually need rather than assuming a visible history screen is also an export facility.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to assess audit history in another low-code platform
Dataverse provides a documented example, not a standard that every platform follows. For any platform under consideration, verify these questions against its current official documentation and your own configuration:
- Must auditing be enabled, and can it be scoped to an environment, table, or field?
- Does the history identify the actor, time, operation, record, changed fields, and old and new values?
- Which events are covered, such as edits, deletion, sharing, access, or configuration changes?
- How long is history retained, what storage or plan constraints apply, and can administrators delete it?
- Who can view history, and can it be retrieved programmatically?
- Are large values truncated, or do API responses omit details shown in the user interface?
One limited Salesforce example illustrates why product-specific checks matter: its official Security Guide search result says that, without Field Audit Trail, field history is retained for up to 18 months, or up to 24 months via API; fields over 255 characters are recorded as edited without old and new values. Those statements apply to Salesforce as described in that guide, not to low-code platforms generally. The available guide result does not support a broader product comparison.
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Quick Recap
A practical audit-readiness checklist
- Identify the business-critical or regulated tables and fields whose changes must be traceable.
- Enable auditing at the appropriate environment, table, and column levels.
- Grant history access only to users who need it, using the relevant viewing privileges.
- Make a test change in your own environment and confirm that the actor, time, operation, and expected before-and-after values appear.
- Set a retention and deletion policy that accounts for storage and investigation needs.
- Test the actual API or SDK retrieval and export workflow if people or systems need audit data outside the app.
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