The Transaction Log Files (or simply, Log Files) record the history of changes made to records in the critical CARS+ files. Currently, the following CARS+ files have a companion Transaction Log file:

• RA (Rental Agreement)
• RA Charge
• Reservation
• Reservation Charge
• Customer
• Aux (additional data related to reservations and rental agreements)
• Vehicle
• Voucher Value
• Vendor Employee
• Damage
• A/R Open Item

The amount of detail that is written to the log files depends on the setting for "Transaction Logging" found in the Edit Miscellaneous Control Fields, page 2, field 22. Please refer to that chapter for the possible settings for this field.

For each of the files listed above, a simple viewing program is provided to search and display the records of the associated log file. The purpose of this introduction is to explain how to read and interpret the result of the search. It should be noted that a single edit to a record, such as an RA, will often update several files. As a result, in many instances it is necessary to combine the records from more than one log file in order to get a complete picture of the consequence of a single edit. For this reason, CARS+ provides several reports which amalgamate records from one or more files and present the resulting data in a more readable format than the simple viewing programs addressed here. Examples of these reports are:

• RA Edit Report
• Rate Edit Report
• Customer Edit Report
• Change Logs by Employee Report

For the purpose of explaining how to read and interpret the displayed log search data, examples from the Vehicle Log File Search will be used. This explanation can be applied to any of the other search programs.

In the screen example below, a search was performed on vehicle #001812. After displaying all the records for that vehicle, it continues by displaying records for the next vehicle in vehicle number sequence, which in this case is #001813.

Option: __ VEHICLE LOG FILE SEARCH F1=Veh# Veh# Field Name Previous Value Date Time Empl Prog 001812 INV-TAB-EXPIRE- 02-28-01 03-04 1746 TEST EDTINV 001812 VEH2-OPT-CODE 03-04 1746 TEST EDTINV 001812 INV-TURN-BACK-O 06-02 1413 CARS EDTINV 001812 VEH2-VRT-CLAIM- 01 06-02 1413 CARS EDTINV 001812 INV-TURN-BACK-O 30000 06-02 1424 CARS EDTINV 001813 INV-CURR-DATE-T 07-19-02 1752 01-21 0957 TEST BCHCLS 001813 INV-CURR-ODOM 20146 01-21 0957 TEST BCHCLS 001813 INV-STATUS O 01-21 0957 TEST BCHCLS 001813 INV-CURR-ODOM 20300 02-09 0452 TEST BCHCLS 001813 INV-PARK-LOC 000005 04-27 1440 CARS BCHOPN 001813 INV-CURR-ODOM 20305 04-27 1505 CARS RACLOS 001813 INV-CURR-TANK 8 04-27 1505 CARS RACLOS 001813 INV-CURR-ODOM 20457 05-28 1715 CARS RACLOS 001813 INV-CURR-TANK 7 06-17 1321 TEST BCHOPN 001813 INV-CURR-ODOM 21500 06-17 1322 TEST RACLOS 001813 INV-CURR-ODOM 21600 07-22 1015 TEST RACLOS 001813 INV-NOTES 08-16 1711 CARS EDTINV 001813 VEH2-NEVERLOST- 08-16 1711 CARS EDTINV 001813 INV-NOTES HOW MANY NOTES IN STATUS RPT? 08-16 1712 CARS EDTINV 001813 INV-CURR-ODOM 21712 09-10 1416 TEST RACLOS PRESS RETURN TO CONTINUE

The columns of data on the screen are, from left to right:

• Vehicle Number
• Field Name - The name of the field that was changed. This is the "programmer's name" for the field, not the display name.
• Previous Value - The value of the field before the change was made.
• Date - The month and day the change was made. This example uses the American date format of MM-DD. To save space, the year is not shown. Records will be displayed in date/time order, however if a vehicle has been in the fleet for more than one year, care needs to be taken to ensure the correct year is being displayed.
• Time - The time the change was made. This will always be in 24-hour format regardless of the time format setting used in CARS+.
• Employee - The employee who made the change. Note that most "background processes", such as a reservation merge program, actually "log in" to CARS+ to perform their tasks and, as such, may create records in this file under their employee code.
• Program - The CARS+ program what was used to make the change. The is the actual program name, not the menu synonym name. A chart which lists the CARS+ program names along the associated synonym, menu name and the menu is located on is in the manual chapter Overview - CARS+ Program/Synonym List.

Example 1

The first two records displayed show that on March 4th at 1746, employee TEST used the EDTINV program (Vehicle Inventory Control) to change the fields INV-TAB-EXPIRE- (Tab Expire Date) and VEH2-OPT-CODE (Option Code). The Tab Expire Date field was populated with the date 02-28-01 before the change was made. The Option Code field was blank before the change was made. Since there are no more recent records for this vehicle which involve either of these fields, then the value that these field were changed to are the current values which can be observed by looking in the Vehicle Inventory Control program.

Example 2

There are seven records displayed for vehicle #001813 which show a change to the field INV-CURR-ODOM (Current Odometer). The chain of events for these seven records is:

• On 1-21 the Current Odometer was changed from 20146 to 20300 (the "previous value" of the next record) by employee TEST using the Batch RA Close program.
• On 2-9 the Current Odometer was changed from 20300 to 20305 (the "previous value" of the next record) by employee TEST using the Batch RA Close program.
• On 4-27 the Current Odometer was changed from 20305 to 20457 (the "previous value" of the next record) by employee CARS using the (on line) RA Close program.
• On 5-28 the Current Odometer was changed from 20457 to 21500 (the "previous value" of the next record) by employee CARS using the (on line) RA Close program.
• On 6-17 the Current Odometer was changed from 21500 to 21600 (the "previous value" of the next record) by employee TEST using the (on line) RA Close program.
• On 7-22 the Current Odometer was changed from 21600 to 21712 (the "previous value" of the next record) by employee TEST using the (on line) RA Close program.
• On 9-10 the Current Odometer was changed from 21712 to XXXXX by employee TEST using the Batch RA Close program. The value that the Current Odometer was change to depends on whether there are more records for this vehicle and field to be displayed on the next screen. If so, the value it was changed to will be the "previous value" of the next record on the next page. If there are no more records for this vehicle and field combination, the the value it was changed to is the current value as seen in the Vehicle Inventory Control program.