Streamlining Security and Compliance: A Guide to Auditing Login Activity in NetSuite
In today’s digital environment, maintaining robust security protocols and ensuring compliance within your ERP system is more critical than ever. For NetSuite users, one of the essential tools at your disposal is the ability to audit user login activity. Whether you’re pinpointing access by a specific user or identifying roles that are no longer active, understanding how to leverage NetSuite’s saved search functionality for auditing purposes is invaluable. In this post, I’ll guide you through creating a saved search tailored to monitor and report on user login activities across all employee roles within NetSuite.
Creating Your Login Audit Trail Saved Search
Starting Point
Navigate to Reports > New Search to access the saved search interface. This pathway is one of the quickest methods to create a new saved search. For our purposes, we’ll select the Login Audit Trail search type.
Naming Your Search
Let’s name our search “User Access Audit.” This title succinctly captures the essence of what we’re investigating – user access and activity within NetSuite.
Criteria Configuration
The goal is to focus our search on employee activities, excluding other entities like customers and partners who might have limited access to your NetSuite environment. Here’s how to refine your criteria:
- Filter by Employee: Add a criterion where the Employee Fields > Name/ID is not empty. This step ensures that your search results will only include employees.
- Role Specification: Incorporate a criterion where the Role Fields > Name is not empty to eliminate any results that lack a specified user role.
Results Customization
Moving to the Results tab, you’ll want to remove all pre-populated fields to start fresh. Our aim is to structure the results to display by employee and by role, so we’ll add the necessary columns:
- Employee: Add the User field and group it. Label this column as “Employee” for clarity. Use a summary type of “group” so the search will group by employee.
- Role: Similarly, add and group the Role field. Use a summary type of “group” so the search will also group by role.
- Last Login Date: To capture the most recent login activity, select the maximum value of the Date field and label it as “Last Login Date.” Use a summary type of “Maximum” so the search will show the last login date.
Sorting for Ease of Analysis
For more straightforward analysis, sort your results first by user and then by role. This organization allows you to easily review the login activity per employee and their associated roles.
Leveraging Your Saved Search
Upon saving and running this search, you’ll immediately see the last login date for each employee, broken down by each role they possess. This information is not just crucial from a security standpoint—highlighting potential unauthorized access—but it also helps identify users who may no longer need access or who aren’t utilizing certain roles.
Given the flexibility of saved searches in NetSuite, you can further refine this tool to suit various auditing needs, such as examining all login activities by a specific user or scrutinizing the login behaviors of users within particular roles.
Conclusion: Enhancing Your NetSuite Security Posture
The “User Access Audit” saved search is an effective tool for not just monitoring login activities but also for strengthening your overall security posture within NetSuite. By customizing the criteria and results, you can adapt this saved search for a range of audit-related tasks, ensuring your business remains secure and compliant.
