An often heard requirement is if Microsoft Dynamics CRM has built-in audit capabilities. There is some, but it is very minimal out-of-the-box. So now what? Well, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is not just about sales, service and marketing. It’s a platform for developing line of business applications—applications that can manage and track information and processes far beyond accounts and contacts. Of course it still can be a customer, but it could also be a grant, building, or a potential candidate for hire.

The platform comes with easy to use tools to customize and extend the application and automate processes such as sales processes or case escalations. You can, of course, build the required auditing functionality from scratch, use a third party solution or you can use some of the freely available plug-ins and customizations that have been published on the internet;

1. Business Productivity Audit Accelerator - Link
   
   The CRM Accelerators are a range of add-on solutions developed for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 customers and partners. Each accelerator is available at no cost and will showcase how the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 platform can be configured and extended to broaden marketing, sales and service capabilities.
   
   The Business Data Auditing accelerator utilizes the workflow platform of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Depending on what operations within your CRM system that you want to audit you can tailor the workflows accordingly. The basis of the accelerator is very simple: for each entity that is open to auditing there is a separate snapshot or audit entity, e.g. if you want to switch on auditing for accounts then there is an account audit entity supplied with the accelerator. Depending on what events you want to audit (create, update, assign or delete) then the workflows will create a copy of the current record in the relevant audit entity. This then means that you have a copy of each relevant change to the record during its life.
   
   
2. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Audit Plug-in by James Kent - Link
   
   Microsoft CRM 4.0 Audit Plug-in is a simple-to-use plug-in enabling basic data auditing capabilities. Configured via Plug-in Manager, it is very simple to manage. The audit plug-in can be used by the Microsoft CRM partners and customers to quickly increase the package’s auditing capability to track field level changes. The Audit plug-in is distributed in source format under the Open source licensing as provided by CodePlex license agreement. Knowledge of Microsoft Visual Studio® and Microsoft Visual C#® is required to extend or customize the plug-in.
   
   
3. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Audit Plug-in by Engage (Ryan) – Link
   
   CRMAudit is a tool that allows auditing of any attributes on any entities within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. The audit records are stored within CRM allowing users to run standard CRM Reports and finds including Quick Search and Advanced Finds.  Users will only need Read access to the Audit entity. Find out when and who changed a field including what the value was before the change.

Have you created audit or similar type of functionality by leveraging the out-of-the-box tools and features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM?