Search Admin Audit Log Old Properties

When searching the Admin Audit Log using the Search-AdminAuditLog cmdlet, you might find some useful information missing:

Search-AdminAuditLog -Cmdlets Set-TransportService

ObjectModified     : EXAIO
CmdletName         : Set-TransportService
CmdletParameters   : {MessageTrackingLogMaxAge, MessageTrackingLogMaxDirectorySize, Identity}
ModifiedProperties : { }
Caller             : nunomota.pt/Users/Admin
Succeeded          : True
Error              : None
RunDate            : 9/10/2015 8:47:48 AM
OriginatingServer  : EXAIO (15.00.1104.000)

From the above, we can see what was changed (the maximum age for the logs and the maximum allowed size for the directory) but not what these settings were changed to...

To see this, we have to dig deeper into CmdletParameters:

(Search-AdminAuditLog -Cmdlets Set-TransportService).CmdletParameters

Name                                 Value
----                                 -----
MessageTrackingLogMaxAge             45.00:00:00
MessageTrackingLogMaxDirectorySize   10 GB (10,737,418,240 bytes)
Identity                             EXAIO

Now we know exactly what the user Admin changed! But what about if we want to know what these settings were before this change?

By default, the administrator audit log records only the cmdlet name, cmdlet parameters (and values specified), the object that was modified, who ran the cmdlet, when the cmdlet was run, and on what server the cmdlet was run. The administrator audit log does not log what properties were modified on the object. If we want the audit log to also include the properties of the object that were modified, we need to enable verbose logging by setting the LogLevel parameter to Verbose:

Set-AdminAuditLogConfig –LogLevel Verbose

When we enable verbose logging, in addition to the information logged by default, the properties modified on an object, including their old and new values, are included in the audit log:

(Search-AdminAuditLog -Cmdlets Set-TransportService).ModifiedProperties

Name                                 NewValue      OldValue
----                                 --------      --------
MessageTrackingLogMaxAge             45.00:00:00   31.00:00:00
MessageTrackingLogMaxDirectorySize   10 GB         5 GB

Now we know exactly what got changed and what the old configuration was!