Audit trail
Description
Audit trails provide transparency and accountability across the content lifecycle. They document the journey from content creation to review, approval, publishing and archival, helping organizations demonstrate compliance with industry standards, regulatory requirements and internal policies.
While traditional document management systems track changes at the file level, structured content systems such as Tridion support audit trails at a much finer granularity. Teams can track edits to a word, sentence, component or full document. This level of detail is essential for industries where accuracy, traceability and version integrity are mandatory.
Audit trails help organizations respond quickly to audits, investigations or product recalls. By showing exactly when changes were made and by whom, teams can verify compliance, identify quality risks and maintain strong governance practices. RWS enables detailed, component-level audit trails through Tridion, combining structured content with secure lifecycle management. This Human + Technology model helps organizations maintain control, reduce audit preparation time and ensure content stays compliant across global teams.
Example use cases
- Regulatory submissions: Documentation for medical device and in vitro diagnostic submissions.
- Quality assurance: Meeting company-wide quality and compliance standards.
- Inspection readiness: Demonstrating traceability during regulatory inspections.
- Risk management: Tracking updates to sensitive or high-risk content.
- Sector compliance: Supporting governance in financial services, healthcare and other regulated sectors.
Key benefits
RWS perspective
RWS helps organizations build robust audit trails through the structured content capabilities of Tridion. Component-level tracking, secure permissions and lifecycle management ensure every update is documented and traceable. This supports stronger governance, faster audit readiness and consistent quality across global content operations.