Question:
I want to show my users when a record was last updated. Is there any way to display the timestamp field?
Answer:
The timestamp field is not a good demonstration of this function.
You should approach auditing table changes by either creating a new column called DateLastModified and putting a datetime in it with username, which will give you a “last touched” record. Alternatively, you could build mirrors of your transaction tables and just log the changes in there.
By the way, doing this once is enough. There is no need for before-and-after snapshots, as a series of “afters” will show you what you want to know. By building a separate audit table, you can know what the previous field values were before they were changed, and know who changed them—a much stronger audit trail.
