Time Machine

The Time Machine is one of DPMS's most powerful auditability tools. When a regulator asks what a Record of Processing Activity (ROPA) contained six months ago, or an internal review needs to confirm who was responsible for a vendor record at the time of an incident, the Time Machine answers that question instantly. It works across every major object type in DPMS — ROPA records, vendors, TOMs, assets, DPIAs, and more — by capturing a full snapshot of each record every time a change is made. You can then "travel back" to any of those snapshots and see the entire record, including all its tabs and linked items, exactly as it appeared at that moment.

There are two parts to this feature: a settings page where an administrator enables the feature and sets how long history is kept, and an Activity Log button that appears on every record's detail page once the feature is active. This article walks you through both.

How to open it

Settings page (administrators):
Navigate using the left-hand sidebar: General Settings → Time Machine. You need read permission for the compliance settings area to see this menu item, and edit permission to change the configuration.

Activity Log on a record (all users):
Open any record's detail page — for example, a ROPA entry or a vendor record. Look for the clock icon in the top-right corner of the content pane. You need read permission for that record type to see the button. The button is not available on records that have been shared to you from another company or viewed in Consulted mode.

What you see

The Time Machine settings page

The settings page follows the same layout as all other General Settings pages in DPMS: a navigation menu on the left and a content card on the right. The card shows three pieces of information at a glance: whether Time Machine is currently Active or Inactive, the date it was first enabled, and the current retention time (the number of days of history kept). A pencil icon in the top-right corner of the card opens the edit form — it appears greyed out if you don't have edit permission.

The edit form replaces the card view with two controls: a toggle switch to enable or disable the feature, and a numeric input for the retention time in days. A Save button in the bottom-right confirms your changes; a back arrow in the top-left discards them.

The Changelog Drawer (on record detail pages)

When you click the clock icon on a record, a panel slides in from the right side of the screen. This is the Changelog Drawer. It lists every recorded change to that record in reverse-chronological order — each entry shows the date and time of the change, what changed, and who made the change. Each entry also has a "View at this point in time" link that launches Time Machine mode for that snapshot.

Time Machine mode (on record detail pages)

Once you activate a historical snapshot, the record's detail page reloads with a visible banner in the header area showing the date you are viewing. Every control that would normally let you make changes — the Edit button, the status selector, the priority selector, and the responsible person field — is visually disabled. All tab content throughout the record reflects the historical snapshot, not the current live data.

Working with this screen

Enabling Time Machine for the first time

Before anyone can use the Activity Log on any record, an administrator must switch the feature on. Navigate to General Settings → Time Machine and click the pencil Edit button in the top-right corner of the settings card.

On the edit form, flip the Enable toggle to the on position — it turns blue to confirm the change. Then enter a value in the Retention time field. This number (in days) determines how far back users will be able to look. For example, entering 365 keeps one year of history; entering 90 keeps three months. A value of at least 1 is required — zero or negative numbers are not accepted.

Click Save when you're ready. DPMS records the exact date and time you activated the feature and starts tracking changes from that moment forward on every supported object type. Back on the view page, you'll see the status change to Active and today's date appear as the "enabled since" date.

Heads up: There is no retroactive history. DPMS can only capture changes that happen after you enable the feature. If you switch it on today, the Activity Log will be empty on all records until the first changes are made. Plan ahead and enable Time Machine well before you expect to need audit evidence.

Travelling back in time to review a historical record state

This is the core day-to-day use of the Time Machine. Open any record's detail page — for example, a ROPA processing activity — and click the clock icon in the top-right corner of the content pane. The Changelog Drawer slides in from the right.

Browse the list of change events. Each entry tells you what changed and when. When you find the moment you want to investigate — say, the status change that moved a record from Draft to Active, or the update that assigned a new responsible person — click "View at this point in time" on that entry.

The drawer closes and the page reloads in Time Machine mode. The URL in your browser changes to include a date-and-time stamp, and a clear indicator appears in the header area showing which historical date you are viewing.

From here, click through the tabs freely — General, Linked Items, Tasks, and any other tab on the record. Every piece of data you see reflects that historical snapshot.

When you have everything you need, click the "Back to Today" button in the header area. This exits Time Machine mode and returns you to the live, editable version of the record.

Adjusting the retention period to meet data minimisation requirements

If your organisation's retention policy or a GDPR data minimisation review requires you to keep less history, navigate to General Settings → Time Machine, click Edit, and change the Retention time value to the new number of days (for example, from 365 to 90). Click Save to confirm.

Heads up: Reducing the retention period permanently deletes history on the next scheduled background purge. Snapshots older than the new limit are gone for good and cannot be recovered. Before reducing this value, confirm with your legal or compliance team that the shorter window still satisfies your regulatory obligations (for example, GDPR audit trail requirements).

Temporarily disabling Time Machine

If you need to pause history recording — for example, during a major data migration where every field change would generate noise in the changelog — go to General Settings → Time Machine, click Edit, flip the Enable toggle off, and click Save. The Activity Log clock icon disappears from all record detail pages immediately. Existing historical snapshots within the retention window are not deleted; only new change recording stops.

When you are ready to resume, follow the same steps and flip the toggle back on.

Field reference

Enable toggle — Switches Time Machine on or off for the entire organisation. When off, no new change history is recorded and the clock icon disappears from all record pages. Required to be "on" before any historical data is captured.

Retention time — The number of days of history to keep. Must be a whole number of 1 or more. Snapshots older than this threshold are automatically deleted on the next background purge cycle. If you have never set this explicitly, DPMS may display a system default value.

How this connects to the rest of DPMS

The Time Machine settings page is the single on/off switch for historical tracking across the entire DPMS. Every object type that uses the standard record detail layout — ROPA, Vendors, TOMs, Assets, DPIAs, Legitimate Interest assessments, Projects, Tasks, Meetings & Activities, Assessments, Documents & Policies, Incidents, Data Subject Requests, Data Collection Points — gains (or loses) the Activity Log button based solely on whether Time Machine is enabled here.

Once you have enabled the feature and given it some time to accumulate history, the natural next steps are to communicate the feature to your DPOs and compliance team, train them on reading the Changelog Drawer, and document your chosen retention period in your organisation's Records Management Policy. If you later decide to reduce the retention window, make sure to check your audit obligations first — the Time Machine is often the primary evidence source when responding to regulatory inquiries or subject access requests that touch historical data.

Tips & common pitfalls

Tip: Enable Time Machine as early as possible in your DPMS rollout. The feature only records changes that happen after activation — the sooner it's on, the richer your audit trail will be when you need it.

Heads up: If the Edit button on a record appears greyed out and you haven't made any changes, check the URL bar. If it contains ?timeMachine=, you are in a historical snapshot — this is expected behaviour, not a permissions problem. Click Back to Today to return to the editable live record.

• The clock icon won't appear on Shared or Consulted records. If a record was shared to your company from a partner organisation, or you are viewing it in Consulted mode, Time Machine is not available for that record — regardless of your permissions. You can only access the changelog for records that belong to your company.
• Switching tabs in Time Machine mode does not reset the snapshot date. All tabs — General, Linked Items, Tasks, and so on — display data from the same historical moment. You are not "browsing live data" when you click a tab; everything stays frozen at the chosen date until you click Back to Today.
• Reducing retention is irreversible. Once history older than the new threshold is purged, it cannot be restored. Treat retention time changes with the same care you would give to deleting records.
• Very large retention windows are technically supported but have storage implications. If your organisation processes a high volume of changes across many records, retaining several years of snapshots will grow the database significantly. Discuss with your IT team before setting values above 365 days.
• The "Back to Today" button may result in a 404 if the record has since been deleted. If someone deleted the live record after the snapshot date you are viewing, navigating back to today will find nothing. In that case, use the breadcrumb at the top to return to the record list.