How to enable the auditing feature in SQL Server?

To enable the auditing feature of SQL Server, you can follow these steps:

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).
2. Connect to the instance of your SQL Server where you want to enable auditing functionality.
3. In the “File Explorer” window, expand the “Security” folder and locate the “Audit Policies” folder.
4. Right-click on the “Audit Standards” folder and select “Create New Audit Standard”.
5. In the “Create Audit Policy” dialog box, enter a name and select a storage location (which can be a file or Windows application log).
6. On the “Objectives” tab, select the database, server role, or object you want to audit.
7. On the “Audit Operations” tab, select the type of operation you want to audit (such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE).
8. Select the level of detail (such as successful or failed events) you want to record on the “Audit Strategy” tab.
9. In the “Advanced” tab, you can choose whether to log sensitive data.
10. Click the “Confirm” button to create the audit guidelines.

Once the audit specification is created successfully, SQL Server will start logging audit events for the selected operations. You can review the logged events by looking at the audit log.