Archive Forms

Owned by Jeremy W.
Last updated: May 14, 2024 by Graham Herceg
4 min read

Archive forms is a way to help people hide accidental form submissions. It allows you to clean up your case data: for example, by reopening cases that were accidentally closed, or by removing forms that were accidentally submitted against a case. Archiving a form will remove the data collected in the erroneous form from your case data and reports. The archived forms will still be displayed in Daily Saved exports, but not other exports. 

 There are a few important notes about how archived forms affect cases:

  • The changes will not appear on phones until the phones sync with the server. In some circumstances you may have to clear user data and resync with the server.

  • If the form being archived closed a case, the closed case will be reopened.

  • If the form was the only form submitted to the case (i.e. it registered/opened a new case), it will cause the case to be deleted

  • If the form created or updated multiple cases, the main case and all subcases will be affected

  • The metadata "date last modified" will not be affected

There are two ways to archive forms: one form at a time and bulk archive.

Archive a Single Form

How to Archive a Form

In order to use this feature you have to first find the problematic form. Click "View Form" for the form you'd like to archive. When viewing the form, click the "Archive this Form" button. This will cause the form to disappear, and will reverse any changes that the form caused in the case history.

You can also archive forms from the Case List by clicking on Case History, locating the form you'd like to archive and clicking Archive Form. 

Another option to find your form is to look for the form ID in CommCare HQ via Find Data by ID. To do so:

  1. Make a form export and find the form ID of the form you want to archive

  2. Access Find Data by ID under the Data tab at the top of the screen

  3. This will automatically redirect you to the page where you can archive the form

More information on this tool can be found on https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/tCnKfw. 

How to Restore a Single Form

You can undo this operation at any time. Go to the "Raw Forms, Errors & Duplicates" report, filter by "Archived Forms". Click the "Restore this Form" button to unarchive the form and restore the changes this form made to the case.

Archive Multiple Forms (Manage Forms)

This feature allows you to archive multiple forms at once. This is useful if you had a training session with lots of form submissions, or a worker that erroneously submitted a batch of forms. 

How to Archive Multiple Forms

Navigate to the Data section of your project space, and then choose Manage Forms on the left panel. The report filter will allow you to select a subset of forms by choosing workers, groups, a specific form, and date of submission/completion.

If you want to archive forms make sure to leave the archived/restored filter as "Normal Forms."

After clicking Apply you will have a list of forms:

You can choose a specific subset of forms or use the "Select all" option. Just click on Archive selected forms in order to archive the forms; you will see a progress bar which will show you the status of the archive process.

How to Restore Multiple Forms

You can use the same report to restore forms; make sure to choose Archived Forms in the filter under the Archived/Restored option.

System Forms

Forms that were performed by system actions are system forms (e.g., Auto Update Cases). Please refer https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/LyjKfw to find out how to locate and archive the system forms.