Accidental batch-delete of all Survey123 forms in Draft Folder

Question

Hi,

A colleague reported sending all records saved under the drafts folder of a Survey123 form. Normally, they would be working on site with limited internet access, so it's normal for us to save everything as a draft and the submit all at once with a stable wifi connection.

This is something I've never seen before. When I went to access the submitted data via Survey123 on browser, I noticed the survey was still empty. I suspected something had gone wrong and the forms didn't submit properly (which sometimes happens) so I got in touch in order to manually extract the stuck data from the tablet by connecting it to the computer. This is a slightly annoying process that we've done sometimes before and it seems to be okay.

However, when accessing the tablet contents, there was no data to be found for this survey. And in the Survey123 app, all records had disappeared -nothing in sent (obviously), nothing in the outbox, nothing in the drafts-. It's like when my colleague when to 'batch send' all drafts, the app 'batch deleted' them instead, a capability that the app does not even allow for obvious reasons.

Anyone, ever, has seen this happen to them? Any ESRI tech that has a theory of why this could have happened? This has been an isolated case, an we use Survey123 quite regularly. But the fact that it's happened once is already worrying as no one can afford to go around losing data like this.

Thanks for your help.

Anonymous User · Answer

Hi Rafa,

If there is no sqlite database on the device, then there are no records, and it is not possible to recover them. This sounds very strange, and this database gets created when the app is installed and opened, and if the user had collected surveys, the database must have been there.

The only way for the database to be removed is to be manually deleted, selecting the options under Storage to fix the database or when uninstalling the app. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do now if the database does not exist on the device.

Regards,

Phil.

RafaeldePedro · Answer

Hi Philip,

I was wrong, what I meant is that all records where in the outbox (not in drafts), which my colleague tried to send all at once. They didn't notice the forms being gone, it was assumed they had been submitted. When I logged in through Chrome to check the submitted data, I couldn't see anything, but nothing was left in the tablet either. Regarding the sqlite file, I tried to retrieve it to at least have some sort of copy of the data, but it wasn't there. It was as if nothing had ever been taken. No one had reported that kind of behavior, before or since.

This happened on a Samsung Galaxy Tab A (SM-T590), Android version 0, Survey123 3.7.57.

Thanks,

Rafa

Anonymous User · Answer

Hi Rafael,

It is not possible to "batch send" or "batch delete" surveys from the Drafts folder. The only way to send a survey from the Drafts folder is to individually select it, you have to open and then select the Send button and select Send Now. If you want to delete it, you have to select the one survey, select delete and then confirm you want to delete that record. In that case, I can not see how the user deleted all surveys in one batch, or sent them all in one batch either.

Out of interest, did this occur on iOS or Android, and what make/model device and OS version? Also, what version of Survey123 field app?

The only way I can see that you could delete all the records in the Drafts folder, would be to uninstall and reinstall the app, which will remove the sqlite database and create a new one in some cases (depends on OS version). Or if you manually deleted the sqlite database. Otherwise, there are options under Storage settings, to re-initialize the database and fix the database, if either of these options were selected, the surveys in Drafts would be deleted.

Do you have a copy of the slqite database from that device after it happened? If so can you please send it to me (zipped up) and I can take a closer look to see if there is any data inside it or record or what could have happened?

Regards,

Phil.