This article explains the deletion setting found on the Approval tab of the form builder, under "Choose how to handle form entry deletion."
Default deletion behaviour
By default, when a form entry is deleted in infoodle it is marked as deleted — it is removed from the active entries list but is not permanently removed from the database. This means it can potentially be recovered if needed.
Enabling permanent deletion
If you want entries to be permanently and immediately removed from the database when deleted, you can enable this per form:
- Open the form and click Edit
- Go to the Approval tab
- Scroll to "Choose how to handle form entry deletion"
- Tick Enable permanent deletion of entries for this form
- Click Save, then go to the Publish tab to publish
Once this is enabled, any entry deleted from this form cannot be recovered.
Permanently deleted entries are gone immediately and cannot be restored. Only enable this setting if you are confident entries from this form do not need to be retained after deletion.
When to use this setting
Permanent deletion is useful when:
- The form collects sensitive personal data that must be fully erased on request (e.g. for privacy or data compliance reasons)
- You want to keep the database clean without soft-deleted entries accumulating in the background
For most forms, the default soft-delete behaviour is sufficient.