Survey deletion is possible, but as a dangerous operation is made available only to server administrators. When a survey is deleted all data collected as part of that survey is irretrievably and irreversibly lost. Hence the same steps should be applied as described in actions after the end of the survey.
Make sure you backup your data before deleting a survey! Even if this was training, pre-test, or a field test. In some cases even data collected as part of such exercises can be invaluable for improving the questionnaire, estimating the performance of interviewers, or duration of the survey.
There is rarely any need to delete a survey. Deleting a questionnaire template will delete the whole survey with all data associated with it.
Warning:
Any interviews data received at the server from any tablet after the corresponding questionnaire has been deleted will also be automatically deleted from the tablets and not retained at the server!
Make sure you synchronize the tablets before exporting the data and deleting the survey questionnaire from the server.
Deleting a questionnaire may take a considerable time depending on the size of the survey and server performance. While the survey is being deleted its questionnaire still appears in the list of imported questionnaires in the disabled state, such as ‘Census 2020 v2’ in the following illustration. The questionnaire is automatically removed from the list when the deletion process completes.
