How to Retire and Permanently Delete Surveys Content and Data

Overview

This article explains how to retire old surveys by archiving them locally and removing them from your organization's SurveyToGo account.

When you retire a survey, SurveyToGo creates a downloadable archive containing the survey, its results, and all associated attachments. After the archive is created, the survey, its results, and its attachments are removed from the SurveyToGo servers and no longer appear in the Organization tree in SurveyToGo Studio.

After the retirement process begins:

• The survey remains accessible in SurveyToGo Studio for 14 days.

• After 14 days, the survey is permanently removed from your SurveyToGo account.

• The downloadable archive remains available for an additional 14 days after the survey is removed from the server.

• After this period, the survey can only be accessed from the archive you downloaded and stored locally.

The downloadable archive contains:

• Survey database (.db3)

• Info.xml file containing survey details, such as the customer name, project name, and survey name

• Exports folder containing interview exports in Microsoft Excel format

• Survey (.srv) file

• Result Attachments folder

• Survey Attachments folder

• CAWI folder containing the participant list (if applicable)

After retiring a survey, download the archive and store it in a secure local location for future reference.

Warning: Survey retirement is permanent. Once a survey has been retired, it cannot be restored or recovered through SurveyToGo. Be sure to download and securely store the archive before the download period expires.

Permissions Required to Retire Surveys

Access to survey retirement is controlled by an organization-level security permission. This permission governs both the Retired Surveys Management node and the Retire Survey option available from the right-click menu on customers, projects, and surveys.

Users assigned the built-in Organization Administrator role are granted Full permission by default.

 

Retire Process

Surveys can be retired by either:

1. right clicking on the relevant Customer, Project or Survey and selecting the 'Retire Surveys...'
2. 'Retire...' options:

Select the survey(s) you wish to retire and click 'Retire':

You will then be prompted to confirm:

Retired Surveys Management

Under the 'My SurveyToGo Account' node, double click on 'Retired Surveys Management':

This view provides the history of retired surveys and their current status.

It includes the download link for their archive:

Once a survey has been retired, it remains visible in SurveyToGo Studio for 14 days and is identified with a dedicated retired survey icon. During this period, the survey and its data are still available.

After the 14-day retention period, the survey and all associated data are permanently removed from the SurveyToGo servers.

The downloadable archive remains available for an additional 14 days after the survey and data have been permanently deleted. In the default workflow, the archive can be downloaded for up to 28 days from the date the survey was retired.

Note: If you need to remove a retired survey and its data from the SurveyToGo servers before the initial 14-day retention period expires, open the Retired Surveys view, right-click the survey, and select Instantly Remove. This action permanently deletes the survey and its data immediately.