About clearing or removing data

When you clear a question, it becomes unanswered, with no data associated to it. This can be compared to a reset and is a change that occurs in the backend. When a question's answer is removed by using the Delete or Backspace keys, this can be compared to replacing the answer with an empty string or value. In this case, there is data associated to the question, just that the data is an empty answer.

Required permissions

To clear or remove data, as well as visit dates, you should be assigned with the following permissions:

The Edit Form Data for Subjects permission lets you clear or remove form data.
The Edit Visit Dates permission lets you clear visit dates.

Note:
You can only edit or clear visit dates when this action is specifically allowed in your study. Study managers determine which visits site users can edit the visit date for, even after a form has been saved, through the Site Edits Visit Date setting.

Impact on forms and visits

Whether you are clearing or removing data, your form is always impacted in the following ways:

When you clear or remove a required question, a form's status is set to Incomplete. However, when you clear or remove an optional question, a form's status is not impacted.
When you update a question that has an open manual query raised against it (either by updating, removing or clearing data), the query's status is updated to Answered. In the case of an automated query, it always depends on the rule logic.
When a question used in a rule's logic is updated (cleared, removed, or replaced with a new value), the system processes the change causing the impacted rules to re-run. The end result depends on how the rule is configured.

Tip:
You can view the resulting actions in the Answer & Visit History sidebar, each stated as the result of rule execution.

Differences between clearing and removing data

You may get different results depending on if you clear or remove a question's answer. The following table lists the impacts and breaks down the various differences between data clear and data removal:

Case	Clear data	Remove data
Reason for change	When you clear a question, a reason for this change is required. When you attempt to answer a cleared question, a reason for this change is not required.	When you remove a question's answer, a reason for change is required to either save the empty answer or a new value. When you attempt to answer an empty question which was previously removed, you must provide a reason for this change as well.
Answer & Visit History sidebar	When you clear a question's answer, this action is listed as Cleared in that question's answer history. The reason for this change and other audit details are included. Note: All actions performed on a question are listed on the Answer & Visit History sidebar. Even if you clear a question's data, the whole answer history is retained .	When you remove a question's answer, this action is listed as Value:<Answer Removed> in that question's answer history. The reason for this change and other audit details are included.
Unsaved form questions	You cannot clear unsaved form data. The Clear option is not available.	You can remove form data even if you haven't save it yet.
Verified or signed questions	The question becomes unverified or unsigned, respectively. The Unsigned and Unverified icons aren't displayed next to a question whose data was cleared. On the Answer & Visit History sidebar, you can view a record of the data clearing action, as well as records of the unsigned and unverified actions performed. These records are attributed to the systemas a consequence of data being cleared. Other previous actions, such as data entry, signing, verifying, locking or unlocking, are also displayed on the Answer & Visit History sidebar.	The question becomes unverified or unsigned, respectively. The Unsigned and Unverified icons remain displayed for a given question, as well as their details on the Answer & Visit History sidebar.
Unlocked questions	You can clear an unlocked question and this reverts the status of the question to that of a new question. The Unlocked icon isn't displayed next to a cleared question. On the Answer & Visit History sidebar, you can view a record of the data clearing action, as well as records of previous actions, such as data entry, signing, verifying, locking or unlocking data.	You can remove data from an unlocked question. The Unlocked icon remains displayed for a given question, as well as its details on the Answer & Visit History sidebar.
Unfrozen questions	You cannot clear unfrozen form data. The Clear option is not available.	You can always remove data from an unfrozen question. After data removal, the question automatically freezes and details display on the Answer & Visit History sidebar.
Visit dates	When you clear a complete visit's date, that visit's status is updated to Incomplete. However, when you clear an incomplete visit's date, its status remains unchanged. Clearing a visit date does not affect the signed or verified state of a visit. You cannot clear a visit date if all questions in the visit are frozen.	You cannot remove a visit's date.
Date/Time questions or visit dates used for calculations	When you clear a visit date that is used to determine lab normal ranges in lab forms, the system's date at the time of the update is used instead to populate the calculated values. When you clear a date that is used for calculations (like a subject's age or any custom calculation), the calculation fails and the calculated value is not populated, hence the question remains incomplete.	You cannot remove a visit date's data. For removed Date/Time questions used in calculations, the impacted calculation fails and the calculated value is not populated, hence the question remains incomplete.
Clear option availability	Once you clear a question, the Clear option is no longer displayed as you no longer have any data to clear.	Even if you remove data from a question and leave it blank (by using the Delete key or the Reset option for radio buttons questions), the Clear option is still available.