About clearing or removing data

When you clear data in one question or in an entire flat form using the Clear or Clear Form options, each question becomes unanswered with no data associated with it. This can be compared to a reset and is a change that occurs in the backend of the application. There is no longer any data associated with the question. The Answer History shows a status of Cleared.

When you manually remove an answer from a question with the Delete or Backspace keys, the application replaces the answer with an empty string or value. In this case, there is data associated with the question, but that data is an empty answer. The Answer History shows a status of Value:<Answer Removed>.

Required permissions

To clear or remove data in a form, you need to be assigned a study role that includes the Edit Form Data for Subjects permission. You can only clear data from forms that you are allowed to access.
To clear visit dates, you need the Edit Visit Dates permission.

Note:

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

Impact on forms and visits

Whether you clear or manually remove data, your form is always impacted in the following ways:

When you clear or remove a required question, the form status shows as Incomplete. However, when you clear or remove an optional question, you do not impact the status of the form.
If you clear the whole form (required and optional questions), the status changes to New. The form does not appear in data extracts unless new data gets added later. If the system cannot remove all the data (for example, locked, frozen, or read-only data), the status changes to Incomplete or In Progress.
When you update a question that has an open manual query raised against it (either by updating, removing, or clearing data), the query status updates to Answered. In the case of an automated query, it always depends on the rule logic.
When you update a question used in a rule's logic (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 on 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 the answer from one question, several questions, or the whole flat form. The following table lists the impacts and breaks down the various differences between clearing data with the Clear or Clear Form options or removing it using Delete or Backspace keys on your keyboard:

Case	Clear data with Clear or Clear Form options	Manually remove data using Delete or Backspace keys
Reason for change	When you clear the data from one or more questions, you must enter a reason for the change to clear the data. When you attempt to answer a cleared question, you do not need to enter a reason for this change.	When you remove the data from a question, you enter a reason for the change to save the empty answer or a new value. When you attempt to answer an empty question that had previously removed data, you must provide a reason for this change.
Answer & Visit History sidebar	When you clear the data from one or more questions, the action is listed as Cleared in that question's answer history. The reason for this change and other audit details are also included. Note: All actions performed on a question are listed on the Answer & Visit History sidebar. Even after you clear data from a question, the system retains the whole answer history.	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 also included.
Unsaved form questions	You cannot clear unsaved form data. The data must be previously saved to access the Clear or Clear Form options.	You can remove form data even if you did not save it yet.
Verified or signed questions	The question becomes unverified or unsigned. The Unsigned icon does not show next to a question with cleared data. On the Answer & Visit History sidebar, you can view a record of the data clearing action, as well as records of any unsigned and unverified actions performed. These records are attributed to the systems as 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. The Unsigned icon remains next to the appropriate question with their details shown in the Answer & Visit History sidebar.
Unlocked questions	You can clear unlocked questions if your permissions allow. This reverts the status of the question to New. 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 (data that was frozen and then unfrozen) because the system can automatically freeze it again. The Clear or Clear Form options are 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 use the Clear Form option to clear a visit date.	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, you can no longer see the Clear option. If you cleared data from the whole flat form, you can no longer see the Clear Form option.	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), you can still see the Clear or Clear Forms options.