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Josette Moore's avatar
Josette Moore
Brass Contributor
Jan 09, 2018

Recover responses from deleted Form questions

Hello world,   I'm desperately trying to find a solution for recovering responses to questions that were deleted from a MS form.  The form still exists but it recently (Jan.7th) went through a ma...
microsoft forms
Damien_Rosario's avatar
Damien_Rosario
Silver Contributor
Jan 09, 2018

Hi Josette

Sorry to hear that this has happened.

Unfortunately I am not aware of any way to retrieve that information once have modified the survey form. I've just tried it on a test survey form and it's done the same thing, erased the questions that I have removed.

I suggest that you visit (has some info you might find interesting) https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Check-your-form-results-02859424-341d-406f-b32a-9a0fbaf357af scroll to the bottom and contact Microsoft to get help.

My suggestion moving forward is to copy the form (which duplicates the form completely), and then change the new one so the old form still retains the original response data.

Sorry I don't have better news for you, maybe Microsoft's support team can help retrieve your previous data?

Good luck!
Damien

  • Mickie Pemberton's avatar
    Mickie Pemberton
    Copper Contributor
    Aug 16, 2018

    We did not change our "form" survey in any way and we lost all of our previous responses. how can we access all of our existing responses?

    • Damien_Rosario's avatar
      Damien_Rosario
      Silver Contributor
      Aug 17, 2018
      Hi Mickie

      Try logging a support ticket with Microsoft and see if they can retrieve it for you.

      It's strange that it would disappear on its own. It could be possible that someone accidently deleted all responses when actually trying to view them.

      Either way Microsoft support is your best chance!

      If you happen to have used the OneDrive Form set up (as opposed to the default storage with Microsoft), you can always check a previous version of the doc to see if it has the missing results.

      Best wishes
      Damien
  • Josette Moore's avatar
    Josette Moore
    Brass Contributor
    Jan 09, 2018

    Oh no....  I wish this message box had emojis so I could drop like 15 crying faces in this space.

     

    Thank you for the quick reply.  I'll reach out to MS to see if they can help and let you know what they say.

     

    *sigh*

    • Matt Coats's avatar
      Matt Coats
      Iron Contributor
      Jan 10, 2018

      Josette Moore, I don't have any better news for you than Damien, but I do have a suggestion for future-proofing Forms--make a List and use Flow to dump your Forms responses into the List. Our organization does this because we like Forms but we don't feel it's stable enough on its own to be fully trusted.

      • Martin Curtis's avatar
        Martin Curtis
        Copper Contributor
        Apr 17, 2018

        Matt Coats do you know if there is a walk through to show how to do this?  I am keen to use forms in school but one has been deleted by accident, with quite a few responses, and therefore people are questioning the reliability.  I am just a teacher, learning as I go, so flow is something I have never used before.  Thanks, Martin

    • Damien_Rosario's avatar
      Damien_Rosario
      Silver Contributor
      Jan 09, 2018

      Sorry I don't have better news for you but I figured given the urgency of your question and the issue that you needed a fast response. As a fellow educator I feel for you guys with the loss of that important data.

       

      I really hope it all works out for you!

       

      Good luck Josette

      Damien

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