Deleting a submission in ODK Central

Support
1

1. What is the problem? Be very detailed.
I need to delete some submissions which have been made mistakenly as repeated entries. Can I delete those?

My Data goes to a dashboard via OData feed and I don't want to have those lines in the analysis.

2. What app or server are you using and on what device and operating system? Include version numbers.
Central 1.2

3. What you have you tried to fix the problem?
I tried to Reject those entries using the new editing features. However, the Review Status is not showing in the PowerBI after in Load the OData. If it would have, I could have filtered them out. I have got a workaround by adding a new column to highlight if this submission should be included in the analysis or not, but that's not a perfect solution to me.

It will be great, if some fellow can explain to me how can I delete a submission in DB (postgresql), as I have access to that. Will be great to understand if the deletion in the public.submission table after finding that entry via instanceID would be sufficient or some other table entries also need to be deleted?
Any link to the explanation of the tables structure and their relation in postgresql would be very helpful.

4. What steps can we take to reproduce the problem?

5. Anything else we should know or have? If you have a test form or screenshots or logs, attach below.

Thanks a lot.

2

  • You should be able to filter as part of your OData query. As of Central v1.2, "OData $filter queries may now reference the new __system/reviewState metadata field".

  • According to the Block 12 Release notes: when you download submissions, you should see a column named ReviewState that indicates the review state. Do you see that column in a data download?

  • Submission deletes are on the roadmap but not yet implemented.

1 Like
3

Thank you dear Danbjoseph.

I understood your point.

Can you kindly guide about DB level deletion aspect? If I want to delete in postgresql, what can be a good way?

4

I'm sorry, I don't know enough to offer any guidance on that. Also, as @yanokwa mentions in this post:

If you have direct access to the database, you can delete the submissions. But it's generally not a good idea to edit ODK's underlying database, and it can be tricky to do correctly!

5

Thank you very much @danbjoseph for your support and taking time to reply.
Yes, I read that post and understand the point why deleting in DB is considered "forbidden".

However, still, I would like to understand and learn that part. @yanokwa I will be highly thankful if you could guide on such deletion in direct DB.

6

Here's a thread with some related information: