I removed a field from a form, but needed the information from it. Is there anyway to get it back

[RKephart]

I updated one of my custom forms to replace an existing field with a new one that included ability to format. Unfortunately I didn't realize that removing the field would also remove the information in that field (I thought maybe it would retain the old look until the issue was edited)

Is there anyway to get that information back or is it gone forever?

[skyehansen · Accepted solution]

If you just did it, you can pull a report from your Preview Sandbox, and go back to Production and update all the corresponding objects (this is easier if you have Fusion). After Saturday though, it's gone forever.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Arg. Welcome to the Oh Dang club @Rebecca Kephart‚

Inadvertently dropping data is a hard lesson that you'll remember, and the rest of us wince over, in recollection.

Further to Skye's wise advise, if the data is still in yourdomain.preview.workfront.com, I'd suggest you export it to Excel asap (and definitely before Saturday), and then either:

- reenter the data manually (if there's not much data and/or you have the time), or

- use Fusion (if there's lots of data and you have Fusion and you have the time), or

- consider our Excel Updater solution (if there's lots of data and you don't have Fusion and/or your don't have the time)

If you have questions on the latter, I invite you to email me at doug.denhoed@atappstore.com -- and good luck, whichever way you choose!

Regards,

Doug

[RKephart]

Thanks Doug! I was able to pull the data back from Sandbox and will definitely be more careful in the future. I will check out those tools as well

[RKephart]

I just did this yesterday. I went into sandbox and was able to pull back the missing information. Thank you so much!!

[skyehansen]

oh phew. Good save, Rebecca!

[RandyRoberts]

Glad you guys got your data back. All of us have done this at some point.

One thing I do to help with this situation is to put a section at the bottom of a form called "Deprecated Fields". Then I make that section only viewable to admins and put old deprecated fields there. It leaves the data intact and hides it from non-admin users.

Furthermore, I have a section on some reports called "Admin Section" where I put things I'm testing (calc fields, fields that have display logic, fields that depend on other fields, etc.) before they're ready for prime time.

[RKephart]

Thanks Randy - I didn't realize you could hide parts of a custom form from users. Where is that setting?

[Heather_Kulbacki]

@Rebecca Kephart‚ when you add a "Section Break" to a form, under Additional Settings you can select who can View the section and who can Edit the section, based on their access to the object.

[RKephart]

Thanks Heather! Unfortunately I can see immediately this isn't going to work in it's current state for my company. Unfortunately for current protocols it's not practical to restrict by ticket permissions or admin only. I would need the ability to restrict by Group or Team.