# Manage Online Form Questions

Whether you want to customize a default online forms question you've added to your Questions data table, or change an original question you've created, you can edit the question at any time. You can also delete unwanted questions from your Questions data table.


:::warning
Once a question is created and used in a form, you have limited options when trying to change the answer type. For example, you can change a **Freeform Text** field to **Freeform Text (Short)**, but you can’t change it to a completely different question type like **Checkboxes**. That allows the tool to preserve all previous answers to this type of question. You don't want to lose the information others have previously submitted. If you want to make major changes to a form, it's best to create a new form and enable it and disable the previous form.

:::


:::success
**Where do I find it?**

You can edit or delete the Online Forms questions by going to **Features > Online Forms** and then clicking the **Questions** button to access the list of online questions data table.

 ![](https://outline-production-attachments.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/uploads/48da3d2a-9a3a-434b-824b-a6018154f31c/b35219a8-220b-4131-a063-38b6a4d7ffd1/image2018-6-9_18-44-19.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA4EOUDTOVUICLPZ4P%2F20261023%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20261023T193000Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=72e78be82b287f2434dcd7587aedf8d5822a3f64cb6a728066530658f9809e8a&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&x-amz-checksum-mode=ENABLED&x-id=GetObject " =600x118")

:::

# Edit online forms questions

To edit the online forms questions, either click the **Edit** icon on the left next to the question in the list of questions that you want to edit or click the name of the question and then click the **Edit** button on the lower left of the information page.

Either way, the editing feature opens. You'll notice that this is the same screen you completed when you created the question. From this screen, you can change the name of the question, the question that's displayed to the viewer, the type of answer, and whether or not the question is required. Make your changes and click the **Save Question** button at the lower left of the screen. For more information, see [Create Online Form Questions](/doc/584c32cc-e2fa-4259-8a2f-24a9f619983d).


:::tip
If you need to edit the dropdown in the questions that use the Select Boxes you need to edit that information separately from the question. If you need to add a new dropdown, you can do so from the question itself. Please see [Select Groups](/doc/e19a85e3-b5f4-4447-845b-4b3648cce86e) for more information

:::


 ![](https://outline-production-attachments.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/uploads/48da3d2a-9a3a-434b-824b-a6018154f31c/42f3500d-ad8d-4e1f-8026-eb2e9a1b13be/image2018-6-9_18-47-8.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA4EOUDTOVUICLPZ4P%2F20261023%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20261023T193000Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=2332d01ce5e6dd367a379b0fdb1bba5aef11fad3d1d0210eef997fa33a2f26ff&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&x-amz-checksum-mode=ENABLED&x-id=GetObject " =938x271")

# Remove an Online Form question from a form

If you no longer want to collect the answer to a specific question on your form, you can remove the question from a specific form. 


:::warning
If you remove an Online Form question from a form that is currently in use, you will lose all the information that has been answered to that question from previous forms. If you open the form after removing a question, previous forms will **no longer** display an answer that was submitted. If you need to make a major change to a form, such as removing questions that are already in use, we highly suggest you create a new form with reference to the new version (like Adoptions version 2), make your changes, then enable the new form and disable the old form. You can tell whether a question is in use on a form by noting the number next to the word **Forms** on the question's information page (see the screenshot below). You can click the word **Forms** to see a list of the forms on which the question is used, to help you determine if you can delete the question or not.

:::

To remove a question from a specific form:


1. Open a specific form by going to **Features > Online Forms** and select the form name from the data table.
2. Select the **Questions** button from the blue menu bar.  
   ![ ](https://outline-production-attachments.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/uploads/48da3d2a-9a3a-434b-824b-a6018154f31c/bacc0fdf-15f9-4d8f-bb49-2ab4c95752c7/Questions1.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA4EOUDTOVUICLPZ4P%2F20261023%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20261023T193000Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=2b3e7ff80d0b0eb27a67057decd8ef31a80c1573bb12b9b4e6fca238e20b9a11&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&x-amz-checksum-mode=ENABLED&x-id=GetObject " =500x263")
3.  Check the question you want to remove in the Questions list.  
   ![ ](https://outline-production-attachments.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/uploads/48da3d2a-9a3a-434b-824b-a6018154f31c/f33dd239-ff61-4ea0-8e24-d24ef2456785/QuestionsSelect.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA4EOUDTOVUICLPZ4P%2F20261023%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20261023T193000Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=060a4f4863d1779de22faa9adaa077dcad6c2c9150f621c8e0a697262f8b82ce&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&x-amz-checksum-mode=ENABLED&x-id=GetObject " =627x389")
4. Use the dropdown **Actions** menu to select **Remove**.  
   ![ ](https://outline-production-attachments.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/uploads/48da3d2a-9a3a-434b-824b-a6018154f31c/2a35b0f6-5b9c-4a9e-a80d-465cfe656d3b/QuestionsRemove.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA4EOUDTOVUICLPZ4P%2F20261023%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20261023T193000Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=8026d0e557dfeadf6482665319bbaaf482adb2efeaadcb40434e4366b982a305&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&x-amz-checksum-mode=ENABLED&x-id=GetObject " =638x399")
5. Confirm this decision when the popup window asks “Are you sure?” and the question will be removed from the form.

# Delete an Online Forms question from your Questions data table


:::warning
If you delete an Online form question from a form that is currently in use, you will lose all the information that has been answered to that question from any forms. If you need to make a major change to a form, such as deleting questions that are already in use, you may want to create a new form called version 2, make your changes, then enable the new form and disable the old form. You can tell whether a question is in use on a form by noting the number next to the word **Forms** on the question's information page (see the screenshot below). You can click the word **Forms** to see a list of the forms on which the question is used, to help you determine if you can delete the question or not.

:::

To delete a question or several questions:


1. Go to the list of questions from **Features > Online Forms**, click the **Questions** button. 
2. Click the name of the question you want to delete.
3. From the question information page that displays, click the **Delete** button.

 ![](https://outline-production-attachments.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/uploads/48da3d2a-9a3a-434b-824b-a6018154f31c/8a1b1b82-b6f4-4655-a98f-ae18c51ff6dd/image2018-6-9_18-58-57.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA4EOUDTOVUICLPZ4P%2F20261023%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20261023T193000Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=9bd9be92d3f5164a9004f0cba20b5424e52c763d5444eb811d158649b71c93e3&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&x-amz-checksum-mode=ENABLED&x-id=GetObject " =894x300")

Note that above the information displayed on this form is the number of forms on which this question is used. In this example, the question is not being used on any forms, so it's fine to delete it.

# Recover Form Answers after an Accidental Question Deletion

If your organization accidentally removed a question from a form and then deleted it, you will see that previously submitted forms no longer include the answers to that question. You can recover specific questions using our [Data Recovery](/doc/use-data-recovery-BLE1cSpsgU) feature. You *may* be able to recover the previously submitted answer data but please note, our system does regularly purge deleted data so this approach will only work if the following process is completed shortly after a deletion occurred.


1. Recover the question itself from our [Data Recovery](/doc/use-data-recovery-BLE1cSpsgU) page.
2. Add the question back to the form from which it was removed.