Incomplete submissions using web forms

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When a respondent begins a web form but never submits it, SurveyCTO keeps the partially entered answers for a while and then, by default, discards them once the session expires. (See the Web form session storage section in Limitations of SurveyCTO for more specifics on session expiration lengths.) The Finalize and accept incomplete submissions option changes this default behavior.

Instead of being deleted, an expired, incomplete session is finalized as-is and accepted as a submission, so the partial data your respondent entered is saved.

This is useful when any captured data is better than none – for example in phone surveys, distributed self-administered surveys, and incentive-based workflows where respondents commonly drop off partway through.

A note about incomplete submissions using web forms

Because these incomplete submissions are submitted as-is, they bypass the respondent-side validation that normally happens when someone completes a form. As a result:

This data is unvalidated.
Required fields may be empty.
Constraints may be violated.
Media files may be missing, since the respondent may have left before capturing them.
You may see duplicate data when a respondent starts the same form more than once.

To mitigate these risks, you can try customizing a web form's settings on the Collect tab by disabling non-linear form navigation and skipping to the next question, so that required fields cannot be passed unanswered, or with constraints unsatisfied. Enable this option only for forms where keeping incomplete data is worth accepting these data-quality trade-offs.

Not the same as incomplete submissions when using SurveyCTO Collect

The term incomplete submissions means something different when using SurveyCTO Collect: there, incomplete submissions refer to mobile submissions that were completed and validated but reached the server without their media attachments. In those instances, data is always finalized and validated. See Incomplete submissions using SurveyCTO Collect.

Enabling the incomplete submissions feature

This feature is enabled per form. Go to the Collect tab of your server console, navigate to the Web data collection section, and click the settings icon next to each form. You will find this feature alongside options like Allow anonymous form access.

To enable this feature, turn on Finalize and accept incomplete submissions. By default, forms that respondents begin but never complete are deleted after a period of inactivity (i.e. the web form expiration window, which is shorter for anonymous respondents than for logged-in users). When this feature is enabled, inactive forms are instead finalized and submitted as-is.

Because finalizing and submitting responses that are incomplete and unvalidated changes the quality of the data you collect, the console will ask you the following confirmation the first time you enable this feature:

Confirmation

When incomplete submissions are force-finalized, your submission data will include unvalidated data, so required fields might be missing and field constraints might be violated. Are you sure you want to accept unvalidated data?

Choose Yes, accept unvalidated data to keep the option on (you still have to click Update settings to save), or Cancel to leave it off.

Finalizing manually saved drafts

Logged-in respondents can save a web form to return to it later. Once the main feature is enabled, a nested sub-option becomes available:

Also finalize and accept incomplete submissions that have been manually saved by logged-in users (after ___ days). When you see this sub-option, enter the number of days a saved draft may sit untouched before the server finalizes it as well. This is turned off by default, and applies only to drafts that have been inactive for at least the number of days you set.

What happens to an incomplete submission

Incomplete submissions go through the normal submission process:

They are stored as regular submissions and, for encrypted forms, are encrypted just like any other submission.
They travel through the review and corrections workflow, if enabled.
They can trigger automated quality checks.
They can be viewed in the Data Explorer.
They trigger publishing and webhooks like any other completed submission.
They are stamped with provenance metadata (see below) so you can tell them apart from data a respondent actually completed.

Identifying incomplete (i.e. force-finalized) submissions

This feature adds exactly two metadata fields, which the server stamps on each incomplete submission to mark its provenance:

forceFinalized – set to true for submissions the server finalized on the respondent's behalf.
lastModified – when the incomplete session was last changed before it was finalized.

These fields appear in the Data Explorer and are included in your data exports and publishing, so downstream consumers can identify and, if needed, filter out unvalidated records.

Reasons why incomplete submissions can't be completed

Incomplete submissions count against your submission limits just like any other submission. The most common reason an incomplete submission can't be force-finalized is because there is no submission capacity left, which includes:

Your server has reached its monthly submission limit and has no extra submission credits available, or
The form's team has reached its own monthly submission limit.

Whenever finalization can't complete – whether because capacity is exhausted or for any other reason – the incomplete session is kept and retried at a later time; it is never discarded, so no data is lost. The server console surfaces a warning listing the affected forms so you know to act. Once capacity frees up – i.e. your monthly limit resets, you add extra submission credits, or you upgrade your subscription – the retained sessions are finalized automatically on a subsequent sweep.