--- title: "Manage Form Submissions and Privacy" date: "2026-07-13T15:30:03+00:00" summary: "Review, export, and delete Drupal Canvas Forms submissions. Manage data retention policies and fulfill GDPR privacy requests with ease." image: type: "page" url: "/source-cms/manage-form-submissions-and-privacy" id: "c7e2f53f-358f-4f27-b70d-6082e8df61e6" --- Table of contents will be added After a form goes live to your audience, Drupal Canvas Forms stores each submission, forwards it to an external system as a signed webhook, and enforces the privacy policy of the form. This document explains how to review and export submissions, configure and verify webhooks, and manage data retention and data subject requests. Prerequisites ------------- * Ensure that an administrator account holds the **View form** submissions permission to view records and download uploaded files. * Ensure that an administrator account holds the **Export form** submissions permission to download submissions in bulk as CSV. * Ensure that an administrator account holds the **Delete form** submissions permission to delete individual submissions or clear all form submissions. * Ensure that an administrator account holds the **Manage data subject requests** permission to search, export, and erase all submissions matching a person. For more information, visit [Managing permissions](/source-cms/managing-permissions "Managing permissions") Reviewing submissions --------------------- To review submissions: 1. [Open Drupal Canvas forms](/source-cms/creating-and-managing-forms "Creating and managing forms"). 2. Open the form and select **Submissions**.  The submission count appears next to **Submissions** in the navigation panel for the form. 3. Click **Columns** and choose the columns to display, such as the submission number, date, status, and IP address. Additionally, users can select **Filter** **submissions** to narrow the list, or use **Search submissions** to search by value. Drupal Canvas Forms stores and tags every accepted request with a status to help reviewers process spam and failures alongside valid responses: * ****Ok****: A submission receives an ok tag when it passes validation and spam checks. * ****Suspect****: A submission receives a suspect tag when the honeypot catches the submission. Suspect submissions retain the raw payload for review, and Drupal Canvas Forms does not send a webhook for them. * ****Invalid****: A submission receives an invalid tag when the submission fails validation. Invalid submissions retain the raw payload for review and retain the specific validation errors. Unknown forms or rate-limited requests store no data. Exporting submissions --------------------- To export submissions: 1. [Open Drupal Canvas forms](/source-cms/creating-and-managing-forms "Creating and managing forms"). 2. Open the form and select **Submissions**. 3. Select **Export CSV**. The file downloads as a CSV format. Drupal Forms neutralizes cell values that mimic spreadsheet formulas in the export. This neutralization prevents a submission from injecting a formula into a spreadsheet. Deleting submissions -------------------- To delete a single submission:  1. [Open Drupal Canvas forms](/source-cms/creating-and-managing-forms "Creating and managing forms"). 2. Open the form and select **Submissions**. 3. Click **Delete**. To remove every submission for a form: 1. [Open Drupal Canvas forms](/source-cms/creating-and-managing-forms "Creating and managing forms"). 2. Open the form and select **Submissions**. 3. Delete all submissions from the same view.  When a reviewer deletes a submission, Drupal Canvas Forms also removes any files associated with that submission. Managing data retention ----------------------- Every form requires a retention policy. To configure this policy in ****Settings****, visit [Creating and managing forms](/source-cms/creating-and-managing-forms "Creating and managing forms").  Administrators must select one of the following retention options: * ****Retain forever****: Retains submissions until an administrator manually deletes them. * ****Delete after a period****: Deletes submissions older than the configured number of days. The deletion process also removes uploaded files and webhook delivery logs. * ****Anonymize after a period****: Redacts personal data from submissions older than the configured period. The process retains non-personal data for counts and reports. The retention process runs automatically in the background at most one time every 24 hours. The process does not execute exclusively on demand. To retain accurate counts, the anonymization process keeps the submission row and the proof of consent. However, the anonymization process applies the following changes: * Replaces stored field values with the exact string `[redacted]`. * Drops the stored IP address. * Deletes uploaded files. * Removes associated webhook delivery log entries. Redaction serves as the safe default. The system redacts every field unless an administrator explicitly configures the field to exclude personal data. The system does not treat a field type as a proxy for personal data because a number format might represent a phone number or a national ID. The system retains a value only when an administrator turns off the ****Contains personal data**** setting in the field configuration. The system always redacts values from fields absent from the current form schema, such as raw suspect payloads or invalid payloads. ### Handling data subject requests To fulfill a data subject request, such as a General Data Protection Regulation subject access or erasure request, use the **Privacy** tool.  Drupal Canvas Forms pins this tool at the bottom of the navigation panel because it operates across all forms instead of just the current form. To handle data subject requests: 1. [Open Drupal Canvas forms](/source-cms/creating-and-managing-forms "Creating and managing forms"). 2. Open the form and select **Privacy**. 3. Enter the email address of the person in the **email** field. Drupal Canvas Forms matches the data based on the email fields of the form. 4. Select **Find data**. 5. Review the matching submissions across all forms. 6. Export the data of the person in a portable format, or erase the data.  The erase action either deletes the submissions outright or anonymizes them, and removes any files bound to the submissions.