Clicking End fieldwork stops the survey from collecting new responses. That’s not the end of the job. GDPR requires that personal data isn’t kept longer than necessary, so once fieldwork ends, the next step is anonymizing what was collected.
When to Anonymize Survey Data
A project can sit untouched for months. Fieldwork wrapped up, the report went out, and nobody’s opened it since. GDPR requires that personal data isn’t kept longer than necessary, so a project like that is exactly the kind of thing that should get anonymized, even though nothing about it looks urgent.
Survey Automator actually flags this. A project with no recent activity shows a note directly on the project in the overview: last response some months ago, you should anonymize this project.
What Happens When You Click Anonymize
The confirmation screen states: when you proceed, the following actions will take place.
● The data below will be deleted
● The project is unpublished (respondents can no longer respond to the survey)
● Project backups are deleted
● Previously exported case data files are deleted
● Previously generated report files are deleted (except dashboard reports)
● All schedules are paused
There’s also a “True anonymization” checkbox: all unique text values are anonymized.
Scheduling It Instead of Doing It Manually
Clicking Schedule opens a set of options: One time, Weekly, or Monthly. For Weekly or Monthly, you set a start date and choose to anonymize based on whether the event date or the response date is older than a set number of days. So a monthly job checks the project each month and anonymizes whatever data has crossed that age threshold.
What Happens to the Project After
Once anonymization runs, everything the confirmation screen listed is gone. What’s left is the project itself: still there, still usable. You can duplicate it to set up next year’s wave, and if you’d exported the data beforehand, that export can be brought back in for year-over-year comparisons.
FAQ
When should a survey project be anonymized?
GDPR requires personal data isn’t kept longer than necessary. Survey Automator flags this directly: a project with no recent activity shows a note on its card saying it should be anonymized.
What happens when you anonymize a project?
The selected data is deleted, the project is unpublished, project backups are deleted, previously exported case data files are deleted, previously generated report files are deleted (except dashboard reports), and any schedules are paused. A “True anonymization” option additionally anonymizes all unique text values.
Can anonymization be scheduled instead of run manually?
Yes. Options include One time, Weekly, or Monthly. For recurring schedules, you set a start date and choose to anonymize based on whether the event date or response date is older than a set number of days.
Is the project still usable after anonymization?
Yes. The project itself remains and can be duplicated to set up a new wave, for example the next year’s version of the same survey. If the data was exported beforehand, that export can be brought back in for year-over-year comparisons.
Want to see how protection and anonymization work in a live project? Get in touch and we’ll show you.