Where submissions land
Every submission is stored against its form, with a timestamp and the values entered. They are visible in the admin under the form itself, newest first.
Submissions are stored whether or not a notification email was sent. That matters: if notifications are misconfigured, the data is still safe — check the admin before assuming a submission was lost.
Working through them
Two habits keep a busy form manageable:
- Have one owner. Shared inboxes where everyone assumes someone else replied are how enquiries get missed.
- Work oldest-first within a day. Newest-first ordering is right for spotting activity and wrong for actually clearing a queue.
Exporting
Submissions can be exported for analysis or for loading into another system. Once exported, the data is outside the platform's access controls — a spreadsheet of enquiries in someone's downloads folder is a real risk, not a theoretical one. Delete working copies when you are finished with them.
Personal information
Most form submissions contain personal data, which brings obligations:
- Collect only what you need. The best protection against mishandling a field is not having it.
- Do not keep it forever. Agree a retention period and actually delete old submissions.
- Be able to find one person's data. If someone asks what you hold about them, you need to be able to answer.
- Say what you will do with it. A short line near the form, linking to the privacy policy, is usually enough.
Spam
Any public form attracts automated submissions. If volume becomes a problem, the fix is usually a spam-prevention measure on the form rather than manual deletion — talk to whoever administers the site. Do not respond to obvious spam, and do not click links in it.