Revision history

Availability

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2023.1]

Introduction

Each time Form Runner saves data to the database, it saves a new revision of the data. Each revision of the data has an associated timestamp.

Until Orbeon Forms 2023.1, the revision history was only accessible through the database, for auditing purposes, or for restoring an older version manually. Starting with Orbeon Forms 2023.1, Form Runner provides a user interface to access the revision history of a given form data.

Note that this feature is distinct from form definition versioning, which regards the versioning of published form definitions.

Enabling the feature

The feature is disabled by default. You can enable it globally by setting the following property to true:

<property
    as="xs:boolean"
    name="oxf.fr.navbar.revision-history.enable.*.*"
    value="true"/>

This adds a "Revision History" icon in the navigation bar.

Revision History icon

Activating the icon opens the Revision History pane:

Revision History pane

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2026.1] You can disable revision history on an app and form basis using the oxf.fr.persistence.proxy.disable-version-history.*.* property.

The Revision History pane

The Revision History pane shows the list of revisions for the current form data, with the following information:

• date and time of the change

• username of the user that made the change, or "Anonymous user"

• a description of the changes, including

  • value entered

  • value cleared

  • value changed

  • iteration added

  • iteration removed

  • other change

  • no change

For a given revision, you can click on the "View this revision" link to view the form data as it was at the time of that revision.

Viewing a specific revision

See also

• Blog post: Data Revision History

• Form Runner navigation bar

• Auditing

• Purging historical data

• Purging old data using SQL

• Form definition versioning

• Revision History API

• Persistence proxy properties