Hiding isn’t deleting:how a form disappeared

In short

A client asked us to bring back an application form that hadn’t been needed for a while. A five-minute job, everyone thought. On inspection it turned out: the form hadn’t been hidden, it had been deleted. There was nothing left to switch back on. We rebuilt it and showed the team how to pause it safely in the future.

The case

A client uses a form for recurring application rounds. Between two rounds, it isn’t needed. At some point it was removed from the store. When the next round was due to start, it was gone.

What had happened

The form was made of an app’s product options: fields for name, portfolio, upload. The app offers two ways to get rid of something like that: deactivate or delete. Day to day, both look the same, because the form is no longer on the page. The difference only shows when you want it back.

Deleted means: fields, settings, conditions, all gone. There’s no trash bin.

The fix

1. Reconstructed the form from old screenshots and the existing copy and recreated it in the app.
2. Assigned it to the right page again and tested it with test applications.
3. Showed the team how to deactivate the form between two rounds instead of deleting it.
4. Saved a backup of the settings, just in case it happens again.

It was important to us to stay matter-of-fact. Who deleted it, and when, doesn’t matter. What matters is that it doesn’t happen again.

Your takeaways

• When in doubt, hide, don’t delete. That goes for forms, products, pages, discounts and apps. Shopify and many apps have a draft or inactive status. Use it.
• Apps often have no trash bin. What gets deleted in an app is usually gone for good. Uninstalling often wipes all settings too.
• Back up what you reuse. A screenshot of the settings or an export takes a minute.
• Don’t give every staff member full permissions. Shopify allows finely graded permissions. Someone who only maintains products doesn’t need to manage apps.

Has something disappeared on your store that shouldn’t have? We find out what happened, rebuild it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.