What you'll build
By the end of this guide, you'll have a form where personal data anonymizes itself on a schedule you control. Pick how many days should pass after each record is submitted, and which fields hold personal data, and Formaloo replaces those values with anonymized placeholders once that many days have passed, while the rest of the record stays fully intact for reporting.
💡 Automatic data anonymization is an Enterprise add-on. If your workspace doesn't have it yet, you can still see the setting, but the toggle stays locked until you contact sales support to add it.
When to use this
You collect contract or agreement data that legally can't be retained past a set number of days
You run GDPR-compliant intake forms and need proof that personal data doesn't linger indefinitely
You want to keep response counts, scores, and category data for analytics without holding onto names, emails, or phone numbers forever
You're on a compliance deadline and manually deleting or exporting old submissions has become a recurring chore
You need to show auditors that personal data is removed automatically, not "whenever someone remembers to do it"
Turn on automatic data anonymization
Automatic data anonymization is a form-level setting, so you configure it once per form and it applies to every submission going forward.
💡 Not sure what else lives in form settings? See the foundational guide to form settings and what you can customize there.
1. Open form settings: Open your form in the editor, then click the form settings icon on the island toolbar at the top of the editor. This opens the settings panel on the right side.
2. Scroll to Privacy and compliance: Scroll down the settings sidebar until you reach the Privacy and compliance section.
3. Turn on Automatic data anonymization: Flip the toggle to enable the feature.
💡 Curious why some features show a locked, upgrade-only state? See Formaloo add-ons and workspace usage explained.
4. Set Anonymize after (days): In the Anonymize after (days) field, enter how many days should pass after a record is submitted before its selected fields get anonymized.
5. Select fields to anonymize: Under Select fields to anonymize, click Select fields. In the popup, pick every field that contains personal data.
6. Save your settings: Click Save in the top right corner to apply your changes.
What happens once anonymization kicks in
The record stays visible. The submission still appears in the results table and any data blocks, but it now carries an Anonymized tag so your team can tell at a glance which rows have been processed.
The exact data is locked. Once a field is anonymized, its original value can no longer be viewed or edited by anyone.
Exports and webhooks only see anonymized data. Google Sheets, Excel exports, PDFs, and webhooks never include the original values for anonymized fields once they're anonymized.
Charts keep working. Anonymization doesn't touch your charts. Aggregate numbers like counts, averages, and totals stay accurate, but the underlying exact values behind them are no longer shown.
📖 Want to quickly find which submissions have already been anonymized? See how to sort and filter your submissions data.
Availability: Enterprise add-on
Automatic data anonymization is only available as an Enterprise add-on. Workspaces without it can still see the setting in the Privacy and compliance section, but the toggle stays locked and shows a prompt you can use to contact sales support. If your form handles personal data under GDPR or a similar regulation, this is worth checking with your team before you build a workflow that depends on it.
💡 Need to point a client or compliance team to Formaloo's data protection stance? See GDPR at Formaloo.
What you now have
You now have a form that anonymizes personal data on its own, on a timeline you set once. Every submission keeps contributing to your response counts, charts, and reports, but names, emails, phone numbers, and any other field you flagged disappear from the record, exports, and webhooks the moment the set number of days is up. No one has to remember to run a cleanup, export sensitive data before deleting it, or manually redact old rows.
Ready-to-use templates
Don't build this from scratch — we've already put it together for you.
Patient intake & consent workflow for healthcare — A two-page intake and consent form built around sensitive personal data. Turn on automatic data anonymization here to automatically remove patient details after a set number of days without losing intake volume for reporting.
Employee request workflow — Internal request management for HR and ops teams. Pair it with automatic data anonymization to keep employee personal details from lingering in old, resolved requests.
Subscription payment form — Collects recurring payment and contact details. Automatic data anonymization lets you retain subscription and revenue trends while removing personal billing details once the days you set have passed.
Learn more how-tos
See how another regulated workflow handles sensitive personal data end to end. This patient intake and consent workflow shows a full build around personal data collection, which pairs naturally with an automatic anonymization schedule. → How to build a patient intake and consent workflow for healthcare clinics
Apply the same retention thinking to signed contracts. If you're turning form responses into contracts, automatic data anonymization is a natural way to cap how long the signer's personal details stay exposed. → How to turn form responses into proposals and contracts
Manage recurring billing data with the same discipline. Subscription forms collect ongoing personal and payment details, making them a good candidate for an anonymization policy once a subscriber cancels or lapses. → How to create a subscription-based payment form