Editing Entries

How to edit existing entries, manage submissions, and handle entry locking.

Editing an Entry

Click the ✏️ (pencil) icon on the entry row
The smarttable modal opens with all existing values pre-filled
Modify the fields as needed
Click Save Updates & Close

Edit Permissions

Entry State	Who Can Edit
Draft (not submitted)	Any user with smarttable access
Submitted	System Admin, SmartTable Admin, Shift Incharge, or users in the "Edit Submitted Users" list
Approved / Rejected	Cannot be edited until unsubmitted
Locked (being edited)	No one — wait for the lock to be released

Entry Locking — how it actually works

There's no separate "lock" record — locking reuses the same internal flag that also drives autosave/draft-recovery, so "someone is editing this" and "there's an unsaved autosave draft" are literally the same fact under the hood. When autosave is enabled and a user opens an entry:

The entry is flagged as auto-saved, which is the lock
A yellow E badge appears showing who is editing
Other users see all action icons grayed out
The lock is released when the user saves/closes the smarttable

ℹ️ The lock has a built-in 5-minute timeout — it's not just "released or stuck forever" Every autosave refreshes the lock's timestamp. If that timestamp is more than 5 minutes old, the lock is considered stale and the next person who tries to autosave that entry silently reclaims it — there's no explicit "steal the lock" action, staleness alone is what un-sticks it. A session that closes cleanly (or the entry being saved and closed normally) releases the lock immediately rather than waiting out that window.

⚠️ Releasing Locks If a user's session ends unexpectedly and no one else has tried to edit the entry in the meantime (so the 5-minute staleness window hasn't been triggered by another autosave attempt), the lock can sit until someone acts on it. System Admins and SmartTable Admins can click the yellow "E" badge to force-release it immediately — this is a direct override, not something that waits for staleness. The editing user will lose unsaved changes.

Entry Notes

A permanent comment thread attached to each entry — separate from a field's own remarks, and separate from Entry History's version log (below). Every post is kept forever (never overwritten or deleted) with the author's name and a timestamp, and can carry file attachments.

⚠️ Off by default, per organization Entry Notes only exists at all when your organization has the ENTRY_NOTES feature enabled — a System Admin also has to turn on Enable Entry Notes for the specific SmartTable in SmartTable Settings → General before the icon appears on that table's rows.

Click the sticky-note icon on an entry row — outlined if the entry has no notes yet, filled once it does
A "Comments" panel slides in from the right, showing every prior post as a chat-style thread (your own posts right-aligned, others' show the author's name)
Type in the box at the bottom, optionally attach one or more files via the paperclip icon
Click Post Comment

💡 It's a thread, not a single editable note Despite the setting being named "Entry Notes," posting doesn't replace what was there before — each post is its own permanent message appended to the thread, the same way a chat works. There's no way to edit or delete a previously posted comment.

Anyone with access to view the entry can read and post to its notes thread — there's no separate role restriction beyond ordinary entry access.

Unsubmitting an Entry

To allow editing of a submitted entry without special permissions:

Click the green S badge on the entry row
Confirm the unsubmit action
The entry returns to draft state and can be edited normally

Only System Admins, SmartTable Admins, and Shift Incharges can unsubmit entries.

Clearing Field Values

When editing, if you clear a field that previously had a value:

The system tracks it as a "cleared field"
The value is removed from the entry on save
Same applies to remarks and attachments — clearing them removes them from the entry

💡 Why "cleared" is tracked separately from "empty" An empty value in a normal save is treated as "no change to this field," not "blank this out" — otherwise every save would risk silently wiping out any field the client didn't explicitly resend. Actually clearing a field is sent as its own distinct instruction alongside the save, so the server can tell "field wasn't touched" apart from "field was deliberately blanked" even though both would otherwise look identical (an empty string).

Row Actions Menu

The ⋮ (kebab) icon on each entry row opens a menu of actions beyond the always-visible edit/view/print icons:

Action	What it does
Duplicate	Creates a new entry pre-filled with this entry's values — a real copy, not a link back to the original. Edit the copy freely; nothing about it stays connected to the source entry afterward.
Download Attachments	Zips and downloads every attachment on this entry in one go, instead of opening each file individually.
Notification History	See Notifications — every notification sent for this entry.
Entry History	The revision history for this entry — see below.
Delete	Soft-deletes the entry — see below.

Entry History

A full version history for one entry — every save creates a new tracked version rather than overwriting the previous one silently, so Entry History is a genuine audit trail of who changed what and when, not just a "last modified" stamp. Open it from the row's ⋮ menu above. Useful for reconstructing what an entry looked like before a particular edit, or confirming when a specific field's value actually changed.

Deleting Entries

Soft Delete

Moves the entry to a "deleted" state. It can be restored later.

Available via More Actions → Delete (admin only)
Deleted entries appear with a red-tinted background when "Show Deleted" is toggled on

Hard Delete

Permanently removes the entry. Cannot be undone.

Only available for already soft-deleted entries
Toggle "Show Deleted" → select entries → click "Delete Permanently"

Undelete (Restore)

Restore a soft-deleted entry:

Toggle "Show Deleted" on
Click More Actions → Undelete on the deleted entry
Confirm the restore action

Swapping Entries

SmartTable Admins can swap the data between exactly 2 entries:

Select exactly 2 entries using checkboxes
Click the Swap button that appears
Confirm the action

Under the hood this is a real atomic swap, not a copy-then-delete: the two entries' observation numbers and internal linkage are exchanged directly inside a single database transaction, so there's never a moment where the operation is half-done. If either entry is currently locked (being actively edited by someone else), the swap is refused outright rather than risking a collision with an in-progress edit.