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Form Revisions

Every change to a form is automatically saved as a revision. You can browse the full history of any form, preview how it looked at any point in the past, and restore any previous version with a single click.

How revisions are created

A new revision is created automatically each time a form is saved. To avoid cluttering the history during rapid edits, Buildocs uses a 5-minute grace window: if you save again within 5 minutes of the last revision, the existing revision is updated in place rather than creating a new one. Saves beyond the 5-minute window always produce a new revision.

Revisions are also created when restoring a previous version (see below).

Viewing form history

Open a form in the Form Builder and click History in the top navigation. The history page shows a timeline of all revisions, newest first, with:

  • Version number (v1, v2, v3, …)
  • Change summaryCreated, Updated, or Restored from vN
  • Author — who saved this version
  • Timestamp — relative time with an absolute tooltip

The current version is highlighted with a latest badge.

Previewing a revision

Click the menu on any revision and select Preview to open a full read-only view of the form as it existed at that version. The preview shows the complete form editor in read-only mode — you can see all fields, layout, and configuration without being able to make changes.

You can also select View Definition to inspect the raw form JSON.

Restoring a previous version

  1. Find the revision you want to restore in the history timeline
  2. Click its menu and select Restore
  3. Confirm the dialog — it shows which version you are restoring to

On confirmation:

  • The form is rolled back to the selected revision's definition
  • A new revision is created capturing the current state before the rollback, with the summary Restored from vN
  • The timeline refreshes and shows the restore entry at the top

Nothing is ever lost: the full history including the state before the restore is always preserved. If you restore by mistake, you can immediately restore again to the version that was current just before.

Required permissions

Browsing history and previewing revisions is available to all project members. Restoring a revision requires the project_manager role.