Ending a study and retention
How an EnaResearch study ends on its planned date or early, the closing period and late data, and how the retention period deletes study data.
- Admin panel
An EnaResearch study ends on its planned end date or earlier when the PI or an owner ends it. It then passes through a closing period for late data and closes for good. How long its data is kept afterwards is set by the study's Data retention.
Required role
- End study: the PI or an owner, with a reason.
- Change retention after approval: the PI requests it, an owner approves it.
End on the planned date
At the end of the planned end day, the study enters Closing: active participations are completed, recruitment closes and no data dated after the end is accepted. Late data from before the end is accepted for the study's late data window (default 14 days). Then the study becomes Closed. Reading and export remain available.
End early
Choose Actions → End study and enter a reason, for example an ethics committee decision. Ending applies at once, because stopping data collection is always the safe direction:
- data collection ends now and recruitment closes,
- active participations are completed now,
- the late data window still applies to data from before the end.
A study that has not started yet is closed before it starts: no data window ever opens.
Retention
| Setting | What happens |
|---|---|
| Kept for the license term | Data is kept for as long as your organization's service agreement (license) runs. When it ends, data is deleted including backups within 30 days at the latest, per the agreement. Export what you need before the end date. |
| Delete earlier | Measurement data, clinical records, export files, analysis results and the AI assistant history are deleted this many days after the study's final close. The study record, definitions and audit log remain. |
With Delete earlier, the study team receives an email 30 days and 7 days before deletion. The Protocol page shows the planned date ("data will be deleted on …") and, afterwards, "Data deleted on …".
Before approval the PI sets retention in the wizard. After approval it changes only through Actions → Change retention, which always needs an owner's approval. A request to postpone deletion can be made after the study ends, as long as the data has not been deleted.
Deletion cannot be undone
When the retention period ends, the study's data is deleted for good. Data that also belongs to another study the same person takes part in is kept for that study.
Related articles
Can't find what you need?
Our support team can help, from setting up a study to exporting a dataset. Please include your organization code.
Study dashboard and history
The EnaResearch study dashboard with data received, alerts and the course of a measurement around a clinical event, and the study history timeline.
Adding participants
Enroll participants in an EnaResearch study - identity details, person matching across the organization, pseudonyms such as P001, and editing a participation.