Delete a Submission Portal Stage

This article is considered appropriate for administrators or workspace users with an intermediate level of knowledge about submission portals. If you are a beginner, we recommend reading the following article first:

• Submission Portal Key Concepts: Beginner

For more information about suggested learning paths, see Introduction to Submission Portals: START HERE.

Contents

• Overview
• The Purpose of Deleting a Stage
• Where to Find the Setting
• Deleting a Stage
• Considerations when Deleting a Stage

Overview

A submission portal in Zengine is made up of various Stages through which an application package moves.  Administrators can delete one of the Stages in a program’s workflow, if needed.  This article provides the instructions on how to delete a stage for both Required and External Stages, as well as considerations to take into account when doing so.

The Purpose of Deleting a Stage

There may be times when an administrator needs to delete a Stage. For example, program staff may realize that two External Stages can be functionally combined, meaning that one can be deleted from the submission portal. Or, perhaps the submission portal is in the process of being built, and it is later discovered that a Stage is unnecessary.  Whatever the reason, deleting a Stage is simple. 

Where to Find the Setting

In the Submission Portal Settings, the option to delete a Stage is located on the Stage Settings page for the Stage which an administrator wants to delete. 

To delete a Stage:

1. Logged into a program as an administrator, navigate to the Settings & Tools section by selecting the cog wheel icon in the top navigation bar.
2. Select the Submission Portal tile from the Plugin Settings section.
3. Select the Edit button to the appropriate submission portal.

4. To delete a stage, navigate to the desired Stage in the Portal Sections pane on the left side of the screen.  Multiple stages are highlighted in the screenshot below to show there may be more than one. 

5. Selecting a Stage in the Portal Sections panel will change the contents of the right panel and display the Stage Settings.  

Deleting a Stage

After navigating to the desired stage to delete:

1. Scroll to the bottom of the Stage Settings panel and select the red Delete [Stage Name] button on the lower left corner of the screen.

Please note that the label of the button will reflect the name of the stage.

2. A popup warning will appear asking to confirm the deletion of the Stage; to do so, select the text box and type the name of the stage exactly as it appears in bold in the popup message.

3. Select the red Continue button to delete the stage.

Considerations When Deleting a Stage

Before deleting a Stage, there are a few points to keep in mind:

1. Deleting a Stage will NOT delete already-submitted data.  
   • The data is stored in the Zengine database and will not be deleted.
   • Deleting the stage simply removes the manner in which portal users can provide information to the program at this part of the workflow.
   • Portal users will not be able to access any data that was submitted in that Stage if the Stage is deleted.
2. Deleting a Stage will delete all configurations for the Stage.
   • To add the Stage back again, the configurations will have to be reconstructed. 
3. If the Stage being deleted is a Required Stage, the act of deleting the Stage will also delete the Steps associated with that Stage.
   • If the Steps need to be preserved, they can be moved into other Stages before deleting the Stage. (For more information on moving Steps to different stages, see the article Move a Step to a Different Stage in the Submission Portal.)