Retool Form deleting manually created columns

💬 App Building
1

We created a publicly accessible Retool Form to collect leads. The submitted leads are stored in a Retool Database table and displayed in an internal app where we add more details (e.g., estimated costs, project status, and other related info). To support this workflow, we manually added additional columns to the same Retool DB table.

After updating the form (specifically changing the available options in a select field), Retool automatically applied a migration that deleted all manually created columns. This behavior is problematic and risks data loss whenever form schema changes occur.

  1. My goal: To add information to a form managed table
  2. Issue: When updating the form I lost manually created columns
  3. Steps I've taken to troubleshoot:
    1. Create a new public Retool Form and add necessary fields.
    2. Publish the form and submit at least one response.
    3. In Retool DB, manually add a new column to the linked table.
    4. Edit an existing response through an internal Retool app.
    5. Modify a select field’s options in the form editor.
    6. Re-publish the form.
    7. Observe that the manually created column(s) are deleted from the table.

Is it possible to disable the automatic migrations? Is this expected behaviour?

2 Likes
3

Hi @Luciano_Wayand,

I am fairly confident that is not expected behavior.

I do not believe Retool has any automatic migration capabilities (I would image they would mention any all over the docs) and I would be surprised if the "source of truth" for a DB table schema would be the Retool Form, if anything it is the opposite.

I just follow the steps you mentioned and the Retool DB table did not change. Let me know if I missed a step. This was the second time I went through the steps as I forgot to record the first go through :sweat_smile:

4

Hi @Luciano_Wayand,

Are you still experiencing this issue? Was the video I shared helpful, or am I missing steps to reproduce this?