How do you handle Jira asset cleanup when an employee leaves?

[Abenezer Anglo]

Hey everyone,

Curious how other admins are handling this. When someone leaves the company, what's your process for cleaning up their Jira footprint?

Specifically things like:

Filters they owned that others depend on

Dashboards they created

Open issues still assigned to them

Component leads, automation rules, etc.

We've been doing it manually and it's honestly a nightmare, especially when the person left suddenly and nobody knows what they owned.

Do you have a process that works? A script? Do you just leave the orphaned assets and deal with it case by case?

Would love to hear how others are tackling this. Feels like something that should be easier than it is.

[Tomislav Tobijas]

Ah... ,@Abenezer Anglo from my experience, it's mainly being done manually after a specific number of months (or even years 🫠)

I believe one of our clients did mention the idea of using the scripts for this, but I'm not sure if they've moved forward with that solution.

You actually gave me an idea, as part of offboarding, to actually add tasks related to entity review and cleanup. 
The main problem is that some of the entities are shared with other users; so, you'd need to find a new owner for such entities (e.g., dashboards, filters, etc.)

I'm not even sure if there are Marketplace apps that actually work on this principle, and which would recommend what's ready for cleanup. Atlassian could also think about adding those additional insights as part of site optimizer to make Jira admins' lives easier... potentially 🤔

[Abenezer Anglo]

Thanks @Tomislav Tobijas , really helpful. I'm actually exploring building a tool for exactly this. Would you or your clients find value in a one-click solution that scans a departing user's assets and bulk transfers them to a new owner?

[Tomislav Tobijas]

@Abenezer Anglo probably so. Although we're already testing out Rovo skills around Assets, and they do look promising, maybe some of our customers would benefit more from a specifically designed solution 👀

[Abenezer Anglo]

Thanks @Tomislav Tobijas ...I  appreciate the insight. That's actually what I'm working on, a specifically designed Forge app focused purely on the offboarding handover flow. Select the departing user, scan everything they own across filters, dashboards, project leads, component leads and open issues, pick a successor, and transfer it all in one reviewed action with an audit log. No broad toolkit, just that one job done cleanly. Would love your feedback when it's ready to test.

[Matthew Joslin_AppFox_]

There's no single native "hand over everything" action, unfortunately. Jira spreads ownership across several places, so the most reliable approach is to reassign in passes before you deactivate the account (deactivating first orphans shared filters and dashboards, which is the usual headache):

• Shared filters & dashboards: admins can reassign owners under Settings → System → Shared filters / Shared dashboards.
• Open issues: bulk-edit via JQL (assignee = "leaver") to reassign in one go.
• Component leads & project leads: updated per project under project settings.
• Automation: check the rule actor/owner under Project and Global automation and reassign.

Keep the account active until those are moved, then deactivate.

If you're handling turnover regularly, the per-project clicking really doesn't scale. Optimizer for Jira does bulk actions across the instance - including reassigning project lead/ownership across many projects at once - which is built for exactly this inherited-items problem. It also surfaces orphaned and unused config, so you can tidy up while you're in there rather than leaving it for the next person.

It also has lots of audit features and a Rovo assistant to help you get a clear view of what you're looking at before you make any of the more dramatic amends!

[Abenezer Anglo]

Thanks @Matthew Joslin_AppFox_  really helpful context. Optimizer looks great for the broader admin toolkit use case. I'm actually exploring building something more focused specifically on the offboarding handover flow, the one-click 'transfer everything this person owned to someone else' action. Is that a workflow your users specifically ask for, or does Optimizer already handle that end to end?

[Matthew Joslin_AppFox_]

Good question @Abenezer Anglo. Optimizer isn't a single-click "offboard this person and move everything they owned to someone else" workflow - it's a broader admin and optimization toolkit.
What it covers for offboarding is the heavy lifting: bulk-reassigning project and component leads across many projects at once, surfacing orphaned filters, dashboards and unused config, and giving you an audit view (plus the Rovo assistant) to sanity-check before you make changes. So it's "find everything and reassign it in bulk" rather than a purpose-built one-click transfer.

Inherited items and turnover definitely come up as reasons people reach for it, so there's clearly interest in making that smoother. Sounds like an interesting space you're exploring!

[Abenezer Anglo]

That's really helpful, thank you @Matthew Joslin_AppFox_ 
Sounds like exactly the gap I'm aiming for then, a focused complement to what Optimizer already does well rather than competing with it. Appreciate you taking the time to explain the distinction.