What does delete user actually do in Jira On Demand

Vicki Lea Tsang

I've been asked by a user about deleting user accounts in Jira and have been having a very difficult time finding an actual concrete explanation of what exactly happens. People seem to suggest that it shouldn't be done since it will ruin history, but I tried to delete a user via the UI in our cloud version and found that it didn't appear to do much of anything at all. The only impact of deleting a users appears to be that "[X] Inactive" appears by the name and the user does not appear in the user management.

 

However, I also found that nothing else was touched - all the comments are still present, all the tickets are there - none of the history seems to be ruined at all. And users can still click on the username and see information about that user. So what gives? How is delete user deleting anything at all?

Syauqi

Hi Vicki,

Deactivating/Deleting the user from user management would only prevent the user from accessing the site. The work that was done on the Cloud will still exist to prevent confusions for other users.

To preserve institutional knowledge, project authorship and business records and to prevent confusion for other people who use your site, we won't automatically delete the following (but you or your administrator can do so on a case-by-case basis): 

• Your projects, issues, and comments. You can delete the projects and issues you've created yourself before you deactivate your account. For more information on deleting issues, see Editing multiple issues at the same time. For more information on deleting projects, Jira Cloud administrators can see Creating, editing, deleting, and hiding projects.
• Personal data in free-form text. If you or someone else includes personal data, such as your name, email address, or phone number, in a Jira Cloud project or issue field, it will remain in Jira Cloud until the project, issue, or your site is deleted. You can use the global search function within the product to locate specific personal data terms in free-form text and remove it using the edit tools where permitted. To manually edit and remove data from an issue and its history, edit the free-form text field, clone the issue, and then delete the issue. 

However, personal data will be removed once user(s) is deleted from the user management which includes:

• Your full name

• Your nickname

• Your job title
• Your department
• Your organization
• Your location
• Your time zone
• Your email address
• Your Atlassian profile picture

You can find out more on from this documentation: Jira Cloud: Right to erasure or in general: Atlassian Cloud: Right to erasure.

Cheers, Syauqi