How do I retrieve a deleted user's JIRA task

[Xingyuan Song SXY 宋兴远]

We have deleted a user, but the user still has some tasks. We want to retrieve the jIRA of this user. How do we do that?

[Xingyuan Song SXY 宋兴远 · Accepted solution]

I know how to handle this, use the following JQL to do it:

assignee = "Former user" or reporter = "Former user"

[Dane Kantner]

This would work if they were an active user, but fails to work when they are no longer active. JQL translates assignee="Former User" to assignee=[jira-username-guid] when you do this search, but it cannot do the guid lookup and fails to retrieve that user at all then in that search. It will give you error 'The value '[Former user]' does not exist for the field 'assignee'.'

[Dane Kantner]

The closest thing to answering this I've found is if you can find a former Jira issue assigned to that inactivated user, you can then find their guid. If you know this, you can then find their assigned issues.

If you can find an old ticket where they were the reporter or assignee, hover over their user icon. It will have a link that says "assigned issues" as well as "view profile." If you click the "assigned issues" link it fills out the JQL and searches for their issues. If you wanted to do this search manually, you can follow the "View Profile" link instead; the link to their profile is similar to https://tenantname.atlassian.net/jira/people/1d1211416313c305db29b302 and the 1d1211416313c305db29b302 is their actual GUID as it was stored in your Jira tenant. You can then add assignee=1d1211416313c305db29b302 in your JQL query and it will list all of their issues.

[Dave Bosman _Realdolmen_]

Hi @Xingyuan Song SXY 宋兴远 

You could create the user again with the same username. 

But i presume that you do not need that user to manage the issues anymore, so you could just create a filter like

assignee = username 

and perform a bulk change and edit the assignee to someone that still exists in Jira. 

Regards

Dave

[Xingyuan Song SXY 宋兴远]

No, the user id will be automatically retrieved after assignee; only the correct uid can be retrieved. I tried your method, but it doesn't work.

[Dave Mathijs]

Hi,

Once your Atlassian account is permanently deleted, you can’t restore your account. Before we permanently delete your account, you’ll have a 14-day grace period, during which the account will appear as temporarily deactivated. You have until the grace period is over to cancel the deletion.

Please check the following article: Delete your Atlassian account 

Thanks for accepting this answer if it resolves your question.

[Xingyuan Song SXY 宋兴远]

So there is no way to retrieve jira of deleted users is it?

[Dave Mathijs]

I currently have a support request running with Atlassian about an accidentally deleted Cloud user (portal-only customer, not an Atlassian account). Atlassian claims they cannot recover it.

[Xingyuan Song SXY 宋兴远]

So there is no way to solve it, right? Ha, ha, ha

[Dane Kantner]

Is there a way to retrieve the guid of a former user?

Internally JQL translates the assignee="foo" to their guid, but it can no longer do the guid lookup translation in the JQL once the user is inactive -- is there a way to actually look back anywhere for what a Jira users' guid was? (Does this appear anywhere in audit logs even or anything?)

[Seth Cohen]

Find a task they worked on. Look at the image source of their avatar. For example, look at my avatar from this post:

https://avatar-management--avatars.us-west-2.prod.public.atl-paas.net/5a8f06c08d2b272d42a1fa31/c39106ac-731d-49d0-a379-2d87803d4c94/48

The 5a8f... number is my guid