Deleting users from Jira

[Rahul Aich [Nagra]]

Hi All

On our Jira instance (3.13) whenever a user leaves the organisation we delete his username from Jira (after confirming that there are no issues that are assigned to him).

I am aware that Atlassian recommends us to handle user removal by deactivating his account from all group membership.

I would like to know what are the drawbacks of deleting users as against deactivating his user account from jira?

Rahul

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Deleting users will stomp on their history.

Let's say I comment on an issue - if you then delete me, the comment becomes an orphan - instead of seeing my name and link to my profile in the author field, you will just see what my Jira user login id used to be before you deleted me.

Same applies in the history of issues, and anywhere else a user name might be used, including user pickers.

Some plugins really can't handle missing accounts as well - instead of a simple display of login name, they can't handle a non-existent user at all, and fall over. (Note - I've only seen this in a plugin I wrote, I'd hope other plugin writers are more careful than I was)