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How to process leavers?

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Hi all,

I'm having some doubts about whether the approach we had so far with processing leavers in Totara works & what would be the pros & cons of the solution we have at the moment.

When people leave the company we used to delete users. We use only Totara Learn T13.

However, sometimes people rejoin the company and we revive their accounts via HR import. (this is OK)

However, user custom field values are deleted when an account is deleted & I would like to retain these values for different reports. However, I'm hesitant to make such a large scale change before I see what is the prevalent practice in the community? What would be the downsides of just suspending users?

I've tried a solution where the default deletion option is to suspend users (in HR import) & which created problems because users who are suspended are sometimes left as managers in my organisation & job assignment can't be updated. Also, the suspended column becomes obsolete & users are not suspended (which is OK, I guess as at this point the deleted column serves the purpose of suspending users). This is just an example, but wanted to check what else could be a challenge & how to go about it?

Thanx!

Best,
Vlad

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Hi Vlad

Deleting a user leads to data being unrecoverable so if you want to retain any user data then Suspending data is recommended

It is possible to delete the data you don't need to retain using a purge type for suspended users to meet GDPR requirements.

Reports that include User data will usually have a Filter column 'User Status' where you can choose Suspended users or Active

I am unsure of the statement 'users who are suspended are sometimes left as managers in my organisation & job assignment can't be updated' I suspended a user and was able to manually edit their job assignment .

regards

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Hi Craig,

thank you very much for the reply.

I understand that my statement regarding suspended users left as managers sound unclear. The point is that the values in the Deleted column that is used for User file in HR import is also used in the Job Assignment HR import file. Unfortunately, it happens that for some colleagues, the manager field is not updated in HRIS after their manager leaves the company. As a result, we get an error notification in HR Import log - something like the screenshot bellow:

This disables job assignment update for a separate colleague, which is not convenient. However, I think this is more a problem of lack of up-to-date information & setup of HR import. I've spoken with colleagues from HRIS and figured a way to circumvent this issue - by inputting the former manager's manager in the HR import file in case the manager left the company. Solves the issue :)

However, when you write Deleting a user leads to data being unrecoverable so if you want to retain any user data then Suspending data is recommended, I'm thinking is it possible to set how much user data will be deleted once the user is deleted in the Purge type? Values of user custom fields are deleted, but not the ones that come out of the box (for example User ID number, Department). I obviously wasn't too attentive when I read technical documentation before we upgraded to T13 and I expected that values in user custom fields could be set not to be deleted in the Purge types. Are there any plans to maybe make the values in custom fields able to remain in the LMS after the user is deleted?

Thank you in advance!

Best regards,
Vlad

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Hi Vlad

We created a ticket to look at the behaviour of the custom fields data not being available for deleted data purge after deletion of the user and decided not to change the behaviour.

The reason for this is that this would introduce a behaviour change which can cause a lot of problems for other clients down the line who are relying on this behaviour. The deletion confirmation for users clearly states which data gets deleted completely and irreversible. Some clients will rely on this and just changing this will be a risk

To also give you a bit of background on the reasons that we introduced the purge items. The configurable purge types do not give you the option to configure what's being deleted when a user gets deleted, it will also enable sites to purge data when requested (due to GDPR) from particular users (without even deleting those users). It also gives you the opportunity to configure the deletion of data when a user gets suspended. Back when we introduced this new feature we made a conscious decision to leave some of the deletion of data in place but still introduce purge items for those so that they can be used in other situations (suspension, GDPR).

Regards

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Hi Craig

in following this thread, i would also like to ask which fields are deleted when running a batch/source file for bulk suspensions. Specifically interested in the Manager that has been linked to the profile being suspended. The tool tip on the Permissions tab, against the check box Delete job assignments when suspending users No/Yes, says only "Allow source to delete user's job assignments when suspending users in the LMS".

I have found a similar problem exists that the Manager association remains even after suspension. This can be problematic when training is allocated based on whether a user has direct reports. It does not stipulate, when a user has ACTIVE direct reports. Should i just be adding a Field Value = blank (add a few spaces to force an overwrite of nothing?) Would that work?

in addition, the Manager still has the suspended user in their Team view, so i have added a filter to the Team Report, so that the Manager can toggle between User is ACTIVE = Yes/No

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks and #staysafe

Jennine

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Hi Jennine

The data that is able to be purged can be seen when you create a purge type. There isn't job assignment listed in the purge type fields so assume this isn't able to be deleted.

I thought adding an end date to the job assignment might work but the help text says Job assignment dates serve multiple purposes, from reporting to dynamic audience rules to program and certification assignments and more. However, they are not used to determine if the job assignment is active in any other part of Totara.

This means that the job assignment for the suspended user would needs to be deleted - if you overwritten with blank data the job assignment would still exist. The HR Import Job assignment source allows you to delete a specific job assignment through the idnumber field

Regards

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