Deactivate or reactivate a user

Deactivating a user is the right move when someone leaves the team, takes extended leave, or temporarily shouldn’t have access. They lose login ability immediately but their history stays intact. Deletion is separate — only use that for genuinely throwaway accounts.

When to deactivate vs delete

• Employee leaves the company — Deactivate
• Long parental / medical leave — Deactivate
• Contractor’s engagement ended — Deactivate
• Team restructure — they don’t need access for a while — Deactivate
• Account was created in error, never used — Delete
• Compliance / data-protection request to remove the user — Delete (treat as one-off, not standard offboarding)

When in doubt, deactivate. You can always come back and delete later. The reverse isn’t true.

Steps — deactivate

1. Open Settings → Users.
2. Find the user. Click into their profile.
3. Click Deactivate (or toggle the Active switch off).
4. Confirm.

What happens immediately:

• The user is signed out of all sessions
• They can’t log in
• Their record moves from the Active Users tab to Inactive Users
• Their conversation history, notes, and audit trail stay intact
• Conversations they were assigned to retain that assignment (you may want to reassign them — that’s a separate step, see below)

Reassign their open conversations

Deactivating doesn’t auto-reassign their open conversations. Before deactivating (or right after), think about:

• Active conversations they were owning — reassign to another agent
• Pending callbacks, scheduled follow-ups — pick up the handoff
• Any snoozed conversations waiting for them — reassign or unsnooze

A practical pattern: filter the inbox to “Assigned to {departing user}” before deactivating, bulk-reassign to a colleague or to “Unassigned,” then deactivate. Less risk of dropped conversations.

Steps — reactivate

To bring a deactivated user back:

1. Open Settings → Users.
2. Switch to the Inactive Users tab.
3. Find the user. Click into their profile.
4. Click Reactivate (or toggle the Active switch on).
5. Save.

Their account becomes usable again. They can log in with their original password (or use the password-reset flow if they’ve forgotten). Their previous role assignments and team memberships are preserved.

Sole-owner protection

You can’t deactivate the last user with the Owner role. The system protects against accidental workspace lockout. To deactivate someone who’s currently the sole Owner:

1. Assign Owner to another user first (so there are at least two Owners).
2. Then deactivate the original.

Steps — permanent delete

Use only when you’re sure you don’t want the account or history retained.

1. Open the user’s profile.
2. Click Delete.
3. Confirm. This cannot be undone.

What’s removed:

• The user’s account record
• Their tenant membership
• The audit-trail attribution (their old actions show as “Deleted user”)

What’s preserved:

• The conversations they were involved in (the conversations themselves don’t get deleted)
• Internal notes they wrote (text preserved, author marked as “Deleted user”)
• CSAT responses tied to conversations they handled

For most departures, this is more aggressive than necessary. Deactivation is the safer default.

Compliance and audit considerations

For tenants with regulatory or contractual obligations:

• Data retention policies may require keeping the user record for a minimum period — deactivate during that window, delete afterward.
• GDPR / privacy requests to remove a former employee’s data may justify deletion. Consult your legal team — deleting an account without proper basis can trigger other compliance issues.
• Audit trails for past actions are preserved across deactivation; deletion replaces the username with “Deleted user” but keeps the action records.

When in doubt, deactivate now and revisit deletion deliberately later.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: Tried to deactivate; got “this is the only Owner” error. Fix: Sole-owner protection. Add another Owner first.
• Symptom: Reactivated user can’t log in. Fix: They may need to reset their password (use the password-reset flow). Their account is active; just the credentials may be stale.
• Symptom: After deactivating, conversations they owned are stuck. Fix: Bulk-reassign in the inbox using filter Assigned to {their name}. Move to “Unassigned” or another agent.

See also

• What are Users?
• Invite a user