I want to delete a user from Jira on-demand but it won't let me

[uscwiener]

This user is no longer employed by us. They have 114 closed issues that are assigned to her. There has to be an easier way to delete this user than having to go in and reassign all of her issues to another person. Any help that you can provide on this would be great

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

You don't really want to delete them, as that destroys the information that they were working on your stuff.

You want to use the "inactive user" flag in their profile. In older Jiras, that wasn't an option, we just used to remove them from all groups and roles. The most important group is usually "jira users", as that usually means "people in this group can log in, and they take up a license". Even if you mark a user inactive, you may want to remove them from their groups and roles.

I only recommend the use of user deletion when you have a really good reason to do so, such as duplicate user accounts or changes of identity, but not a lot else, and certainly not just leaving the organisation (in fact, deleting users is technically illegal in quite a few organisations, simply because of the loss of audit trail)

[uscwiener]

Makes total sense. Thank you so much for your help!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Sorry I couldn't be 100% sure about the "inactive user" flag effects. I'm sure it removes them from the license pool and stops them logging in, but I've not tested it. The main reason I remove people from groups and roles is to remove them from the "can be assigned to" list and I don't know if the inactive flag does that!