Got a guy leaving end of month. 8 years of jobs under his name. Don't want to lose that data for warranty claims and callbacks. If I deactivate him in the admin panel, what happens to all his completed work orders? Do they stay attached to his name or do they get orphaned? Don't want to find out the hard way when a customer calls back about a job from 2022.
Art! Happy to help with this — it's a common concern and the good news is you're covered.
When you deactivate a user (rather than delete), here's what happens to their data:
Job history is preserved
All completed work orders remain in your account with the technician's name attached. You can still search, filter, and report on jobs by that user. The historical record doesn't change.
Active assignments get handled
Any open work orders assigned to that technician will need to be reassigned before deactivation — the system will prompt you for this. You can bulk-select and reassign to another technician or leave unassigned for dispatch to handle.
What "deactivated" means
The user can no longer log in, doesn't count toward your license total, and won't appear in active technician lists. But their profile and history remain intact for audit and reporting purposes.
To deactivate: Admin > Team Management > [User] > Deactivate Account. You'll get a confirmation screen showing any open jobs that need reassignment.
From a warranty perspective, you're protected — the job record stays complete with timestamps, photos, notes, and the original technician attribution. Let me know if you need help with the bulk reassignment step!
Pro tip: Before you deactivate, export a technician performance report for the guy — once they're deactivated, some of the quick-filter options in reporting change slightly since they're no longer an "active" technician. The data's all still there, just takes an extra click to include deactivated users in date range reports.
Also worth noting: if you have any recurring work orders set to auto-assign to him, those will stop generating until you edit the template. Learned that one the hard way with a maintenance contract.
To add to Josh's point regarding recurring work orders: It is worth noting that the recurring template itself will not be deleted, but the assigned technician field will be cleared upon deactivation. You will need to reassign the template to a new technician or to a team queue.
Additionally, from a governance perspective, I recommend documenting the deactivation date and the technician who assumed responsibility for open jobs. This creates an audit trail that may be required for compliance purposes depending on your industry.
1. Export job history prior to deactivation
2. Reassign open work orders
3. Update recurring templates
4. Document transition in your internal records
5. Proceed with deactivation
