topic Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online in ArcGIS Online Questions

Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

TedCronin — Thu, 31 May 2012 18:21:13 GMT

If I have a user that owns data, their own data, they then are asked to be a part of the Organization, if I then want to remove the user, I need to delete their data that they brought into the organization which may not be associated with the Organization. The second issue, I see is when I delete the user from the Organization, which perhaps they were a part of a group of mine prior to be invited to my Organization, they are removed automatically from the group that they belonged to prior to joining the Organization. The third issue, when the user is dropped from the organization, they are no longer associated with ArcGIS Online. The user name account is dropped, and therefore the user needs to re associate the user account (Global ID) with ArcGIS Online. I cannot just invite them to a group, they have to completely start over with ArcGIS Online, which perhaps is the biggest issue compared to the above.

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

MikeMinami — Thu, 31 May 2012 20:04:31 GMT

Yes, this is the way it works. You can't be a member of an organization and also have personal content that doesn't belong to the organization. I equate this to having a work email address and a personal email address. When you leave your organization, you don't take your work email address with you. If your users have personal content, they should join your organization using a different account, or one that you create for them.

Thanks,

Mike

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

TedCronin — Thu, 31 May 2012 20:34:29 GMT

Yes, this is the way it works. You can't be a member of an organization and also have personal content that doesn't belong to the organization. I equate this to having a work email address and a personal email address. When you leave your organization, you don't take your work email address with you. If your users have personal content, they should join your organization using a different account, or one that you create for them.

Thanks,

Mike

Good, thanks for the comparison, email is a good example to use. Yes, when I set these up we had issues with the invite process as I had already posted on, so I just did not realize these users would completely lose their accounts on ArcGIS Online, understandable for the Org. Is this in the doc? If not it should be in Red or Bold. I know this now, but others may get stung in the future. Thanks Mike.

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

MikeMinami — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:57:59 GMT

There's a warning message that appears when someone attempts to use their existing account to sign up with an organization. It says something to the effect that signing up will transfer all your items to the organization and that the organization also has control over your content and groups.

In order for a user to be removed from the organization, all of their content must be removed or transferred to another user. Upon removal of the user, that username is released from the organization and the user can re-register their ID and start using their account as a personal account.

Thanks,

Mike

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

AllenRisley — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 19:19:56 GMT

Several of the campus users who would like to use our ArcGIS Online organizational account have balked at doing so because of this organizational control issue. These users are faculty members who have created their own content previously with an ArcGIS Online personal account and do not want that content to become property of the group. They intend to make use of the organizational account services/resources during a particular semester, but then may not make use of the resources.

What should they do? If they keep their personal account and create a new organizational account, will they be able to transfer content between the accounts? This issue of ownership of intellectual property is a big one.

Allen Risley
Academic Technology Support
California State University San Marcos

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

MikeMinami — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:06:00 GMT

If a user chooses to join an organization with an existing account, all their content go under the control of the organization. There is no backing out once this happens. If they want to maintain control over their content, they should not join the organization with their existing account. Instead, they could create a new account to join the organization and use that to manage items that belong in the organization.

Thanks,

Mike

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

deleted-user-AzQ5lcTQbS2a — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:51:23 GMT

I think I'm following along properly with the thread, but have one more question/point of clarification. I'll outline the situation:
1) user has AGO personal account with data
2) starts a new job and is invited to the AGO organization with the SAME username as his personal account.
3) his data now become part of the organizations content
4) he is no longer with the AGO Organization and needs to be removed.

So, I understand that his content will need to be deleted or changed to another owner before the user can be deleted. What are the options for preserving his personal content that he brought into the organization? If he creates a new global account, how is the content transferred without adding him to the organization and starting the whole nightmare over again?

Thanks!

Stacey
former esri

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

MikeMinami — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:27:26 GMT

I suppose the answer is: don't join an organization with an existing personal account if you have personal content you want to maintain independent of the organization. There are no workflows that allow you to transfer content out of an organization to a personal account. The only items you can "copy out" are web maps, by making them public in your organizational account, then finding them with your personal account, opening them, and doing a 'Save As'.

Thanks,

Mike

Difficulty in Removing Users from Organization

FredMiller — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 13:56:59 GMT

My problem is related but different. I am trying to remove students accounts from an organization. I have deleted all the items they own and removed them from groups. However, when I try to delete their accounts, I am not allowed to do so and receive a message that I can't delete anyone owning items or groups. Are there items or groups I can not see?
Also, this seems like a pretty laborious process, is there a streamlined way to delete several users at once?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me,
Fred

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

MikeMinami — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 15:06:38 GMT

What usernames are you trying to delete? You can send me a private message if you like and we can check what the problem is. Are you sure you've removed all content in all folders?

Admittedly, the process is laborious. But, we don't want people to inadvertently delete users and possibly important content.

Thanks,

Mike

Difficulty in Removing Users from Organization

FredMiller — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 16:12:27 GMT

Thanks for the questions, Mike
As it turns out, I had not deleted BAO related content from each user account.
When I did, all worked well and I was able to delete the accounts.
This process might be a bit of a constraint for schools who wish to integrate AGO exercises with Maps for Office in high enrollment classes each semester.
I would love to hear any suggestions for managing that task properly.
Thanks again,
Fred

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

MarieJacobs — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 05:19:34 GMT

I am having the same problem. Did you find a way to remove students without it being such a laboro

ius process.

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

V_StuartFoote — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 14:06:56 GMT

David,

I just spent a little time doing this. It is a bit tedious--but intuitive. Only decision is whether to simply delete the student content, or to transfer their content and ownership of their groups over to a faculty member.

If just deleting, it goes quickly, but that may upset their faculty. So, I've just created a "transfer" folder for each faculty to hold student content and then assign ownership to faculty member placing it in the "transfer"folder. The Group content remains intact--so also have to transfer the group to the faculty now owning the content. Then able to delete the student account.

Mike Minami‌ for organizational accounts with transient membership, like Educational institutions, it would be very helpful to provide an automated deprovisioning method to Administrator's (or the primary Admin). Perhaps -- simple clear all group ownership with drop down assignment to another user, and then a choice to delete all content or to transfer all content ownership to another user. And finally delete the user.

Stuart

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

MikeMinami — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 17:10:35 GMT

Currently, there are no plans for increased automation of content transfer and user removal. We have a general solution that works (although laborious) across different types of organizations. Admittedly, an organization representing a school has slightly different requirements because students come and go in groups, whereas people leave in smaller numbers in other types of organizations; thus, the transfer of user content is more easily managed.

However, I can see the merits of having some bulk ownership transfer of items and groups to a single user. I don't think we'll ever allow a choice to just delete all content in bulk. We are intentionally conservative in this respect because we don't want admins accidentally deleting content without reviewing it, because there is no undo.

I will write up bulk transferring of ownership as an enhancement. However, as we have a working solution, there's no guarantee this will be implemented.

Thanks

Mike

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

MikeSims — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 19:35:38 GMT

Yes, This is a very important function for Org Admins. Especaily for large state or fed agencies (like mine). I know there is a warning, but it doesn't make it clear that it is almost impossible for an individual (that had a personal AGO acct prior) to get their prior existing content out after they leave the organization if they join with their existing Acct. I guess I'm saying that until this tool gets developed there should be a VERY explicite warning (with this example case included).

From the existing warning I realized the data would be merged with the Organizations. What I didn't understand (maybe a "Learn more" link in the warning?) is that there would be no way for me as the Admin to easily send the user away with the personal data that was merged with the Organization at the end of employment.

Again, We have high turn over (interns, OPS employees, etc) in a large (17,000+) organization so doing this on a case by case basis will be untenable.

I realize that I shoudl forve the user to create or create for then a Org specific acct (now). But I didn't learn this until I had the ugly realization too late. Just trying to help others avoid this issue in the future.

Thank you for listening. I Love the AGO service!

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

RobbynAbbitt — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 19:13:49 GMT

Hi Mike -

I am new to this thread and also trying to delete students from our organizational account for the first time.

I have gone in a deleted all of their files and folders that I can see, but I am still getting an error message: "Unable to delete member: x. Member must not own items or groups"

How can I figure out what is causing the issue? I saw someone else's problem was related to BAO access. I haven't opened that up for students so it isn't that for me.

Any other ideas on what might be the issue?

And I'd like to second the idea of coming up with a process to delete many users and their content at once. From a University's teaching perspective it becomes a management issue with keeping on top of new students and keeping the organization current.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Robbyn

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

RobbynAbbitt — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 19:36:19 GMT

Hello again -

I managed to find that the students I couldn't delete were owners of their own groups.

I had assumed that I would be able to see all items they owned AND all groups they owned on a single screen.

I'm now going through and looking at each individuals groups and deleting and THEN I can delete the user.

One suggestion would be a single screen where you see everything for an individual -one place to delete content(or move content from) AND delete their groups, and eventually delete them as a user.

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

CemDokuz — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 15:27:23 GMT

Hi I have problem to delete my arcgis online account. I can't see anything "delete account" or something thing like that. How can I solve my problem?

Thanks

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

MikeMinami — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 16:24:04 GMT

If this is a 30 day trial and you don't end up subscribing, the account will automatically be deleted. Alternatively, you can contact Esri technical support, provide your username and subscription ID and your account can be deleted.

Contact Tech Support

Thanks,

Mike

Re: Removing Users from an Organization Account Removes User from ArcGIS Online

dkav — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 20:26:26 GMT

Mike,

I wish to add my name as another higher education admin user who is frustrated with the lack of 'automation of content transfer and user removal'. In the absence of GUI updates, is your team open to providing an API? Anything to save me hours of tedium.

Thanks,
Darren