Implications of Deleting Users

Customers often need to remove users from their platform due to organizational changes. Before deleting a user, please read through this article to understand the consequences and some potential workarounds.

Deleting a User

Deleting a user seems straight forward, right?  Here are a few things to think about before clicking the Delete User button.  

• Does this user perform key functions for the team using their API key? 
• Does the Cisco Vulnerability Management instance use a Virtual Tunnel which relies on this user's credentials?
• Do other users rely on shared dashboards created by this user? 
• What kind of access does this user have today?  Read-only, Admin, Custom Role etc. 
• Does the organization rely on metrics from this user? 

Important: When a user is deleted from the platform, the API key and all dashboard views associated with that user are permanently deleted.

For users that have shared dashboard views, the following warning message will be displayed: 

"Warning! Deleting a user will remove all of their Dashboard Views.

Are you sure you want to delete NAME?

This is a permanent action and cannot be undone. If you desire to retain Dashboard Views created and shared by this user, consider resetting their User ID and Password rather than deleting the user. Read more."

Workarounds:

Service Account for Automated Jobs

If you use a lot of scripts or have a lot of automated jobs running, you may want to create a service account and use the API key associated with that account. Make sure to control how this account should and shouldn't be used as audit logs will only show the service account.

Re-provision the Account

You can keep the account and change the credentials so that you don't lose anything but still prevent access by the old user. If you don't already have a service account, you could turn it into one. 

Re-create the Shared Dashboards

If you absolutely must delete the user, but you want to keep their shared dashboards, you will have to create them from scratch using another active account before deleting the user. Once you have re-created them, you can share them to the same groups and delete the user.

Update Jobs with New API Key

If you must delete the user but you rely on jobs (or the virtual tunnel) which use their API key, you will need to re-enter a new API key. Copy the API key from another account, or your newly created service account, and update the keys before deleting the user.