Data retention policies are critical for companies to ensure regulatory compliance, as many industries have laws mandating the retention of certain data types. For example, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation requires EU companies not to retain personal data longer than necessary, and companies must be able to demonstrate compliance with this principle. Often, companies must comply with multiple data retention laws, depending on industry and location.
- Delete end users that haven't been active in three years
- Delete end users whose organization is NOT Acme, Inc. that haven't been active in two years
- Delete end users without the tag retain that haven't been active in 18 months
When you delete end users in Zendesk, they’re soft deleted and queued for permanent deletion after 30 days.
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About end-user deletion schedules
End-user deletion schedules continuously search for and delete end users who haven't been active for a specified period of time. For example, if you create a schedule that deletes an end user after one year of inactivity, but the end user comments on a ticket within that time, the end user is not deleted. The clock starts over, and the user will be deleted one year after they've been last active.
- The end user's last activity on the help center, including the last time they searched for, viewed, or commented on an article.
- The last time the end user signed in.
- The end user's last ticket comment, which is the timestamp of the last comment made by the user on a ticket where they are the requester.
User activity is not activity driven by a team member or Zendesk, such as the time a ticket was closed.
After it's activated, a deletion schedule isn't a one-off event. Zendesk continuously searches for and deletes end users unless you deactivate the schedule. Deletion schedules start to delete eligible end users within 72 hours of meeting the defined criteria. For example, if a schedule deletes inactive end users after 3 years, it will start deleting them within 72 hours of reaching 3 years of inactivity. Zendesk can delete up to 24,000 end users per account per day.
Deletion schedules soft delete end users, meaning users are still in the Zendesk database and accessible on a limited basis to Zendesk employees with certain database privileges. You can then permanently delete the user, or take no additional action, and Zendesk deletes the user permanently after 30 days.
You can track these changes in the audit log by filtering by Activity type: Updated.
Creating end-user deletion schedules
You can create up to 10 end-user deletion schedules, but only one end-user deletion schedule can be active at a time. If you have the Advanced Data Privacy and Protection add-on, you can activate up to 10 end-user deletion schedules.
To create an end-user deletion schedule
- In Admin Center, click
Account in the sidebar, then select Security > Deletion schedules. - Click Create deletion schedule > End users.
If you already created 10 end-user deletion schedules, a message appears notifying you that you’ve reached your limit. You must delete a schedule before you can create a new one.
- Enter the Schedule name.
Use a consistent naming convention to help you recognize similar types of deletion schedules.
- (Optional) Enter a Description for your deletion schedule.
- For Last active, indicate when to delete end users based on when they were last active in Zendesk. This field is required.
Note: The earliest last active date is January 1, 2018. End users who were last active before that date are marked last active January 1, 2018.
- Click Add condition to add additional conditions for deleting end users, such as by organization or tags. You can configure the deletion schedule to delete end users that meet All or Any of the specified conditions. See Building condition statements for end-user deletion schedules.
You can add one additional condition for deleting end users. If you have the Advanced Data Privacy and Protection add-on, there's no limit to the number of conditions you can add.
- Select a Category, Operator, and Value for each condition.
The operator determines the relationship between the category and the value. For example, if you select the operator Is, your category must equal the value.
- (Optional) After conditions are added, click Preview to preview an approximate number of end users that match and will be deleted when the schedule is active.
- Click Create.
- Activate the deletion schedule.
Building condition statements for end-user deletion schedules
Condition statements consist of categories, field operators, and condition values (which vary depending on the category selected). Condition statements are essentially "if" statements that delete tickets meeting the specified criteria.
The table below lists the categories available for building condition statements for end-user deletion schedules.
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Last active | Deletes end users based on when they were last active. At least one Last active condition is required.
Deletion schedules delete end users that have been inactive for the time period specified in the Last active field. For example, if Last active is set to 365 days, and the end user commented on a ticket within that time, the end user is not deleted. The clock starts over, and the end user will be deleted 365 days from the last active date. |
| Organization | Deletes end users based on organization, if you have multiple organizations. |
| Tags | Deletes end users with the selected ticket tags. |