Option to Remove Email from User Profile

I had the same issue and found a different workaround. It's annoying, but it worked.  

Step 1. Change the requester on the ticket temporarily; 2. Delete the user with the email issue; 3. Create a new user for that individual; 4. Switch the requester on that ticket back to the new user that you recreated.

Note: I have not tried this with users who have old tickets that are closed. 

Also, make sure to write down details you will need to re-add when you recreate the user, e.g. org, phone number, etc. 

do we have any update on this as its getting difficult for us. 

Following, this is problematic for our users who often have no email and/or shared emails, phones. 

Hi!

I have the same issue.

I need to remove the email address I added by accident to a ticket with just a phone number.

I can't. I can remove the phone. Option to remove the email is grayed out.

This association can't be present. The email has to be removed from that user, so only the phone number is associated. Now when I write the email address Zendesk automatically sets the phone number to that ticket.

I can't set a fake address. I have to have just a number.

it is unacceptable to have no possibility to amend these data!

Thank you in advance for answer.

I want to push back on the notion that "Zendesk is designed around users having an email address, and it being unique."  The New User pop-up/modal allows a user to be created without an email address, and all of our phone-only users have no email address, so it is clearly possible to have users without email addresses.

In any case, I'll lay out at least one more use case which is relevant to our line of business:

A fair percentage of our customers have a generic email address for their primary user which is based on that user's title (CEO@abc.xyz, e.g.).  When that individual moves on to other pursuits, their replacement assumes the same email address but they are a distinct individual person.

If all I do is change the name of the user on the account, that leads to confusion on past tickets that were opened by the previous user.  Also, the new user may have completely different needs than the old one.

My only workaround at this point is to change the old user to "CEONoMore@abc.xyz" or something similar and then suspend them (completely optional but still protocol) so that I can assign the email address to a new user.

This is annoying enough for me to have to deal with, I certainly can't expect to be able to train a large contingent of people in our company to use this protocol just because we can't remove a primary email address.

Hi James Hanley,

I am happy to go through our use case via meeting.

Regards,

Roshni

Hey Roshni Daftary, no timelines yet. I would be open to hearing more about your use case however, if you're open to meeting, or elaborating here.

James

Hi James Hanley - do we have any time lines as to when there would be any update as its a real struggle to remove them. 

Thanks Brett Elliott, hey folks, James here from the Product Team.

As Brett mentioned in July, this item is not planned, and that has not changed. 

Unfortunately, the removal of an email from the user record is not straightforward. Zendesk is designed around users having an email address, and it being unique. There are many downstream features which are built around this idea. Removing the primary email from a user changes that, and affects many features of the product. Which make this simple feature request, incredibly complex to implement.

The good news is, we are moving the direction that will enable this capability in the future. The bad news is that change is a journey, will take time, and is slower than our customers would like.

The best I can offer today is the assurance that we hear you and that we're doing our best to get there. 

I hope this helps,
James

Thanks for reaching out, JJ Breen.

I've moved on from the team who looks after Identities and the Customer Profile Page. Let me introduce you to the wonderful James Hanley who will be able to comment on the current state of this change.