Offboard a user from Showpad

Proper offboarding keeps Shared Spaces, buyer links, and shared content accessible. If possible, ask departing users to move essential files into shared locations before their access ends to ensure no critical materials are lost. Deactivating their account frees up their license, but once their access ends, you can no longer retrieve their personal content.

This article covers the before-offboarding checklist, the differences between deactivating and deleting, and how to transfer Shared Space ownership to keep transitions running smoothly.

Key features

• Free up the user's license without losing their Shared Spaces or shared files
• Manage Shared Space ownership so external participants maintain seamless access.
• Audit what a departing user owns before you remove them
• Know exactly what deletion erases, so nothing important disappears by accident

You need this to succeed

The quick way

1. Work through the offboarding checklist while the user is still active
2. Audit their Shares and Shared Spaces to see what needs attention
3. Transfer their Shared Spaces to an active owner
4. Deactivate, don't delete the user
5. Only delete once you've confirmed nothing important will be lost

Do this step by step

What to check before you offboard

Work through this checklist before you touch a user's account, ideally while the user is still active and reachable:

• Confirm the access cutoff date, and whether it's immediate or scheduled.
• Ask the user to move or share anything in their My Files that colleagues will need into a Collection or Shared Space someone else can already reach. This is the only reliable way to get their files to a colleague.
• Check the user's recent Share activity. If they've been actively sharing with prospects, ask the user to pass off any live deals to a colleague.
• Confirm whether the user owns any Shared Spaces, and whether external participants are still active in them. Ask them to transfer ownership if possible.

Audit a departing user's Shares and Shared Spaces

Before you transfer anything, find out what the user actually owns.

Shares

1. Navigate to the Analytics tab and select the Activities report from the left menu.
2. Search Shares by the user's name, and filter by date range.
3. See what they've shared with prospects and how those prospects engaged.
4. Export to CSV if you need a record before you delete the user, since deletion cuts off recipient access to those Shares.

Find out how to view Share insights with the Activities report.

Shared Spaces

1. Open Shared Spaces in Admin Settings and select All Shared Spaces.
2. Filter by Owners to find everything belonging to the departing user, or filter Owner status by Deactivated.
3. Check the Internal participants column: If the value is one or lower, no other active internal user has access. You must manually transfer ownership to prevent external participants from losing access when the current owner is deactivated or deleted. Transfer ownership of the identified Shared Spaces.
4. If the Shared Space has other internal participants, you don't need to transfer it manually. When the owner is deactivated, ownership automatically transfers to the most recently active internal user the next time an external participant logs in.

Note: There's no supported way to back up a Shared Space. If you delete a user who is the sole internal participant without transferring ownership first, the Shared Space and its contents are permanently removed. Manually transferring ownership beforehand is a vital step to ensure a seamless transition and preserve access.

Learn more about managing all Shared Spaces in your organization.

Transfer Shared Space ownership

To transfer another user's Shared Space, you need the Administrator or Promoted Member role with the Manage Shared Spaces permission.

1. From the All Shared Spaces view, select the Shared Space or Spaces you identified in the audit above.
2. Click Transfer ownership.
3. Choose a New owner, add a personal note if useful, and click Transfer ownership.

See detailed steps for transferring ownership of any Shared Space in your organization.

Deactivate versus delete

Deactivating and deleting both revoke a user's access and free their license for reassignment. They differ in what happens to their Shared Spaces and files.

Find out how to deactivate and reactivate users.

What can’t be recovered after deletion?

Once you delete a user, the following are gone for good:

• My Files and Collections owned by the user.
• Shared Spaces they owned, including all content and engagement data inside them.
• Shares they sent to prospects (recipients lose access immediately).
• Their Path and Course progress.
• Their attribution as the author of assets.
• Their individual user analytics (the user is anonymized).

Comments left by a deleted user will remain visible in Shared Spaces owned by someone else.

Note: You can't undo deleting a user. If you're unsure whether everything has been transferred or recovered, deactivate and wait instead of deleting.

When you’re ready, learn how to delete users.