Expand my Community achievements bar.

The next phase for Workfront Community ideas is coming soon. Learn all about it in our blog!

Calendar Function changes when Users who created Calendars are deactivated

Avatar

Level 6

3/29/21

As Users who have created Calendars get deactivated, any Calendars which they have built and shared are no longer visible to those with whom they have been shared. This is inconsistent with how Reports/Dashboards are maintained when a User is deactivated.


There are 2 current workarounds:

  1. Create a "fake" User account at the System Admin level and make a copy of the Calendar from the deactivated User, then re-share the new Calendar.
  2. Log in as a current User and make a copy of the Calendar from the deactivated User, then re-share the new Calendar.

However, when making a Copy, it is important to note that if any Custom Date Fields on Calendars are used, those are no longer maintained. Therefore new Custom Date Field filters need to be built.


It would be nice to see that Calendars behave the same when a User is deactivated to maintain the Calendar Report and the Filters that have been applied.

2 Comments

Avatar

Level 4

10/27/21

I came to the Innovation Lab to basically post about this. Ultimately, Calendars are visual reports and admins should be able to view all user-generated calendars just like we can with Reports and Dashboards. The hoops we have to jump through to fix a calendar when an admin is deactivated is painful.

Avatar

Level 1

12/15/23

Was asked by the Customer Support team to contribute here, so we are!

TLDR: Lack of ability to change Calendar or Board owners has incapacitated some workflows across our organization. Deactivated Calendar owners cause access errors, furthermore when at admin access level. Calendar entries are missing when copied. Calendar functionality is a key value prop for our organization. Forced to re-activate a terminated user so we can continue work. 

After days of troubleshooting, let me explain inability to transfer owners on objects has created a perfect storm, and a security concern. I tried to be as detailed as I can be so those reading can understand the rabbit hole we've fell into. 

From the beginning:
Complaint comes in saying events are missing from an org-wide Calendar (that a recently deactivated admin had created / owned). Adobe Help articles recommend I copy the calendar, re-Share, and delete old calendar, but this created further issues.

Here's a snippet of the support ticket:


"Update.. I reactivated the user and then that (deleted) Calendar re-appeared automatically, even though I had deleted it. Maybe this is because the deactivated user was also the owner of the Calendar, and also had system admin access? 

I went and logged in as the re-activated user to try and Share ownership to myself but was not able to resolve this way. Reason being is the Calendar owner is not a value users can change. Any chance that someone could help change ownership of this calendar over to me?

I’ve left the user re-activated with only a “Reviewer” access level so your support team and mine can still see the Calendar in question. I’d like to re-deactivate this user as soon as possible of course. To recap.. there are a few issues:


1. Copying a Calendar that was created (and therefore owned by) a deactivated user who was previously a system admin may not copy “clicked-in” events properly. Any events manually entered into Calendar will not show up after it’s copied. Any user trying to copy the Calendar will get a generic value on left called “Calendar Events” with none of the “clicked-in” objects populated, whereas any values from existing objects, tasks, and tickets will populate as intended, causing confusion.
  
2. In instances where system admins create Calendars and then are deactivated (leave org). This can cause a security concern as the remaining admin must reactivate the departed user to retrieve the lost work, leaving access available to a terminated employee. This could be avoided by allowing admins (or users) to change ownership of Calendars after created, without having to copy them, and in turn lose events. (Also for Boards)

3. Admins cannot restore deleted Calendars from Recycle Bin (for themselves or others). However Calendars created by admins that are deleted will still show up for the other admins, and their Shared users. One admin believes it’s deleted, but the other admin and users still have access to the “deleted” calendar."

Unfortunately the issue persists. Not sure what the big issue with changing ownership of an object is? In a time of economic turbulence, layoffs are more common, meaning ownership changes are frequent. Sadly, the issue has adversely affected the approval rating of Workfront with colleagues.