It’s simple to deactivate people who no longer use 15Five or are no longer part of your organization. When you deactivate someone, they lose access to 15Five and are removed from future billing. To learn what happens to their data after deactivation, see the “What happens when you deactivate a user” section below.
In this article, you will learn...
- How to Deactivate a Person's Account
- What Happens to Data When You Deactivate a User
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Access and availability
⛔️ Required access to Manage people.
👥 This article is relevant to Account admins (can deactivate anyone's account) and Managers (can deactivate accounts for anyone in their hierarchy).
📦 This ability is available in all pricing packages.
Note
If your company uses SCIM, or an HRIS to manage employee 15Five membership, you should remove employees via SCIM or in your HRIS, rather than from within 15Five. If you deactivate someone manually in this case, they may be reactivated during your next sync. If you are not sure if you have one integrated, you can check your company's integrations page for active integrations.
How to Deactivate a Person's Account
- Click People in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation.
- You'll land on the "Manage people" page. From here, use the filters or search bar at the top to find the person whose account you want to deactivate.
- Click on a person's name to open their account settings.
If you have multiple people you would like to deactivate at once, click the box next to their names and select Actions button -> Deactivate. You can also deactivate a large group of employees by using our bulk update option. - Click Deactivate [Name]'s account in the top, right-hand corner of the page.
- A pop-up will appear. Select the reason for deactivation, then click Deactivate account.
Tip
Selecting a reason for deactivation fuels turnover data on the HR Outcomes Dashboard, giving your HR team powerful insights into trends and talent retention. The more complete your data, the smarter your strategy.
- If the person whose account you're deactivating is a manager, you'll also be asked to select a person to take over management of their direct reports.
- The person's account will move to the Deactivated tab, and they will no longer have access to 15Five.
What Happens to Data When You Deactivate a User
This section explains how deactivating a user in 15Five impacts their data across key features, and outlines your options for downloading data before deactivation.
Engagement
If a user is deactivated during an active engagement campaign:
- Their previous survey responses will be removed.
- They will be excluded from response rate calculations.
If they are later reactivated or their survey status is manually updated to “Yes”, and they had already completed the survey before deactivation, their previous responses will be restored. If they hadn’t completed the survey, they will begin receiving reminders again, according to the campaign’s schedule. Past survey responses remain.
Check-ins
A deactivated employee’s past Check-ins remain visible to their direct manager at the time of deactivation and to others with access via hierarchy-based visibility. These Check-ins can be found under the “Everyone’s” tab. Group-level and follower visibility for past Check-ins no longer apply once a user is deactivated.
Group-level and follower visibility for past Check-ins no longer apply once a user is deactivated.
Note
Reporting on Check-ins follows these same visibility rules. If an account admin pulls a Check-ins report for a timeframe when the employee was active, the employee will appear as deactivated, and their Check-ins will not display—unless the report is run by their former direct manager.
Help Center article 💡: Print or download a Check-in
1-on-1s
Once a user is deactivated, their 1-on-1 agendas are no longer visible in 15Five, regardless of when the 1-on-1s occurred. Since 1-on-1s become inaccessible after deactivation, any 1-on-1 activity by the individual is also excluded from 1-on-1s reporting.
To retain 1-on-1 content, we recommend that a Global Viewer with 1-on-1 visibility download or print agendas before deactivation. Learn how to print or download a 1-on-1 agenda →
Best-Self Review®
A deactivated person’s historical review results remain visible to anyone who had visibility into them before deactivation. HR admins can still download the person’s full review history even after they are deactivated. Learn how →
If a person is deactivated during an active review cycle:
- If they submitted their self review before deactivation, that review remains visible.
- If they didn't submit their self review, they will be removed from the cycle and will not affect cycle statistics.
- Any reviews they submitted about others will still appear.
- Unsubmitted reviews assigned to them will be removed.
Help Center article 💡: Download my company's review results
Objectives
Objectives owned by the deactivated employee will remain visible, and will need to be re-assigned by someone who can view that Objective. If you edit a Group or Company-wide objective owned by a deactivated user, 15Five will prompt you to assign a new owner before saving.
High Fives
High fives given by the deactivated users remain visible on the High Fives Feed. High fives they received will show, but the tag will no longer be clickable.
Feedback
Completed feedback requests remain visible, even after the person who provided the feedback is deactivated. If the feedback was shared with the requestor's manager, the manager will retain access
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: Does reactivating a person's account restore their data?
Yes. By default, all user data will continue to be stored on the backend (so if the person is reactivated, their account can be reactivated with all data intact). However, we suggest downloading any user data you want for your records before deactivating a person's account since it will no longer be available in 15Five upon deactivation.
Q: How can I permanently delete a person's information per GDPR requirements?
If you'd like to permanently delete user information, please reach out to our Support Team and they can give you the ability to PII delete a person's data.
Q: How does deactivating accounts impact billing?
When people are deactivated, your account will continue paying for their vacant seats for the remainder of your current contract. We aren't able to offer refunds or credits for people who are deactivated during your contract period. However, we fill vacant seats first before charging for additional seats if you add additional users to 15Five. For more information on Billing Terms and conditions, see this page.
Help Center article 💡: How does adding/removing people impact billing?