Deleting and anonymizing user data

When you delete a user in IBM® Maximo® Application Suite, the user data is retained in the database by default. Starting in Maximo Application Suite 8.11.11, you can anonymize personal information, such as username, emails, and display name, before you delete users.

About this task

You can anonymize user data by using one of the following options:

In the user interface (UI), you can anonymize user data locally on the user management page when you select to delete a user. The Anonymize user data checkbox in the conformation dialog of user deletion can be managed for each user in the application.
Before you delete users, you can globally anonymize user data by updating the custom resource in the Red Hat® OpenShift® web console.

If you anonymize the user data, you can reuse a deleted user's unique username and email when you create users.

Note: If the username is the same as the user ID, then you cannot reuse the username.

Procedure

Anonymize user data globally in the Red Hat OpenShift web console.
1. In the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform console,, click Administration > CustomResourceDefinitions.
2. Search for Suite.
3. Select the custom resource definition for the suite.
4. Click the Instances tab.
5. Select your Maximo Application Suite instance ID.
6. On the YAML tab, add the following to the spec.settings of the Maximo Application Suite instance custom resource.
```
---
userDataObfuscation:
      obfuscateDataOnDeletion: true
```
7. Save the information.
8. In Suite administration, click Users and then click the Delete user.
  When you delete users in the UI, the Anonymize personal information checkbox in the confirmation dialog of user deletion is read-only because you have globally set this option.
Anonymize user data locally in Maximo Application Suite user interface.
1. In Suite administration, click Users and then click the Delete user.
2. In the deletion confirmation dialog, select the Anonymize personal information checkbox.
  The personal information is deleted from the user record that is retained in the database.
  Note: The user ID is not deleted. If that user ID contains any personal information, it is stored in the database.
If you do not anonymize the user data, the data is stored in the Maximo Application Suite database.

Results

When you delete users, the user ID is removed from the Maximo Application Suite user registry. If you are using LDAP or SAML authentication, the user account remains on the identity provider server but is no longer associated with a Maximo Application Suite account. If you use user registry synchronization, you must delete the user on the LDAP server and then synchronize to remove the Maximo Application Suite user.