Disabling a staff account

RightNow 7.0 and Later Releases

Click to Enlarge: Staff Disable Options

You can either permanently disable a staff account or temporarily disable the account.  Several features in the staff account affect how a staff account can be disabled:

• Assignment checkbox: You can disable the account from being assigned incidents from other staff members. 
   
• Views/Reports checkbox: You can disable the account name from appearing in search filters and output columns of views and reports. 
   
• Account Locked: You can lock the account so that the staff member cannot log in. This is how to temporarily disable the account. 
   
• Permanently Disable: You can permanently disable the account so that it cannot be used at any time in the future.

Important! When temporarily disabling accounts, only the Account Locked option prevents the staff member from logging in to the administration pages. Staff accounts that are disabled from assignment or views and reports CAN still log in. If the account is permanently disabled, the staff member can no longer log in to the administration pages and the account cannot be re-enabled at a later time.

Viewing disabled staff accounts: When working with staff accounts, by default, accounts that are disabled do not display initially in the accounts listed in the left frame of the Staff Accounts table. When viewing staff accounts, there is an option to either display or hide disabled accounts.

In the left-frame where the groups are listed, right click in an open, white area and select Show Disabled. Then, if you wish to hide them again, you can right click and select Hide Disabled. Similarly, you can select options to expand the entire list of staff accounts or collapse the entire list of accounts.

To permanently disable a staff account, edit the staff account and check the Permanently Disabled check box (which also checks the Assignment and Views/Reports check boxes). As a result, accounts that are permanently disabled do not appear in the Assigned field nor do they appear in the search filters in the consoles or reports. Permanently disabling an account cannot be reversed. If an account has been permanently disabled, it cannot be re-enabled.  RightNow Customer Care will not re-enable permanently disabled staff accounts.  You would need to add another account.

You can temporarily disable an account by enabling the Account Locked check box. When this box is checked, the staff member cannot log in to the administration side of the application.

When locking an account, you can also enable the Assignment check box so that the staff name no longer appears in the Assigned menu for manual assignment. In addition, you can enable the Views/Reports box so that the staff account is not included in search filters for views and reports.

Note: If you use rules to route records directly to a staff member, you must first edit the rule to either remove the assignment action or change the staff member so that records are assigned to a different staff account. If you try to disable an account that is used in a rule, you will get a pop-up window indicating that there is a dependency check that found a rule dependent on that staff member. For more information on dependencies, refer to Answer ID 2260: Dependency Checks when Editing Fields.

Ramifications of disabling staff accounts: When you disable a staff account, there is an effect throughout the application. As a result, you should evaluate other features in your site. For more information on the impact of disabling staff accounts, refer to Answer ID 2474: Ramifications of Disabling Staff Accounts.

Description of Disabled and Flags Options

When disabling a staff account, you have several features that can be enabled or disabled, depending on your specific business processes:

Disabled: Assignment: If the Disabled: Assignment box is checked, the staff member's name no longer appears in the Assigned menu so that incidents cannot be manually assigned to that staff member. This applies to manually-assigned incidents or answers from the administration consoles. In 7.x, if you disable the assignment box and a staff member already has a console open, the staff member will be able to assign records to the disabled staff member until they log out of the application.

Even with the Disabled: Assignment box checked, incidents or answers CAN be assigned directly to a staff member by a workflow rule. That is, if you have a workflow rule that assigns specific incidents directly to the staff member, if you check the Disabled: Assignment box, the rule will still assign incidents directly to that staff member. Instead, in this case, you need to edit the rule and activate the ruleset.

If you use a rule to assign incidents to a queue and that queue is set to distribute incidents via round robin to staff members whose profile includes the queue, the round robin assignment only includes staff members who can be assigned incidents. That is, if the staff member is disabled (by having the Assignment box checked), that staff member will not receive incidents via the round robin assignment.

Disabled: Views/Reports: If the Disabled: Views/Reports box is checked, the staff member is not included in the Assigned or Created drop-down menus when using views or reports. This includes both configuring views and reports and using the views and reports. The staff account cannot be used in search filters for a view or report.

You cannot disable a staff account for the views and reports option if the account is used in workflow rules. If you try to disable the Views/Reports option when that account is used in a rule, when you click Update, a pop-up window indicates which rules include actions associated with that staff member. If necessary, modify the associated rules to remove the staff member and then edit the staff account again to disable from the views and reports.

Account Locked: If the Account Locked check box is checked, the staff member cannot log in to the administrative pages of the application and has no access to the administration pages. This temporarily disables the account. At a later time, an administrator can edit the staff account and clear the check box so that the staff member can use the account again at a later time.

Typically, when a staff account is locked, you should consider checking the Assignment box as well so that other staff members cannot assign records to that account. Similarly, evaluate your rules and consider modiflying your rules so that records are not assigned directly to a staff member whose account is locked.

To temporarily disable or to re-enable a staff member, use the steps below:

1. From the Common Administration items, select Staff Management > Staff Accounts. 
2. If the account has already been disabled, right click in a white area and select Show Disabled.
3. In the left-hand frame, right-click on the account name and select Edit.
4. In the right-hand frame on the Account tab, modify the Disabled: Assignment, Disabled: Views/Reports, and Disabled: Account Locked check boxes based accordingly.
5. Click Save. 

RightNow eService Center, Version 5.x

In 5.x, you can temporarily disable a staff member from being assigned incidents via least workload or round robin assignment policies as defined for a group. When updating a staff member's account, you can check the Disabled check box, which disables the staff member. In this way, staff members who are temporarily unavailable due to vacation, illness, or training will not be assigned new incidents automatically by the RightNow application.

In 5.x, even if the account has been disabled, the staff member can still log in to the administration console. To lock the staff member from the administration side, edit the staff account and scramble the password.

In version 5.x, when a staff member is disabled, their name no longer appears in the Assigned menu so that incidents cannot be manually assigned to them. Similarly, if you have a workflow rule that assigns an incident directly to that staff member, the workflow rule will continue to assign incidents meeting the workflow rule criteria to the staff member, even if the member has been disabled. You may need to edit workflow rules accordingly.

Note: Version 5.x does not allow all members of a group to be disabled. Attempts to disable the last remaining member of a group results in a warning message.

To temporarily disable or to re-enable a staff member, use the steps below:

1. In version 5.x, from the Management and Configuration page, click Accounts in the Staff Management section.
2. Click Edit next to the staff member you wish to configure.
3. To disable the staff member, click the Disabled check box so that there is a check in the box. To re-enable, click the Disabled box so the box is blank.
4. Click Save.