Customer Support Needed: Cannot Transfer Ownership on a Deactivated User

Iris Xie

A user was deactivated before we transferred ownership of their items. Although the user is listed under "Deactivated", we're unable to transfer ownership because Smartsheet is saying they don't own any items (which is inaccurate based on an older report we downloaded). The email is also no longer active so we cannot access it. Some troubleshooting steps we've already tried:

1. Created a support case: a case was created over a week ago but no one from support has responded since we only have the standard support package
2. Based on this Asset Ownership Overview artlcle, had a few people try to request access to the sheet to approve access: as a System Admin and Plan Asset Admin, never received any notifications requesting access even though the only person that had access was the deactivated user (who apparently now doesn't own anything)
3. Purchasing an additional license to reactivate to user: although our license count increased, it still says we cannot reactivate the user because we don't have any available licenses (we haven't completed our true-up so not sure if that's impacting this)

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks!

kowal

hi @Iris Xie,

Do you remember who was the SysAdmin who was deactivating the user?

If you do please check his Sheet folder as whenever the user is deactivated his assets would have to be assigned to someone. If you sysadmin did not assign it to anyperson in his Sheet folder there would be a folder called: Assets of XXX Person … and it could be there.

Hope it helps.

Iris Xie

Hi @kowal,

Thanks for your help. I was actually the SysAdmin that deactivated the user and didn't get a prompt to transfer ownership of any items when deactivating the user. Can you advise how to locate the folder?

Thanks!

kowal

hi @Iris Xie,

if you are sysadmin of your organization can you make a small test.

When I was sysadmin in my previous company and someone was leaving and I needed to give the license to someone else I always put all the sheets on myself - so maybe you can check your Sheets to see if the sheets are also not there.

It's very odd that you did not get the popup window when you were removing the license from the user. Maybe you can just make a test? as a sysadmin can you go into editon of any user and try to remove the license ? if you do not confirm the license will not be removed but at least you will see how this pop up window looks like.

Hope it helps.

Caleb Thompson

I also have this problem. The Dynamic view's no longer work and there is no way to transfer the owner in the usual fashion. The error message is as below:

Invalid view

This view is currently broken. Please contact the view admin.

kowal

hi @Caleb Thompson ,

this needs the support attention. I do not think the community can help with that.

Trang Turtletraxx

@Iris Xie @Caleb Thompson

I went through the same issue recently.

Just because a user has a license does not mean their account is "active". Active is when a user has logged into the account successfully going through authentication of that login.

I learned in order to transfer premium app items, the user has to be a licensed user and have logged into the premium app at least once. If the owner of the premium app had a license and it was then revoked, that user's account would need their license reinstated, log in to become "active" AND log into the premium app again. The new owner has to be a licensed user and have logged into the premium app at least once as well.

As a system admin, there are some premium apps you can transfer ownership of by going to the premium app and the Admin section (Dynamic View) or selecting the option to view all the Organization's items (Data Shuttle). I know for sure those 2 premium apps can be transferred to new owners. Dynamic View is a bit more finicky because the new owner has to already be added as an Admin have Admin/Owner permissions on the source and target sheets or you're SOL.

Core assets are automatically transferred to a new owner if a user is shared with Admin permissions for that asset, or can be accessed by any user with Plan Asset Admin permissions.