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Deleting or inactivating users in the Profiles database

You can use an IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator command to delete or inactivate users in the Connections Profiles database.

Use the delete_or_inactivate_employees command to either delete or inactivate users from the Profiles database. When you delete users, only their data that's in the Profiles database is removed; their data in other Connections applications is not removed. When you inactivate users, their Profile is flagged as inactive, and only their email address and login ids are removed from the Profiles database. In both cases, whether delete or inactivate, users are marked as inactivated in the other Connections applications.

Note: When you use the delete_or_inactivate_employees command, remember that the user data is still in LDAP or other sources. You must remove that data otherwise the users will be re-populated in Profiles at the next synchronization.

Procedure

To delete or inactivate specific users from the Profiles database:

  1. Create a text file named delete_or_inactivate_employees.in that contains the distinguished names and user IDs for the users that you want to delete from the database. Use the following format to represent a user:

    $dn:user\_dn
    uid:user\_uid
    .
    

    where:

    • user_dn corresponds to the PROF_SOURCE_UID in the Profiles database.
    • user_uid corresponds to the PROF_UID in the Profiles database. Note: When deleting multiple users, there must be a period separator (.) between each entry. The period must be on its own line, after the line containing the user's UID. If the separator is omitted, an error occurs when you use the delete command.

    Note: The $dn value is not used, but it must be formatted correctly. Do not add a space after the colon and before the value.

    Here is an example of an entry from the delete_or_inactivate_employees.in file:

    $dn:cn=Amy Jones3,cn=Users,l=WestfordFVT,st=Massachusetts,c=US,ou=Lotus,o=Software Group,dc=ibm,dc=com
    uid:Amy Jones3
    .
    $dn:cn=Amy Jones8,cn=Users,l=WestfordFVT,st=Massachusetts,c=US,ou=Lotus,o=Software Group,dc=ibm,dc=com
    uid:Amy Jones8
    .
    
  2. Place the file in the Tivoli Directory Integrator solution directory specified for your deployment.

    For more information, see Configuring Tivoli Directory Integrator.

  3. Run the delete_or_inactivate_employees command to delete or inactivate the users from the database.

    The following table shows the properties that are used by the command and their default values. These properties can be found in the profiles_tdi.properties file.

    Table 1. Properties used with the delete_or_inactivate_employees command

    Property Description
    delete_or_inactivate_employees_simple_file File that you created in Step 1, which lists the people to be deleted or inactivated. The default value is delete_or_inactivate_employees.in.
    sync_delete_or_inactivate Specifies whether to delete or inactivate the people listed in the file specified using the delete_or_inactivate_employees_simple_file property. The options are:

    delete: Deletes users from the Profiles database Their data in the Profiles database is removed.

    inactivate: Sets the person's status to inactive in the Profiles database. In addition, the user's email address and login ids are removed from the Profiles database. When you inactivate users, you can reinstate them later. See Managing user data using Profiles administrative commands for more details. An inactive person is identifiable in the product user interface because the person's name is dimmed. An inactive person’s name is not included in searches and membership selection fields.

    The default value is inactivate.

Parent topic: Managing user data using Tivoli Directory Integrator Solution scripts

Related information

Managing user data using Profiles administrative commands

Batch files for processing Profiles data

Configuring IBM Security Directory Integrator

Customizing the logic used for the delete operation