Who is this article for?

System administrators preparing to disable a user who owns a large number of documents.

Administration role and Alter Tree (Documents and Folders) permissions are required.

When a user retires or leaves the organisation, we recommend transferring ownership of their documents before disabling their account to avoid creating an unmanageable workload for a single replacement user.

Changing the editor

Changing the editor transfers document ownership to another active user without changing its status. The document stays in its current state (usually Published for retiring users) and appears in the new editor's Inbox for action.

Since Change Editor works on one document at a time, it’s best to process large volumes in batches, assigning sets of documents to different users before disabling the account.

To change the editor:

1. Access the document from the Document Tree.
2. Open the Actions menu.
3. Select Change Editor.

4. Go to the Change Document Editor page.
5. Select the new editor from the New Editor dropdown.
6. Click Save Changes.

The document will remain in its current state.

Note

The document appears in the new editor's Inbox for processing once the change is saved. No revision is started and no approval cycle is triggered.

Redistributing the documents

The steps below describe how to distribute documents across multiple users cleanly before the account is disabled.

To redistribute documents:

1. Run a Document report filtered by the retiring user's name in the Editor field to produce a full list of their documents.
2. Export this to Excel.
3. Divide the list into batches, deciding which documents will go to which replacement user.
4. For each document in a batch, open it.
5. Open the Actions menu.
6. Select Change Editor to assign it to the intended replacement user.
7. Repeat for each batch until all documents have been redistributed across the required users.
8. Once all documents have been reassigned, you can disable the user.
9. In the Reassign Disabled User's Tasks dialogue, set the Documents field to any active user.
   There should be very few or no remaining documents to reassign at this point.
10. Complete the disabling process.

Tip

Use the Current Step filter in the Document report to sort documents by status (Published, Edit, Review, etc.) and prioritise urgent ones.

Best practices

The most sustainable way to avoid this problem recurring is to configure document ownership and approval at the group level rather than assigning directly to named individuals.

Note

The option to select individual users (not just groups) in Approval, Review, and Notify lists is managed by the 'Individuals allowed in Approval, Review, and Notify Lists' setting in Folder Properties.

If disabled, only groups can be added, which is recommended for better long-term maintenance.