Dynamics Community Forum Thread Details

Hello alyssalee73,

You've encountered a tricky situation with a lingering, shared dashboard from a removed user. Here's a breakdown of how to address this, along with the pros and cons of each approach:

Understanding the Problem:

Orphaned Dashboard: When a user is removed from the tenant, their shared dashboards can become orphaned if they weren't properly transferred or deleted beforehand.
Limited Visibility: Shared dashboards don't always appear in standard searches or even XrmToolBox queries in the same way as personal dashboards.

Solutions:

Direct Admin Deletion (Preferred):
- Using the Web API (Recommended for Admin):
  - You can use the Dynamics 365 Web API to directly query and delete the dashboard. This is the most reliable admin-level approach.
  - Steps:
    1. Retrieve User Dashboards: Use the Web API to query the userdashboard entity, filtering by the ownerid of the removed user.
    2. Identify the Dashboard: You may need to examine the results to identify the specific dashboard by its name or other attributes.
    3. Delete the Dashboard: Use the Web API to delete the identified dashboard record.
  - Tools: You can use tools like Postman, or a Javascript Web Resource within dynamics to execute the web api calls.
  - Example Web API call to retrieve the user dashboards:
    - [Organization URI]/api/data/v9.2/userdashboards?$filter=_ownerid_value eq [GUID of the deleted user]
  - Example Web API call to delete the user dashboard:
    - [Organization URI]/api/data/v9.2/userdashboards([GUID of the dashboard])
- Pros:
  - Direct and clean solution.
  - Avoids granting unnecessary permissions.
- Cons:
  - Requires familiarity with the Dynamics 365 Web API.
  - Requires the GUID of the deleted user and the guid of the dashboard.

Temporarily Granting Deletion Permissions:
- Modify Security Roles: You could temporarily modify the Sales Manager's security role to grant her the "Delete User Dashboard" privilege.
- Steps:
  1. Navigate to Settings > Security > Security Roles.
  2. Open the Sales Manager's security role.
  3. Go to the "User Dashboards" entity tab.
  4. Grant the "Delete" privilege.
  5. Have the Sales Manager delete the dashboard.
  6. Revoke the "Delete" privilege.
- Pros:
  - Relatively quick and easy.
- Cons:
  - Potential security risk if the user accidentally deletes other dashboards.
  - Requires careful permission management.

Sharing the Dashboard (Less Likely to Work):
- Challenge: If the original owner is gone, it is very unlikely that the dashboard can be shared again.
- Why: The share functionality is dependent on the original owners access.
- Cons:
  - Very unlikely to work.
  - Will not solve the issue.

Recommendations:

Use the Web API (Preferred): The most secure and efficient approach is to use the Dynamics 365 Web API to directly delete the orphaned dashboard.
Avoid Granting Unnecessary Permissions: Minimizing permission changes reduces security risks.

Key Considerations:

Auditing: Ensure that auditing is enabled so that you have a record of the deletion.
Testing: Test any changes in a non-production environment first.

By following these steps, you should be able to effectively remove the orphaned dashboard.

If my answer was helpful, please click Like, and if it solved your problem, please mark it as verified to help other community members find more. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me.

My response was crafted with AI assistance and tailored to provide detailed and actionable guidance for your Microsoft Dynamics 365 query.

Regards,

Daivat Vartak