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Deactivate or reactivate employees — FAQs and troubleshooting
Deactivate or reactivate employees — FAQs and troubleshooting

Find the answers to your questions on deactivating or reactivating employees

Maud avatar
Written by Maud
Updated over a week ago

Deactivate employees

What happens to an employee’s data when their account is deactivated?

Some data are kept while others are deleted or deactivated.

The data that are kept include:

  • the employee’s worked hours

  • the history of their leave requests and their leave and TOIL balances

  • the documents attached to their profile, such as contracts, personal documents, etc.

  • the details attached to their profile, such as hourly wage, salary, contracted hours

What is made inactive is the following:

  • the employee’s access to Planday

  • their leave account and TOIL account

  • the employee is not part of a department anymore

  • their username

You can’t book leave nor approve or deny pending leave requests on an inactive account.
Before you deactivate an employee, make sure you:


How long is the data of a deactivated employee kept in Planday?

All data is kept for a standard period of 5 years but as admin, you can change this period by going to Settings > People > General > Delete deactivated employees. Then, you can choose the number of months after when a deactivated employee should be permanently deleted.

‎permanently delete employees.‎001.jpeg

When an employee account is permanently deleted the account cannot be recreated and therefore we recommend that you only take this action when necessary and cautiously, as an employee will lose all payroll and HR history.


When an employee is deactivated with immediate effect, when will their access to Planday stop?

They will have access to Planday until the end of the day they were deactivated.

If the deactivation date is in the past, the employee will lose access immediately, both on the web and on the app.

  • Web: The user is prompted with an error message indicating that their username or password is incorrect.

  • App: The user is prompted with an error message indicating that it failed to connect to the server.


Can I deactivate an employee and set a future date?

Yes, you can. In that case, there will be an orange banner displaying the date when the employee will be deactivated.
It will only be visible to the users who can edit the employee’s profile.

‎deactivate_future date.‎001.jpeg

If a future date is set, the employee will have access to the system until this date and will be deactivated the following day.


I’ve deactivated an employee and I must pay their remaining holiday balance. How do I do that?

You can export a leave account report. To do this, follow these steps:

  • Go to Schedule > Leave accounts (or Absence accounts)

  • Set the dates in the period filter from the start of the accruing period to the day the employee is deactivated

  • Click on Filters and choose the holiday account

  • Click on Export

The final column Leave pay - at the end day of the period filter in the export will give you the amount to pay.

It’s advised to delete their future holiday in order to get an accurate figure of the accrued leave that they are owed in their final pay. To do so, go to Schedule > Absence requests (or Leave requests) > Adjust the period filter > Choose the statuses Approved and Pending > Find the leave requests > Edit them and click on Deny.


Can payroll still be processed for the deactivated employees?

Yes, you can still process payroll for them. To do this, go to Payroll > Payroll export > Custom selection of employees > Select employees > click on Deactivated employees.

‎payroll export_deactivated_new.‎001.jpeg

If you can’t see the name of a deactivated employee, reach out to our Support team who will help you.


Where can I see who deactivated an employee?

You can find the deactivation history of the deactivated employee in the employee’s profile. Go to People > Misc > Deactivated > find the employee and click Edit. Click on Show deactivation history on the red banner, as shown in the picture below. ⬇️

‎show deact histo_new.‎001.jpeg

Why do I have a spaceman when I try to deactivate an employee?

It can be because of the following reasons:

  • the employee is not part of any department. Add the employee to a department by clicking on their name and on the +Add button under Department

  • the birthday date is set to an invalid year like 2984. To fix this, change the birthday date from the Planday app


Why can’t I see the deactivated employees?

This is usually because you are restricted to one or several departments and don't have access to all. When employees are deactivated, they lose their connection to a department.
You can reach out to support and they’ll help you with this request.


Reactivate employees

I reactivated an employee but I can’t book a holiday on their leave account. Why?

When the employee was deactivated, their leave account was made inactive. Reactivating the employee doesn’t reactivate their leave account.
Reach out to our Support team who can help you with this or assign a new Leave account to the employee.


How do I reactivate an employee’s TOIL account?

After an employee has been deactivated, their TOIL account is made inactive and can’t be reactivated if the employee is reactivated.

If you want to have this account reactivated, you would need to reach out to our Support team.

Otherwise, you can keep the old TOIL account and you can create a new one.
Here is how to do it:

  • Go to Schedule > Absence accounts (or Leave accounts) > Time off in lieu accounts > Select the Inactive account status

  • Set an expiry date for the old TOIL account

  • Go to Settings > Leave & Overtime > Policies > Edit the TOIL policy

  • Set a Reset day on the TOIL policy. Make sure the option Renew automatically is not ticked

  • Assign the new TOIL account and set the start date to be the date after the expiry date you previously set and remove the end date on the new account

  • Go back to the TOIL policy and remove the Reset day


Where can I see who reactivated an employee?

You can go to People > Employees > Edit the relevant employee > Click on User actions > Deactivation history.

‎deactivation history_new_new.‎001.jpeg

I reactivated an employee but they still can’t log into Planday. What do I do?


See related articles:

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