We're thoroughly disappointed that this experience with Yammer and our exit process didn't work out. The reality is that, up until this point, we hadn't gotten too many requests to batch delete all the data within a company network. As you all know, like in any quickly-growing startup, we need to prioritize what we build. We've always focused on the most requested features. That being said, we really have learned from this experience. We're considering ways in which we can communicate user and message deletion better to our users.
Of course, we've considered this issue in the past. There's also a business reason we haven't focused on building one-click network delete: we want to protect our customer companies from irreversible damage that can be caused by deleting an entire network. Each free user can delete only their own content, since only they own their content. You can still deactivate another user, for whatever reason, but if that user has an active email account, they can reactivate. As a premium user, which gives you admin controls, you are able to delete entire user accounts with all underlying posts.
We can do a better job of communicating the process of deletion and deactivation and the role that account type plays in the process. However, currently, we aren't able to offer the one-step network delete. Please rest assured that we take data security very seriously, regardless of the type of account you have.
I understand where you're coming from - I wouldn't expect this to take priority. I do however continue to think that having a delete feature / account closure feature is fundamental to any SaaS application today - especially one aimed towards businesses.
What continues to frustrate me is being told that you as Yammer are unable to actually carry out this process yourself. That doesn't make any sense to me - you have access to your servers don't you?
I think there's a gap in what Support is saying and what any slightly technical user knows is possible - even if the "feature" isn't available on the front end.
I'm sorry for the lengthy delay before the response. Hopefully we'll get better at this in the future.
I agree - this functionality is justifiable. However, we have many things we'd like to implement, and this one wasn't prioritized for the reasons I mentioned.
I'm sorry we told you this couldn't be done. In actuality, this reached the attention of our engineers quite late. As I understand, you first spoke with our support staff, and then with our community manager, after this thread. You're right about the gap - this is theoretically possible, but it just hasn't been implemented. At all.
It's also not exactly simple: we denormalize data in lots of places, there are plenty of nasty side cases relating to inter-related networks, the data lives in many separate systems, and of course everything is backed up. Getting rid of a single network is more than just a DELETE query. This is lots of code to write and test.
Comments
We're thoroughly disappointed that this experience with Yammer and our exit process didn't work out. The reality is that, up until this point, we hadn't gotten too many requests to batch delete all the data within a company network. As you all know, like in any quickly-growing startup, we need to prioritize what we build. We've always focused on the most requested features. That being said, we really have learned from this experience. We're considering ways in which we can communicate user and message deletion better to our users.
Of course, we've considered this issue in the past. There's also a business reason we haven't focused on building one-click network delete: we want to protect our customer companies from irreversible damage that can be caused by deleting an entire network. Each free user can delete only their own content, since only they own their content. You can still deactivate another user, for whatever reason, but if that user has an active email account, they can reactivate. As a premium user, which gives you admin controls, you are able to delete entire user accounts with all underlying posts.
We can do a better job of communicating the process of deletion and deactivation and the role that account type plays in the process. However, currently, we aren't able to offer the one-step network delete. Please rest assured that we take data security very seriously, regardless of the type of account you have.
I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this.
- A Yammer Engineer.
Thanks for being upfront about it - finally!
I understand where you're coming from - I wouldn't expect this to take priority. I do however continue to think that having a delete feature / account closure feature is fundamental to any SaaS application today - especially one aimed towards businesses.
What continues to frustrate me is being told that you as Yammer are unable to actually carry out this process yourself. That doesn't make any sense to me - you have access to your servers don't you?
I think there's a gap in what Support is saying and what any slightly technical user knows is possible - even if the "feature" isn't available on the front end.
I'm sorry for the lengthy delay before the response. Hopefully we'll get better at this in the future.
I agree - this functionality is justifiable. However, we have many things we'd like to implement, and this one wasn't prioritized for the reasons I mentioned.
I'm sorry we told you this couldn't be done. In actuality, this reached the attention of our engineers quite late. As I understand, you first spoke with our support staff, and then with our community manager, after this thread. You're right about the gap - this is theoretically possible, but it just hasn't been implemented. At all.
It's also not exactly simple: we denormalize data in lots of places, there are plenty of nasty side cases relating to inter-related networks, the data lives in many separate systems, and of course everything is backed up. Getting rid of a single network is more than just a DELETE query. This is lots of code to write and test.
I hope that helps explain our response.