Advocate Participant Deletion Explained
Warning: Deletions are permanent and your share links, referrals, and analytics may be impacted.
Our deletion functionality is fully compliant with the requirements for user deletion as outlined by GDPR. When you delete participants, our system will delete within 30 days all PII that has been stored for those participants within our system and its subprocessors. You can retrieve a full list of the PII stored for a specific participant using the Lookup a user PII API method. Participants can be deleted from your program either individually or in bulk.
Deletion options
You can configure the deletion with the Do Not Track option. If selected, the deleted participant cannot be re-registered in the system and any attempt to recreate the participant will fail.
Preserving empty accounts is a configuration option that you can use when deleting participants in bulk, via REST API, or via GraphQL. To preserve empty accounts, include the preserveEmptyAccount field with your deletion file or call.
Deletion methods
The Advocate REST API provides two methods to delete participants:
Delete an account: Use this method to delete an account, and all the participants on it.
Delete a participant: Use this method to delete a participant on an account without deleting the account itself.
From the left navigation menu, select
[Engage] → Participants.Search for the participant you want to delete.
Select their name to open their participant profile.
Select the Delete button below their name.
Choose whether to add the participant to the Do Not Track list.
Select the final delete button if you are sure you want to delete the participant.
Warning: This process permanently deletes all selected participants and their historical data (e.g., referrals, rewards, and events). You cannot recover this data. Before proceeding, you must confirm that the participants in your file should be deleted.
Prepare your file
Advocate accepts imports submitted in .csv or .jsonl file formats. Refer to the sample CSV import file and sample JSONL import file to view the required file structure. For best results, ensure each file does not exceed 500,000 entries.
Required fields:
idandaccountId.Optional fields: You can include other optional fields to customize the deletion.
All fields are case sensitive. See the field reference table below for more information.
Delete participants
From the left navigation menu, select
[Engage] → Reporting → Imports & Exports.Select
Import.Under Choose an Import Type, select Delete Users.
To upload your file, select Choose File.
Select Run Preview to perform a test import and validate your file.
The preview checks your file for errors. The system will skip any rows with errors during the final import.
(Optional) Configure the deletion handling options:
Preserve Empty Accounts: Select this option to prevent an account from being deleted when all of its associated users are deleted.
Prevent deleted users from being created again: Select this option to apply the Do Not Track flag to the deleted users.
After the preview is successful, select Bulk Delete.
When the deletion process is complete, the system sends a confirmation email. The process may take up to 30 minutes, depending on the queue and file size.
Field reference
accountId
String
Required
The unique identifier of the Account that this user belongs to.
id
String
Required
The unique identifier provided for this user.
preserveEmptyAccount
boolean
If the user’s account is left with no users, by default the account will be deleted. If set, this field will result in the empty account being preserved. This will override the global Preserve Empty Accounts setting for the import job for this row specifically.
doNotTrack
boolean
Specify true if you would like this user to be deleted with the Do Not Track setting set. This will override the global Do Not Track setting for the import job for this row specifically.
Results
We notify you by email when your import is complete. You can download the results from [Engage] → Reporting → Imports & Exports.
Note: Download links will expire after 30 days.
If the import completes successfully, a file with the account and user IDs of the deleted participants will be generated and emailed to you.
Import errors: If your import file contains errors, the system generates a separate error file. This file lists each error with its corresponding row number from your original file and a detailed error message.
System errors: If a system error interrupts the import, its status will change to aborted. This process cannot be recovered. In this case, contact support for assistance.
System effects
Multiple areas of the system may be impacted as a result of deleting a participant.
When a participant is deleted, all of their PII (including their referral code) is deleted as well. Share links work differently — the share link itself is not deleted, but its association with a specific participant is removed. The deleted participant’s share links will no longer attribute a referral, but will still allow newly-referred participants to visit your program’s landing page.
If deleted participants have made referrals or been referred themselves, then the referral history displayed in other participants’ widgets or microsites will change. In these cases, the referral still counts for reward purposes, but visually the referral will be shown as having come from an anonymous participant.
Analytics are collected as participants perform actions like loading widgets, sharing links, or making referrals. When participants are deleted, all analytics attributed to them are removed, which will affect the statistics displayed in the Reporting section of your Advocate program in impact.com.
Deleted participants no longer appear on the Participants page. If the deleted participant was part of a referral, then the referral table on the other participant’s profile will show that a referral exists, but that it was from a deleted participant. If a reward had been given as part of the referral, then the rewards table similarly indicates that the referral is linked to a deleted participant.
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