QUESTION:
Why can't I delete a Contact with Self-Service enabled?
ANSWER (from Salesforce's Help and Training Link):
It is not possible to delete a contact once a Self-Service user has been enabled (created) for that contact. This is as designed because Salesforce does not allow orgs to ever delete any type of user, regular users or Self-Service users. Just as regular users cannot be deleted because they may be the owner of a record, or the author of a case comment, Self-Service users cannot be deleted because they may be the author of a case comment. This is something we enforce at the system level, regardless of whether or not that specific Self-Service user has ever authored a case comment.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to delete a contact, or merge contacts if more than one contact has been enabled for Self-Service.
A work around for customers who want to delete a contact or account that has an associated Self-Service user is to:
- De-activate the Self-Service user.
- Create a new account called "In-active Self-Service Users" (or something like it).
- If the company wants to save activity history for the contact they must create a new contact and re-parent all of the activities.
- Change the name of the contact with the Self-Service user to "Inactive Self-Service User".
- Re-parent it to a generic/garbage account that stores all un-activated Self-Service users and contacts.