An operator can use the essensys Platform to decommission an occupier; ending the occupier's occupancies (leased spaces), contracts, and services across all of their sites. The decommission process can be run either immediately, or at a scheduled date in the future.
The decommissioning action:
Ends all of the occupier's contracts and space occupancies.
Stops their services; ending their consumption of services and stopping any future billing.
Deprovisions their telephony; preventing them from making or receiving calls on their phone numbers and putting those numbers into a temporary cooling off state.
Deallocates their Switch/floor ports.
Deletes details of all of their users; including closing their user's Wi-Fi accounts, and ending their access to essensys occupier experience.
Deletes details of all of their Wi-Fi devices at their sites.
Deprovisions their network.
Note: Some historical data, such as the call charges reports for past months, are retained for future reference. For more information, see What happens to decommissioned data?
Important: If you are decommissioning the occupier immediately, the decommissioning process starts as soon as possible. If you are scheduling a decommission in future, the decommission only begins once you have reached the scheduled date and time.
Decommissioning an occupier
Important: Are you sure you want to decommission your occupier across all of their sites? This action is not reversible. For details about the rules and effects of decommissioning, see What happens to decommissioned data?
Before you begin
Important: These prerequisites apply when the decommissioning process begins. In the case of a scheduled decommission, this is when the scheduled time is met.
If your occupier has telephony services that are managed by essensys, you need to ensure they are logged out of their handsets prior to decommissioning:
If their phone numbers are logged in to digital devices (such as Polycom Flex), use the Login/Logout of handset option on their Occupiers > Telephony page to logout remotely.
If their phone numbers are logged in to non-digital devices, you need to log their numbers out manually from the handsets themselves.
If your occupier has services that are currently reporting updates in the Occupiers > Services page, they cannot be decommissioned. Reported updates include:
An Update in progress warning. In this case, you need to wait for the update to complete before you can decommission the occupier.
Tip: Click Refresh to see if the update has completed. If you are concerned that the update is in progress for too long, you should contact us.
The service could not be updated error. In this case, you need to raise a case to get this error cleared before you can decommission the occupier.
Tip: Click Create support case to raise a case with essensys. Note that the details of the action that failed are visible in the support case description.
Access the Occupier config page
The decommissioning process is run from the Occupier config page. To access the page:
In the main menu, click Occupiers.
Select the occupier you want to decommission.
Click the Occupier config tab.
The Occupier config page contains basic details relating to the occupier across all of their sites.
Decommission the occupier
From the top-right of the Occupier config page, click Decommission occupier.
Important: If you cannot see this option, it is because you do not have appropriate site permissions to be able to decommission this occupier. For more information, see When is decommissioning allowed?
The Decommission dialog box opens.Select when you want to run the decommissioning process:
If you want to decommission the occupier immediately, select Decommission now.
If you want to schedule the decommission at a time in the future, select Schedule decommission and specify the date that you want to run the decommission on.
Click Continue.
The Decommission occupier or Schedule decommission dialog box opens, depending on your selection from the previous dialog box.
Note: These dialog boxes provide detailed information about the effect of decommissioning the occupier; essensys recommends that you read this information in full before you continue.If you are sure that you want to decommission the occupier:
Copy the occupier name into the Decommission text field.
Tip: The occupier name is shown in 'single quotes' above the field, you can copy and paste it to save time.Select the I understand that decommissioning is irreversible check box.
The Decommission or Schedule decommission button is enabled.Click the button to close the dialog box and save your changes.
The dialog box closes, and a confirmation message opens.
If you selected to schedule the decommission, the confirmation dialog box describes the date and time when the decommission process will run. This will be 11:00 PM UTC on your selected date.
Click OK to close the confirmation message.
Either the decommissioning process begins immediately, or the decommission is scheduled for the selected date.
Once it has started, the decommissioning process takes approximately 60 minutes to complete. While the process is in progress, the occupier is flagged as decommission pending.
Tip: To check the status of the decommission process, you can filter the occupier list to show occupiers that are scheduled for decommission, pending decommission, where decommissioning failed, or where the decommission is complete (decommissioned). For more information, see Decommission status.
What next?
If your occupier was successfully decommissioned, there is no further action that you need to take.
If your occupier is scheduled for decommission, you can edit or cancel the scheduled decommission at any time before the decommission starts. For more information, see:
If the decommission fails, you can raise a case with essensys to investigate the problem. For more information, see Raise a case (decommission failed).
If the decommission is pending for too long, you can investigate the problem and raise a case if necessary. For more information, see Investigate long-running pending tasks.
If your occupier was scheduled for decommission, but the scheduled time and date passed without the decommission process beginning, the system will try again at 11:00 PM UTC on the following day. In the unlikely event that the decommission process still does not start (and is now showing a scheduled date in the past), contact us.
Additional tasks
Raise a case (decommission failed)
If the decommission process fails, you can raise a case with essensys to investigate and complete the decommission process.
From the top-right of the Occupier config page, click Create support case.
The New support case dialog box opens. Note that the subject of the case is "Failed decommission".Click Submit.
The case is raised with essensys. You can monitor the case in the Operations > Support page.
Investigate long-running pending tasks (decommission pending)
If the decommission process is taking much longer than the expected time to complete, you can investigate and raise a ticket against any pending task that is associated with the decommission operation:
Open the Operations > Tasks page.
Filter the tasks list to show:
Tasks from the decommission date.
Tasks associated with the occupier you are decommissioning.
Tasks in the pending state.
There will be tasks associated with each of the occupier's sites. Identify all tasks that are stuck in pending.
For any pending task that has been running for too long, hover over the row and click Create support case to raise a case.
For more information about tasks and associated support cases, see Monitor tasks.
The case is raised with essensys. You can monitor the case in the Operations > Support page.
Cancel a scheduled decommission
If you no longer want to decommission an occupier that has been scheduled for decommission in the future, you can cancel the schedule.
Tip: You may want to do this if you had scheduled decommissioning, but now want to decommission the occupier immediately.
From the Occupier config page, for an occupier that is scheduled for decommission:
Click the Cancel schedule icon to the right of the schedule details.
In the Cancel schedule? dialog box, click Cancel schedule.
In the confirmation dialog box, click OK.
The occupier will not be decommissioned when the original scheduled date is met.
Important: This process cancels the scheduled decommission of this occupier, and leaves the occupier unchanged. If you still want to decommission the occupier, but immediately or on a different schedule, you should repeat the standard process. For more details, see Decommission the occupier.
Change the scheduled date for a decommission
If you want to change the decommission date for an occupier that has already been scheduled for decommissioning in the future, you can change the existing schedule.
From the Occupier config page for an occupier that is scheduled for decommission:
Click Change schedule.
In the Change schedule dialog box, select a new Decommission date and click Change schedule.
In the Schedule decommission dialog box, click Schedule decommission.
In the confirmation dialog box, click OK.
The occupier will now be decommissioned when the new scheduled date is met.
Decommission reference
Decommission status
An occupier's decommission status is displayed:
In the top-right of any Occupiers page, where the occupier has been or is being decommissioned.
In the occupiers list, where occupiers can be filtered by their current decommission status.
Status | Definition |
Active occupiers | These occupiers are not currently decommissioned. This includes:
|
Decommissioned | These occupiers have been successfully decommissioned across all of their sites. For more information, see Decommissioning effects. |
Decommission pending  | These occupiers are currently in the process of being decommissioned. Once the decommission process is started, and the occupier is set into this state, you cannot edit their details. Note: During the decommissioning process, you may continue to see the phone numbers in the Occupiers > Telephony page. You will not be able to edit these details, and they will be deleted once the numbers are deallocated. |
Decommission failed  | The decommission process failed for this occupier. Where the occupier is in this state, you can raise a case for investigation with essensys. For details, see Raise a case. |
Decommission scheduled  | This occupier is currently active, but the decommission process is scheduled to run at a date in the future. The difference between an occupier in this state and other active occupiers is only that you can either cancel or reschedule the future decommission associated with them. For more information, see: |
Decommissioning Effects
When is decommissioning allowed?
You cannot decommission an occupier when any of the following are true:
The occupier has a contract with a start date of today.
The occupier currently has one or more logged in telephony handsets.
The occupier has services that are either in a failed state or that are currently being updated.
The occupier has already been decommissioned, or is currently in the decommission pending or decommission failed state.
The occupier is scheduled for decommission in future. Tip: In this case, you may want to either cancel or reschedule the decommission.
You also cannot decommission any occupier that has contracts (either live or completed) at sites where you do not have site access. Example: If you are an admin at the New York site, but the occupier has occupancies in both New York and London, you will not be offered the decommission option. This limitation is different from the preceding list, as it is due to your admin permissions only and not the status of the occupier.
What happens when I schedule the decommission?
The actual decommissioning process is exactly the same whether the decommission is run immediately or at a scheduled date.
The only differences relate to the scheduling:
All scheduled decommissions begin at 11:00 PM UTC on the scheduled date.
The occupier continues to be in use up until the scheduled decommission begins.
The operator can cancel or reschedule the decommission until the decommission starts.
Note: The operator needs to ensure that the prerequisites are met before the scheduled decommission begins. For more details, see Before you begin.
What happens to decommissioned data?
The following table describes what happens to the different types of data when the decommission process runs (current data), and then what remains visible to operators after the decommission is complete (historical data).
| Current Data | Historical Data |
Contracts | Any active contracts end, and any upcoming (scheduled) contracts are discarded.
Notes:
| You can view historical contracts for decommissioned occupiers in the essensys platform.
You cannot:
|
Occupancies | Any active occupancies end, and any upcoming (scheduled) occupancies are discarded.
Notes:
| You can view historical occupancies for decommissioned occupiers in the essensys platform.
You cannot:
|
Services | Active services are deprovisioned and set to inactive, and any services that were scheduled to start or to change quantity in future are deleted. | You can view historical services in the essensys platform.
You cannot:
Note: The service information does not include an end date. |
Users | Users are deleted from the essensys platform. Any phone numbers that were assigned to the user are unassigned, and the user's Wi-Fi and user accounts are cancelled. Note: The effect of cancelling Wi-Fi and user accounts is that the user is no longer able to access Wi-Fi Secure at any site, nor are they able to access their user portal or mobile app. | You cannot view details of historical users. |
Wi-Fi devices | Shared Wi-Fi devices (printers, AV equipment, and so on) are deleted from the essensys platform. Note: The effect of deleting these devices is that they can no longer connect to the Wi-Fi device network. | You cannot view details of historical Wi-Fi devices. |
Telephony | Any phone numbers that were allocated to the occupier, including the main number, are initially frozen (cannot be edited), and then deactivated and deallocated as the decommission proceeds. Tip: After a cool down period, the numbers may be made available for allocation to other occupiers at the same site. | You cannot view details of historical telephony allocations or assignments.
Note: While the decommissioning process is underway (decommission pending) you may continue to see phone numbers in the Telephony page. You cannot edit these numbers. |
Call charges | No new call charges are created. | You can view call charges for past months. You can also view historical Bandwidth and Voice reports in the Operations > Billing pages. |
Network info | The occupier's network is deprovisioned. | You cannot view historical network information. |
Occupier config | You can no longer edit the occupier config. | You can view the decommissioned occupier's basic details. |
Smart Access | Users are removed from groups, and can no longer open doors using their access devices. Note: Any Card IDs that were associated with these users are deleted from the system, so can be reassigned to new users. | You can view historical access log data in the essensys platform. Email, card ID, and door ID information all persists in the access logs. |
Booking | Upcoming bookings for the decommissioned occupier remain in place, but the assignment details (to the occupier and occupier user) are removed. Tip: It is a manual task to clean up a decommissioned occupier's bookings. | You can view historical bookings for a decommissioned occupier, including filtering the bookings by that occupier. The user name is deleted from any historical booking.
You cannot create a new booking for a decommissioned occupier, either in the future or the past. |
Further information
All scheduled decommissions occur at 11:00 PM UTC on the selected schedule date. Note: Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), commonly referred to as International Time, is a standard time used to set all time zones around the world. It matches Greenwich Mean Time.