What happens to their work when someone leaves: offboarding data in Asana, ClickUp, monday.com and HubSpot

In short: Removing a user is three different actions (deactivate, remove, delete) and each platform keeps a different amount of their work. ClickUp deletes private Folders, Lists and tasks on removal; Asana, monday.com and HubSpot keep content but leave ownership, automations or assignments for you to fix. A snapshot taken before removal is the only copy you fully control.

Someone hands in their notice. IT revokes their login on Friday afternoon. On Monday a project manager asks where the client's onboarding checklist went, and the answer is "it was in a private List that no longer exists."

This post compares what four platforms actually do with a departing user's data, then gives you a checklist that puts the export and reassignment steps before the click that cannot be undone.

Deactivate, remove or delete: the three actions and what each keeps

Vendors use the words loosely, so it helps to separate them:

• Deactivate blocks the login and frees the seat, but the account record stays. Usually reversible.
• Remove / deprovision takes the person out of the workspace or organisation. Their content may or may not survive.
• Delete wipes the user's identity. On the platforms below this is irreversible.

Two patterns stand out. Every platform keeps public work. What differs is the fate of private work and of the things a person owns rather than creates: automations, integrations, board ownership, connected inboxes.

Asana: tasks are gathered, ownership is not transferred

When a user is deactivated, "whether through an identity provider like Okta or manually via the admin console", Asana generates a project holding the tasks that were assigned to them. Super admins become members of that project, and the super admin chosen as owner receives a review task. (Source: Asana user deprovisioning, checked 2026-09-16.)

What the same article does not promise is ownership transfer: "Deactivation does not currently transfer data ownership for projects, portfolios or dashboards." If the leaver was the only member of a private project, add a second member with edit access before you deprovision. Deleted tasks and projects can still be recovered from Deleted items for 30 days, after which they are permanently deleted (Asana: Recover deleted items, checked 2026-09-16).

ClickUp: private work is deleted on removal

ClickUp is the strictest of the four. Removal is permanent, and the help centre states plainly that "Private Folders, Lists, and tasks owned by a deactivated person will be deleted and removed when they leave the Workspace." Public items remain, with the person still shown as assignee under a "Deactivated" label, and any Automation they created stays active. (ClickUp: Remove someone from a Workspace, checked 2026-09-16.)

Do not count on the Trash to catch this. Workspace owners and admins "can see, restore, or permanently delete any public items. They do not have access to private items" (ClickUp: Restore items from the Trash, checked 2026-09-16). Ask the leaver to share or move private Lists to a public location before their last day.

monday.com: deactivate first, transfer everything, delete last

monday.com separates deactivation from deletion. A deactivated user loses access and stops counting towards paid seats, but "will still be assigned to the tasks they were assigned to, and their updates posted will remain on items". Before you confirm, a prompt warns that their automations and integrations will be disabled and asks you to choose a new owner. If they were the sole owner of private or shareable boards, those boards "will become inaccessible" until an admin transfers ownership in the Administration section. (monday.com: How to manage users, checked 2026-09-16.)

The dedicated handover article walks through the order: board ownership, automation ownership, integration ownership, dashboard ownership, then deactivate. Its tip for SCIM users matters: complete those steps before the identity provider deactivates the account automatically (monday.com: What to do when a member leaves your account, checked 2026-09-16).

Permanent deletion is a second step after deactivation and "is irreversible". The content stays, shown under a grey icon as "Deleted member".

HubSpot: nothing is deleted, but records go unowned

HubSpot keeps the most. Whether you deactivate or remove a user, "HubSpot will not delete any assets or activities that they created", down to logged emails and notes. The risk is different: ownership. A deactivated user stays the owner of their contacts, companies, deals and tickets, and a removed user leaves "Deactivated/Removed (email)" in the owner property. HubSpot recommends reassigning records before either action. Their connected inbox is disconnected, so any scheduled sequence emails stop sending. (HubSpot: Deactivate and remove HubSpot users, checked 2026-09-16.)

Deleted records, if the leaver cleaned house on the way out, can be restored from the recycle bin for 90 days (HubSpot: Restore deleted records, checked 2026-09-16).

A 6-step offboarding checklist

Work through these in order. Steps 1 to 3 happen while the person still has access; step 4 is the point of no return.

1. Reassign. Filter every task, item or record where the leaver is assignee or owner and reassign it. ClickUp's Bulk Action Toolbar, monday.com's Board Ownership tab and HubSpot's owner filter ("show inactive owners") all do this in bulk. In Asana, check the auto-generated project after deprovisioning as well.
2. Export or snapshot before removal. Take a copy of the workspace as it is today, including the leaver's private Lists, boards and projects. If you run a daily backup, confirm the last snapshot completed after their final edits and before you remove them.
3. Transfer ownership of automations, integrations and OAuth apps. monday.com prompts for automation and integration ownership at deactivation; ClickUp keeps Automations running but check any that post to the leaver's channels; HubSpot workflows survive but sequences tied to their inbox stop. Revoke or re-authorise any third-party app that was connected with their personal login, including your backup tool if they were the connecting user.
4. Revoke. Deactivate first where the platform offers it (monday.com, HubSpot, Asana licence pause). Delete only after a cooling-off period, because delete is irreversible on every platform above.
5. Verify. Open a project, board or record they owned and confirm someone else can edit it. Trigger one of their automations. Check that shared inbox rules and integrations still fire.
6. Document. Record what was reassigned, what was exported, who now owns which automation, and the date of the last good snapshot. Your auditor and your future self will both ask.

For a broader view of the deletion controls each platform gives admins, see how to restrict deletions in your SaaS apps.

Where a backup fits

Every native mechanism above is scoped to what the platform decides to keep. ClickUp deletes private work outright; Asana and monday.com keep it but may leave it without an owner; HubSpot keeps it but leaves records orphaned. None of them lets you look at the workspace as it was the week before the person left.

ProBackup takes a snapshot of each connected platform every 24 hours and stores it independently, encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS in transit, in the AWS region you selected at signup. Snapshots are kept for 6 months on Plus, 2 years on Pro and without limit on Premium.

For offboarding that means:

• Private work stays in the backup. Private tasks and projects of a user who leaves the platform remain in the ProBackup backup and stay visible to the ProBackup admin. A ClickUp private List that the platform deleted on removal is still in yesterday's snapshot.
• Point-in-time restore. You can restore a project, board or List as it was on any snapshot date before the departure, not just recover what happened to survive the removal.
• Two restore modes. Create new duplicate records (safe, leaves originals untouched), or overwrite existing records field by field. Overwrite mode is available for HubSpot, ClickUp, Asana, monday.com, Airtable and Attio; calculated fields such as system fields, formulas and relations are excluded; there is no per-restore record limit.

Restores go back to the original account only. ProBackup is a backup tool, not a migration tool.

Platform trash bins help with plain deletions but not with ownership gaps or private-item removal; we compared their windows in SaaS recycle bins: why they won't save you and version history and trash retention across SaaS apps.

See the platform pages for scope and setup: Asana, ClickUp, monday.com and HubSpot, or the overview for IT admins.

Frequently asked questions

Does deactivating a user delete their data?

Not on Asana, monday.com or HubSpot: tasks, items, records and posted updates stay, though ownership and automations may need transferring. On ClickUp, removal deletes the person's private Folders, Lists and tasks, while public items remain. Check the platform table above before you click.

Can an admin see a former employee's private projects?

Only if the platform keeps them and gives admins a path in. Asana super admins become members of the auto-generated project of the leaver's assigned tasks but do not inherit ownership of private projects. ClickUp admins cannot access private items, including in the Trash. In a ProBackup backup, private tasks and projects of a departed user remain visible to the ProBackup admin.

How long do I have to recover something the leaver deleted?

Asana Deleted items: 30 days. ClickUp Trash: 30 days. monday.com Trash: 30 days. HubSpot recycle bin: 90 days. All figures from the platforms' own help centres, checked 2026-09-16. After the window the item is permanently deleted.

What should I do if the leaver was the person who connected our integrations?

Re-authorise each integration with a service account or another admin before their login is revoked. monday.com deactivates the leaver's integrations and prompts for a new owner; HubSpot disconnects their personal inbox, which stops scheduled sequences. This applies to your backup connection too: if the departing user authorised ProBackup, reconnect it with an account that will outlast them.

Protect the work before the account goes

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