Anonymizing / GDPR
✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS
- Contact is Deleted
- Contact is Inactive (Deactivated) => has setting
- Contact has no email or
- Contact has NotEmail=true
- Explicit Spotler Job
Anonymizing / GDPR
Overview
Anonymizing a contact removes all personally identifiable data from Spotler — name, email address, and any other stored profile fields. Once anonymized, the contact can no longer be found or contacted through Spotler. The Spotler Connector handles this automatically in several situations, and also supports triggering it explicitly through a Spotler Job.
Note: Anonymization is irreversible. The contact record in Dynamics 365 is not affected — only the data stored in Spotler is removed.
Automatic Anonymization
The connector anonymizes a Spotler contact automatically in the following situations, without any manual action required.
Contact Deleted
When a Contact, Lead, or Account is deleted in Dynamics 365, the connector immediately anonymizes the corresponding contact in Spotler.
Contact Has No Email Address
During every sync, the connector checks whether the contact has a valid email address. If no email address is present, the contact is anonymized in Spotler. Sending emails to a contact without an address is not possible, so retaining their data in Spotler serves no purpose.
Do Not Email
If the Do Not Email field (donotemail) is set to true on the Contact or Lead in Dynamics
365, the contact is anonymized in Spotler during the next sync. This field signals that the person
has explicitly refused electronic communication.
Note: The Bulk Email field (
donotbulkemail) is handled separately — it resets all Spotler permissions to false (opt-out) but does not trigger anonymization.
Contact Inactive (Deactivated)
Deactivating a Contact or Lead in Dynamics 365 can optionally trigger anonymization in Spotler. This behaviour is controlled by the Anonymize Contact When Inactive setting in the connector configuration. When enabled, deactivated contacts are anonymized during the next sync. When disabled, deactivation has no effect on the Spotler contact.
Explicit Anonymization
To anonymize a contact on demand, create a Spotler Job with the Anonymize Contact operation:
- Select the Customer (Account/Contact) or Lead
- Save the job
The connector calls Spotler's anonymization endpoint. On success, the job result shows HTTP 410 Gone — this is the expected response and indicates the contact has been removed from Spotler. If the contact was already anonymized, the result is HTTP 404 which is also treated as success.
After Anonymization
Once a contact is anonymized in Spotler:
- Their profile data (name, email, custom fields) is permanently erased in Spotler
- Future sync jobs for this contact will find no matching Spotler record and will re-create the contact if it still has a valid email address and is active in Dynamics 365
- If the cause of anonymization is still present (e.g.
donotemail = true), the new sync will anonymize the contact again immediately
To permanently prevent a contact from being synced to Spotler, deactivate the record in Dynamics 365 with Anonymize Contact When Inactive enabled, or ensure the Do Not Email field remains set.