When a customer asks what you hold on them, or asks to be forgotten, you handle it from their page in Operations → Customers. All three actions are in the Actions menu at the top of the customer page.
The customer asks… | Use |
"What data do you have on me?" | Export GDPR dump |
"Delete my data", and they have bookings | Anonymize PII |
"Delete my data", and they never booked | Delete |
Before you start
Owners, Admins and Managers can do this. Users and Viewers cannot. See Team roles and permissions.
Samba refuses to anonymize a customer with a booking under way: a trip that has not ended yet, money still owed on a confirmed booking, or a booking request waiting for your answer. Anonymize PII is grayed out and hovering over it tells you why. Wait until the trip has ended and the booking is paid in full, canceled or refunded.
Export a customer's data
Open the customer and click Actions → Export GDPR dump.
Click Confirm.
Check the inbox of the email address you sign in with. Samba builds the file in the background and emails it to you as a JSON attachment.
The file contains the customer record (contact details, address, language, marketing opt-in), every booking with its participants, invoices and transactions, their credit balances, and the internal notes written on the customer.
Nothing is sent to the customer, and nothing can be downloaded from Samba afterwards: forward the file yourself. Samba keeps no copy, so if the email does not reach you, run the export again.
If you plan to anonymize the customer, export first. The export is no longer available once a customer is anonymized.
Anonymize a customer
Anonymizing removes the customer's personal details and keeps their bookings, invoices and transactions for your accounting.
Anonymizing cannot be undone. Nothing in Samba can restore the details it removes.
Open the customer and click Actions → Anonymize PII.
Type why you are anonymizing this customer (1). The reason is saved in your activity log.
Click Confirm.
What Samba removes:
First and last name, replaced with "Redacted"
Email, replaced with a placeholder ending in
@samba.invalidPhone, company, street address, city, region, postal code and country
The customer's notes field, and every internal note your team wrote on them, including notes deleted earlier
The address and the stored copy of every email Samba sent them. The Emails tab keeps the date, type and subject of each, but there is no copy left to open.
Their marketing opt-in, which is switched off
What happens next:
The customer shows the Anonymized status and date. They leave your customer list unless you switch on the Include anonymized filter, and you can no longer pick them when creating a booking.
You can no longer edit, message or export them, and Samba sends them no more email. They can no longer sign in to the traveler portal with their old email.
Their bookings no longer show a customer.
If the same person books again, they become a brand-new customer with no link to the old record.
Delete a customer
Delete removes the customer for good. It is only offered for a customer with no bookings at all — a canceled or refunded booking still counts. For anyone who has booked, anonymize instead.
Deleting cannot be undone.
Open the customer and click Actions → Delete.
Confirm.
The customer record, the internal notes written on them, the record and stored copies of emails sent to them, and their credit balances are deleted. Booking requests they sent are kept, without a customer attached.
Why is there no Delete option on this customer?
Why is there no Delete option on this customer?
The customer has at least one booking, in any status. Use Anonymize PII instead.
My workspace cannot email customers yet. Will the export still arrive?
My workspace cannot email customers yet. Will the export still arrive?
Yes. The export goes to you, not to the customer.