Delete Group using Apex

Question

Trying to delete groups and queues within Apex code when executing an uninstall script, Salesforce raises me this error:

DML operation DELETE not allowed on Group

Although this is pretty clear error, I am able to delete groups using the Developer Console, querying for groups and using the syntax delete groups (where groups is a list of the Group object).

Is it really impossible to delete groups using Apex? Should I use some fancy @future annotation to the method that deletes them? Or I really am unable to delete groups, and have to delete the GroupMember object instead?

Answer 1

The reason that this is happening is because within your UninstallHandler, the user in context is a temporary user that is used when performing managed package operations. This user type is LicenseManager. I'm assuming for security purposes, they do not have access to many dml operations on setup objects.

We tried a similar thing in our uninstall handler to remove our packaged permission sets from users. That also fails in the same way yours does.

I haven't tried it, but I assume that calls to @future will either throw an exception, or be discarded because the uninstall process needs to run synchronously right before the actual uninstall.

According to this post, adding the without sharing keyword may get this temporary user the appropriate permissions but obviously, without creating a package and testing DML on groups, it's hard to tell if it will work.

Answer 2

I tried making the uninstall handler class 'without sharing' but that does not seem to work either. Also, the uninstall fails when trying to uninstall the managed package. But if I go to the uninstall handler class and click on edit and cancel, I am able to uninstall the package, but the script doesn't delete the intended records.

So, no, adding 'without sharing' to the uninstall handler class does not make the records delete either. I believe deletion is just not allowed as a part of uninstall.

Answer 3

You can run the following Apex in developer console.

Group g = [SELECT Id, Name, DeveloperName FROM Group 
           Where DeveloperName = 'Test_Group' LIMIT 1];
delete g;