Members can act on their own asset assignments directly from their dashboard, without emailing back and forth with your team. Each assignment in the member's "Your Assignments" list has a three-dot menu that opens a cancellation flow. Depending on a single workspace setting, that flow either sends a request to your admins or actually cancels the assignment. This article explains both paths, how the timing options work, why a cancellation scheduled to a renewal date never triggers the next charge, and what is restricted.
The workspace setting
A single workspace-level toggle, found in your settings under Cancellations, controls how much members can do. It is labeled "Let members cancel their own assignments" and it is off by default.
- Off (the default). Members can only request cancellation. The request emails your admins so a person on your team performs the actual termination. Nothing changes in the system until an admin acts.
- On. Members can cancel themselves, either immediately or scheduled to an upcoming renewal date. When a member schedules a cancellation that frees a single-occupancy space, that space lists as "Coming Soon" on your public website.
Either way, you always get a notification. The setting only decides whether the member's action is a request to you or a change they make themselves. Only workspace owners and admins can change this setting.
The request path (always available)
Regardless of the setting, every member can open the three-dot menu on an assignment and choose "Request cancellation." This path makes no change to the assignment. It emails your admins with the member's name, the asset, and the timing they asked for (immediately, or before a specific renewal date), so your team can follow up and perform the termination on the admin side. The dialog tells the member plainly that you will be emailed to arrange it.
To keep this from being used to flood your inbox, the request path is rate limited per member. A member can send several requests within an hour, after which they are asked to try again later. Because the request only sends an email and changes nothing, this throttle has no effect on assignments themselves.
The self-service path (when the setting is on)
When you have turned the setting on, an eligible member sees "Cancel" instead of "Request cancellation," and completing the flow actually ends the assignment. The dialog offers two timings.
Cancel at a renewal date (scheduled)
This is the default and the recommended choice. The member picks from a short list of upcoming renewal dates that Deskie computes from the assignment's billing interval and cycle anchor. For each option, the member sees their last day of access and the renewal it lands before, for example "June 30, 2026 (before July 1, 2026)." The member keeps full access through that last day, and the space frees up the following day.
The scheduled path reuses the same scheduled-termination system that admins use (see Assignments). The assignment stays active and the space stays occupied until the chosen date passes, at which point a background process flips it to inactive. That process runs ahead of the daily billing run, so a space ending on a given day is freed before billing runs.
Before confirming, the member sees a billing preview for the chosen date. It lists any full-rate charges that still occur between now and the end date and confirms the last day of access. The preview is calculated the same way the server actually invoices, so what the member sees is what they are charged.
Cancel immediately
Choosing "Cancel immediately" ends the assignment right away and records today as its end date. The space is freed for reassignment at once. The dialog is explicit that access ends right away, the member will not be charged again, and the current period is not refunded.
Why scheduling to a renewal date avoids the next charge
The renewal-date options are deliberately set to the day before a renewal, not the renewal day itself. This is the detail that makes scheduled cancellation clean for both sides.
Recurring charges are generated when an assignment's next billing date arrives. By scheduling the end for the last day of the current paid term, the day before the next renewal, two things line up:
- The member keeps everything they already paid for. They retain access through the entire current cycle. Nothing already charged is forfeited or refunded, because they use the full period.
- The next renewal charge never generates. The termination is processed ahead of the billing run, so the assignment is already inactive when the renewal date arrives. There is no charge to dispute or refund, because the renewal invoice is never created.
In short, the member pays for exactly the time they use, ends on a natural billing boundary, and is never billed for a cycle they will not use. See Billing cycles and auto-charge for how renewal dates and charges work.
Team-billed assignments can only request
If an assignment is billed to a team the member belongs to rather than to the member directly, the member can never self-cancel it, even when the workspace setting is on. The cost is the team's responsibility, so these assignments always fall back to the request path: the member can send a request to your admins, but the actual cancellation is handled by your team. See Plans and memberships and the Teams documentation for how team billing is decided.
Undoing a scheduled cancellation
A scheduled cancellation can be reversed before it takes effect, but only by whoever set it.
- A member can undo only a cancellation they scheduled themselves. When a member has a pending self-scheduled cancellation, the three-dot menu offers "Keep assignment," which clears the scheduled end date and lets the assignment continue normally. Your admins are notified, so a reversal is never silent.
- A member cannot undo an admin-set termination. If your team scheduled the termination, the member sees the cancellation as pending with nothing to undo, and is told to contact your team to change it. This is enforced on the server, not just hidden in the interface.
- The same rule protects admin-set schedules from members. Because a member can only touch their own schedule, they cannot quietly reverse a termination your team put in place.
What the member sees
From the member's side, the experience is a single menu and dialog on each assignment:
- The menu label adapts. It reads "Request cancellation" when only requests are allowed, or "Cancel" when self-service is on for that assignment.
- The dialog offers two timings, cancel at a renewal date or cancel immediately, with plain descriptions of each.
- Renewal options show the last day of access and the renewal they fall before, so the member understands exactly when access ends.
- A billing preview confirms any remaining charges and the final day before they commit.
- If a cancellation is already pending, the menu shows either "Keep assignment" (for their own scheduled cancellation) or a non-actionable "Cancellation pending" note (for an admin-set or team-billed one).
Throughout, the member can only ever see and act on their own assignments. They can never view another member's assignment or its billing.