"Updated" notification type for Microsoft Graph deleted user

Question

After delete user from Active Directory(AD) got this notification (using Microsoft Graph subscription):

{
  "value": [
{
  "changeType": "updated",
  "clientState": null,
  "resource": "Users/{user-id}",
  "resourceData": {
    "@odata.type": "#Microsoft.Graph.User",
    "@odata.id": "Users/{user-id}",
    "id": "{user-id}",
    "organizationId": "{organisation-id}",
    "sequenceNumber": hidden
  },
  "subscriptionExpirationDateTime": "2019-01-17T12:48:43.7825578+00:00",
  "subscriptionId": "hidden",
  "tenantId": "hidden"
}
]
}

Next tried to get this user from Microsoft Graph

/GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/{user-id}

And got

{
  "error": {
  "code": "Request_ResourceNotFound",
  "message": "Resource '{user-id}' does not exist or one of its queried reference-property objects are not present.",
  "innerError": {
  "request-id": "{user-id}",
  "date": "2019-01-15T13:41:49"
   }
  }
}

why notification came with changeType = "updated" if user not exists?

Answer 1

When a user is deleted from the directory, they are "soft-deleted" (which means the object can still be access - see below, and restored). This type of change is modeled as an 'update'. We plan to improve that in future versions.

A resource will be finally hard-deleted (typically after 30 days), and when that happens you will see a 'deleted' notification.

Soft-deleted users cannot be access using users/id - hence the error you are seeing.

However, soft-deleted resources in Azure AD can be accessed using the special deletedItems API:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/directory-deleteditems-get?view=graph-rest-1.0