Request to be able to find deactivated user in owner field in the 'Apply filter' button for any type of work items.

Since the account is deactivated. User is not visible in the drop down list of users when his/her name is typed in owner field in the 'Apply filter' button.

Expected Result:
Ability to fetch work items assigned to Owner even when the user is de-activated. So that any pending work is not lost.

Actual result:
No ability to fetch work items based on Owner.

We are not looking for this ability just for stories/Features but other work items

Workaround

• The deactivated owners are not visible in the selectable list

• Fortunately, there is a way to find work items filtering on deactivated users without selecting the user.
  Since the owner field is using 'contains' as the search criteria, you can simply add part of the user's name.
  Here are the steps.
  1. 1. In the "Apply Filter", add the 'Owner' field
     2. Type the first part of the user, making sure no user is selected if users are shown, and click 'Filter'
        
        (If the part of the user text search does not have any match in the list of active users, it works even better).
     3. The search will then be visible in the top left of the grid:
        
     4. Grid is filtered accordingly:
        
• The work item itself does not indicate that the user is deactivated when set as the owner.
  
• For this, we recommend changing the User's name to include 'deactivated' or any other label that would help to identify the person.