Hi @toms,

When submitting a form the People Picker control must have a resolved name or be empty. It will not accept any invalid/non-existent users. Personally, I would create a work-around through form design to override the Peope Picker (keep it empty) when the item must hold a person's name that does not exist as a user in your domain. I created a form in Nintex Forms 2013 to demonstrate this. The 'override' works as follows:

-A Checkbox is available for a user to click (let's assume this is only visible to a certain group, such as administrators or managers).

-When the Checkbox is not checked, the People Picker will be visible and will be required.

-When the Check IS checked, the People Picker will be hidden and not be required. A Single Line of Text Control will show and will be required. The purpose of the Single Line of Text is to hold the person's name whom does not have a valid user account. This way, for the sake of your business process, you can still see who this item 'belonged' to at the time. 

The form export is attached. If you are working in a different environment let me know and I can slap together another form in the proper environment for you to reference. Feel free to share your thoughts on this as well, I would love to hear your feedback.

Hi @nicksha,

I can't open the zip file as my company is pretty strict around downloading files from unknown sources - but your description is pretty good and I get the gist of your work around. 

Unfortunately I don't think it will work as the form has already been submitted at a previous date using a name in the people/group field that was valid at the time. When the form contains a user that has left, the form can't even be opened in edit mode so the checkbox in your example wouldn't be able to be ticked by admins/managers - I've actually had a case where the people/group field contained an invalid user but was hidden and it still failed to open in edit mode.

Here's an example:

Joe Bloggs creates a form and puts himself as the one in charge of the form in a person/group field. Joe later leaves the company 1.5months later and is removed from AD. Now all forms containing Joe Bloggs in the owner person/group field are unable to be opened in edit mode as joe bloggs isn't a valid name in our domain.