Whenever an employee leaves the company it’s important to quickly take care of their associated Office 365 account .  First and foremost it’s important to immediately reset the user’s password to one only you know so the ex-employee no longer has access to their account.

After changing the user’s password, the easiest method for managing an ex-employee’s account is to simply delete it from the Office 365 Admin portal.  After deleting the user you now have an available Office 365 license which can be reassigned to a new employee or reduced from the subscription.  If you are concerned that the user’s mailbox will continue to receive new email then you can add the user’s email address as an alias to the former employee’s manager’s mailbox.  Any new email sent to the ex-employee’s email address will then be delivered to the manager’s inbox.

However, if you want to preserve the contents of the mailbox then you will need to export the mailbox contents to an Outlook .pst file before deleting the account.  The .pst file can then be saved for future reference by the manager.  Exporting to a .pst file is fine for relatively small maiboxes, but for large mailboxes other tools will have to be employed.   If you want to preserve the contents of a large Exchange Online mailbox to a .pst file please contact BlueEdge Consulting.

Please be aware you have 30 days to restore the deleted Office 365 user account if needed.

Another method for managing an ex-employee’s mailbox is to convert it to a Shared Mailbox.  Office 365 Shared Mailboxes do not require an Office 365 license and access to the mailbox can be given to the former employee’s manger as a delegate.   The email address for the former employee is still active and will continue to receive new email messages. Once you convert the mailbox to a Shared Mailbox the Office 365 license can be removed and then assigned to a new employee or reduced from the subscription.

To assist in the management of deleting Office 365 Users and converting the mailbox to a Shared Mailbox, Microsoft has introduced a new Office 365 wizard to walk you through the process.  The Delete User Wizard appears once selecting the Delete User button for the user account in the Office 365 Admin Portal.  This wizard incorporates the management of both the user’s OneDrive and the mailbox.

The wizard provides an easy way to reassign the management of the ex-employee’s OneDrive and also guide you through the Shared Mailbox setup.   The wizard for the Shared Mailbox conversion assigns the new mailbox owner, changes the display name, turns on automatic replies & clean’s up mailbox aliases.   This wizard is a big time saver in the management of an ex-employee’s mailbox.

If you have questions regarding off-boarding employees and preserving an ex-employee’s email account then make it a point to reach out to BlueEdge Consulting right now – info@blueedgeconsulting.com or 484-237-9101.