When a faculty, staff member, contingent worker, or other third-party worker with account access leaves the College, their access will be terminated and certain access/data will be transferred to their manager. This article details those behaviors and only applies to departing employees. Please see the Account Access for Departing Students guide for details regarding departing students.
What happens to an employee's account when they leave?
Departing employees and/or their managers will first follow HR's resignation/termination procedure. Through that process, a termination date/time will be logged into Workday.
What happens immediately
At 5pm on the termination date, the employee's ID card will be disabled from tapping into buildings.
At 10:30am the next day after the termination date/time in Workday, IT will automatically:
- Change the user's Emerson Account password to something random and log them out of all online systems, such as Gmail, Workday, etc.
- Set an email auto-responder stating that the employee has left the College and to contact their direct supervisor's email address for further questions.
- Grant the direct supervisor access to the departing employee's mailbox, which they can access by logging into their own Emerson Gmail, and then click the user icon in the top right of Gmail and find the department employee's email in the drop down. Note: If you don't see it, please click refresh in your browser and try again.
- Disable the user's Slack account.
Note: Formerly, we would automatically transfer Google Drive data from the former employee to the manager, but we have stopped this practice, as it was creating issues with storage quotas and returning community members. Instead, departing employees should place their business data in their department shared drive before leaving. If a Google Drive transfer still needs to take place, this can be requested manually.
By this time, the employee account will also be removed from any automatic email lists, which will also remove them from systems such as Adobe and Microsoft licensing.
We do not support forwarding email to the supervisor.
What happens after 60 days from the termination date?
After 60 days from the termination date, the departed employee's email account will be disabled (but not deleted), which will have the following results:
- The supervisor will no longer be able to access the departed employee's email account.
- Emails sent to the departed employee will not be delivered and the sender will receive a less friendly system bounce back instead of the previous auto-responder.
What happens after 90 days from the termination date?
After 90 days from the termination date, the employee's Emerson Account and email will be deleted and will not be recoverable, unless IT has been informed by General Counsel or senior leadership or records retention that the account must be preserved.
What happens if an employee leaves and then is hired again?
Their account will be rebuilt or re-enabled (depending on how long it has been since their initial departure) and they will receive a new onboarding message with instructions on how to log into their Emerson Account.
What happens if an employee resigns or is terminated but is still a student?
In this event, the termination events listed above will still happen, and the account will be converted to a student account and the former employee/current student will receive a new onboarding email. They will then be able to regain access to their account, but their former supervisor will have access to the email for 60 days to maintain business continuity in their department.
If Google Drive contents that were transferred to the supervisor need to be returned to the former employee/current student, the supervisor can share/transfer ownership of those specific non-business folders/subfolders on Google Drive with the former employee.
What happens if an employee resigns or is terminated but is still a former student and it has been less than a year since they graduated?
Once a community member becomes an employee, they follow our employee access termination procedures. As such, access will be disabled upon the employee termination date.
What if I want the departing employee to have continued access after their termination date?
Employee access to electronic systems at Emerson follows their status in Workday. If they need continued access, they need to have an official status at the College. Please work with Human Resources to pick an appropriate termination date.
What if I want different behavior for the employee's access upon termination?
- If you would like a different person other than their manager to have access to their mailbox, please have someone in the departing employee's reporting structure contact helpdesk@emerson.edu with this request.
- If you would like to change what the out of office says, simply log into the departing employee's email and change the verbiage for the auto-responder.
- If you need an extension on the 60 day access to their email or the 90 day deletion, please contact helpdesk@emerson.edu with this request.