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I am a member of staff leaving the University. When will my IT Services account close?

This information is for staff, and persons with associate roles (Visitors, Emeritus etc) only.   If you are a student, please see our guidance for students who are leaving the University.

Your departure from the university (or the expiry of your Associate status) triggers a process to begin closing your IT account.

BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE UNIVERSITY

Once you leave the University, your ITS account will be closed. So it is important that you arrange to move or change the ownership of any of your files that may need to be accessed by others in the future.

Further information on managing electronic records is available here Leaving arrangements : Terms and conditions : Human Resources : University of Sussex

OneDrive, N:Drive or GoogleDrive

University files - If you have any files on your OneDrive, N:Drive, GoogleDrive or stored on your local desktops that other staff will need to continue to access after you leave the University then you must arrange to move your files into an ITS approved shared storage location, e.g., Box or G:Drive.

You may need to liaise with colleagues about the best place to store files for them to access. You must do this before you leave the University and ensure your colleagues know where files have been stored and are able to access them.  You should not keep copies of University files for your own personal use after you leave the university.

If you are unable for any reason to do this, contact IT Services for support or speak to your manager who could request access to files on your behalf.

Personal files- If you want to keep any of your personal files you must take copies of them before you leave the University. The best way to do this is to send files as attachments to a personal email address or downloading files onto a personal device 

Further guidance is available here Download files and folders from OneDrive or SharePoint - Microsoft Support 

Box 

If you have a Box account, make sure that the ownership of every folder you own has been transferred to another colleague as it is extremely difficult to change this once you've left. 

Further guidance is available here How to Change Ownership of a Box Folder.

Emails

If there are any specific emails you feel need to be made available to colleagues, you can forward the mail to their inbox, or they can be saved in a shared location e.g., Box or G:Drive.

Alternatively you may need to save a whole mailbox to make available for others if required. Please see Question 1456. How to use Outlook Data Files to make offline copies of mail folders : Frequently asked questions : ITS : University of Sussex

Email Forwarding and replies

Please note that your IT account will close shortly after you leave the University, and any forwarding rules or auto replies that you set up will be disabled at this time.  

Shared Mailboxes

If you own a role-based account (shared mailbox), you will need to contact ITS to transfer ownership, otherwise the account will close. 

IT Equipment

Please ensure you return all IT equipment to you line manager and they should ensure a leavers form is completed for the return of any equipment. 

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/humanresources/business-services/forms/leaverforms

ACCOUNT CLOSURE PROCESS

Account closure process for Staff and Associates is as follows: 

• Leaving date of working at the university is reached

• Next day- Email sent to your account to notify you that your account is about to close and then access to email and OneDrive services is removed

• After 7 days – Account the is disabled, access to all services is removed (except MyView which staff can continue to access for up to 48 days after their leaving date to view their final payslip)

• After 48 days account is deleted

IF YOU NEED ITS TO DELAY CLOSURE OF YOUR ACCOUNT

If you are leaving the university l but have a legitimate need for your account to remain open for a short period, please contact IT Services and we may be able to delay the closure. 

If you need access to your account for a longer period, please discuss with your Section Head or your School Administrator: they may be able to arrange for you to be made an Associate for a limited period of time.   You need to have a current 'role' (whether Student, Staff, Associate or Emeritus) at the University for your account to remain open, but IT Services is not authorised to make role changes or change leaving dates.

IF YOU NEED TO ACCESS YOUR ACCOUNT AFTER IT HAS CLOSED

If you need to access your Sussex account after its scheduled closure date, please contact IT Services.   For a period of up to 48 days after your leaving date we may be able to reopen your account for a limited period.   Once an account has been removed, we cannot reopen it.

If you need to remain as an Associate, you should contact the administrative staff in the School or Department where you were associated.   Only when they have renewed your Associate status can your account be reopened, but this must happen before the account is deleted.

MANAGERS ACCESS TO FILES AND FOLDERS

If a staff member has left the University without moving university files and folders into an ITS approved shared storage location eg., Box or G:Drive then a Line Manager can request access via IT Services. Depending on the request may need to be approved by the Chief Digital Transformation Officer according to the Institutional Access Policy

Requests for access to files and folders needs to be made a soon as possible after the staff member leaves.

EMERITUS, HONORARY and VISITORS INFORMATION

These roles are maintained by HR. Therefore, if you have a question regarding this please contact HR directly. 

Emeritus and Visitor status provides staff with an IT account including a mailbox, Sussex Direct access, and electronic Library access (when requested by HR or your School/Department).

Honorary status provides the above access apart from the electronic Library. 

ITS recommend you make a backup of your emails and files before becoming an Emeritus, Honorary or Visitor.