Former Employee Accounts to be Permanently Deleted this Summer

On July 15th, 2023 IT will delete accounts of suspended employee accounts. Employees that have separated from the college prior to July 15th, 2022 will have their account deleted.

Employees that separate from the college will have their accounts suspended on an immediate and daily basis. Suspended employee account deletion will take place on an annual basis. Professor Emeritus and Retired Employees are exempt from this account deletion and suspension.

In this article, you can find information on IT’s process as well as how to prevent data loss upon an employee’s departure from the college.

Google Drive Files

You can take some steps prior to July 15th, 2023 to reduce data loss and retain documents necessary for business processes. Below you can find information on what happens to Google Drive files when a former employee account is suspended and then deleted.

   On Account Suspension

After an employee leaves, their account is immediately suspended. Supervisors can access the files and folders that a former employee shared via their Google Drive, while the account is a suspended state. If a supervisor needs to access or find a file, they would visit their Google Drive and review the “Shared with me” files then search for files owned by the employee that left.

• If there are files and folders that your employee owned and shared which are necessary for your business processes, we recommend that you request an Institutional Shared Drive (ISD) or use an existing ISD to migrate the files. This ensures the file or folder will continue to exist, even after the employee account is deleted.
• We advise using an Institutional Shared Drive (ISD) rather than your own Google Drive folder, to prevent hitting your Google Storage Quota as well as reduce data loss when future staff changes occur.
• Use page three of this helpsheet for additional guidance.

  On Account Deletion

The Google Drive files that are owned and shared by a suspended employee are transferred to an IT holding account on an annual basis on July 15th, prior to account deletion. This file migration will break any existing shared links created by a former employee, so the files and folders will no longer be seen in Google Drive’s “Shared with me” tab. Retrieving these shared files and folders will require extra supervisor and IT collaboration.

As a note, files that the employee created within Institutional Shared Drives (ISDs) will remain in the Institutional Shared Drives. ISDs are the suggested file collaboration method for departments and teams working on active files essential for business continuity.

• If you need to review a file tree of a deleted employee’s Google Drive, please submit a request to itservice@lclark.edu. This can only be done up to a year after their account deletion.
• This is an additional safeguard, which retains a former employee’s shared files for a year after their account deletion. This is not meant to be the primary process for retaining or accessing essential data from departed employees.
• Shared files and folders that are moved to a holding account will be permanently deleted in the following year of their account deletion. Employees deleted on July 15th, 2023 will have their shared files and folders deleted on July 15th, 2024. After this date, there will be no way to recover the data.

Account Deletion Exceptions

• Former employee accounts that are still active (i.e. a Professor Emeritus) will not be deleted
• Retired staff accounts will not be deleted. You can find additional information here.
• Former employee accounts under a legal hold will not to be deleted

Get Help

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to itservice@lclark.edu. Due to the automatic and irreversible process of account and file deletion, please reach out no later than 2 business days before the deadlines noted.