Best Practices in O365 User management when someone leaves your organization 

This article talks about removing former employee O365 from the management of O365 Licenses when a user leaves the organization. The recommended process below ensures that we do not need to attach an ongoing license to a user and still comply with the retention period policy for storing emails from the user who has left the organization.

1. Remove user license
2. Move Mailbox from the user who is leaving the organization to a common mailbox where all such emails can be dumped
3. Either delete the user or deactivate as needed

Steps with screenshot mentioned below

Best Practices: Removing former employee O365

Microsoft recommends follow a 7 step process as below when someone leaves the organization

Steps to Migrate mail inbox from one user to another

From admin center select the user and click on Delete

It would give below options select the option to give email access to another user

Select the mailbox where you need all emails to go

Add a display name for shared mailbox which should be the same as that of the user so it is easier to identify

You can add and apply automatic replies for both email from inside or outside of the organization, or only inside. We recommend choosing the option for both inside and outside.

If any aliases for the user those would also be deleted

Review and finish the email mailbox after reviewing all settings

Avoid these mistakes while Removing former employee O365

1. If you do not stop them from signing in, then they can continue accessing their emails which could be lead to business information being leaked or misused.
2. If you only remove a user’s license but don’t delete the account, the content in the user’s OneDrive will remain accessible to you even after 30 days but If you do not continue to use that data after 30 days of deletion it would be lost forever
3. Licenses are not named so when you remove a license, you can assign it to someone else. Or, you can delete the license so you don’t pay for it until you hire another person. So remove the license after the mails and Onedrive are migrated

References: Removing former employee O365

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/add-users/remove-former-employee?view=o365-worldwideThe recommended process below ensures that we do not need to attach an ongoing license to a user and still comply with the retention period policy for storing emails from the user who has left the organization