Staff IT account

Access to specialist IT services may require further approval by a relevant service owner. These services should be used only for work and study connected to the University.

Contact the IT Service Desk for further information.

Examples of situations where a manager asks IS to facilitate access to an absent employee's account include:

• colleagues of someone on sick leave may want to take on the absentee's duties
• a research group may want access to data that a colleague had before they left

Even though HR guidance states that copyright for material generated by staff in the course of their employment belongs to the University, there could be difficulties if access is given automatically. For example, an employee may have been legitimately using their email account for correspondence with HR about a perceived problem with their manager.

Ideally, managers should organise their staff's work so that situations don't arise where a request to access someone else's account has to be made. Managers can reduce the risk of by:

• using services for roles
• taking care with handovers when people leave

On request from an employee's manager, IS will post an out-of-office message (drafted by the manager) on the email account of an employee who is unexpectedly absent.

If a manager wants access to the contents of the account of an absent employee (or ex-employee), they should ask their HR Advisor to:

• ask the employee (or ex-employee) for consent
• broker a mutually acceptable compromise if the employee (or ex-employee) does not/cannot consent

Usually your email is deleted after your termination date (including the grace period) has expired. You would have to make a request to the Registrar to take a copy of your email files.

The process is:

1. A member of staff makes a request to their Head of School/Department manager to take a copy of their email archive, giving a justification of why they need it. The justification is needed because email generated by staff members, while employed by the University, is considered to be the property of the University rather than the individual.
2. If the Head of School is willing to support the request, they must seek authorisation from the Registrar, detailing why they believe the request should be granted.
3. If the Registrar approves, the notification of approval is forwarded to the IT Service Desk.
4. The notification is logged as a support call and forwarded to the Systems Team to export the data.

The Alumni Relations Office provides an 'email for life' forwarding service. Contact the Alumni Office for more details.

Sometimes staff need to transfer their IT services due to changes in circumstances.

Examples of types of migrations are:

• a member of staff changes departments
• a staff member becomes an Associate

Users who transfer to another department will continue to use their existing username.

Transfer/migration of services to another account may be possible. You should notify the IT Service Desk. If an employee is changing (migrating) to student or Associate, they normally have a grace period in which they will still have access to their 'employee' Z: drive and email.

Otherwise, employee leavers have no residual services or grace period. Members of staff who wish to take advantage of the waivers, should personally copy relevant files before their termination date. The leaver's School or Department manager should ensure there is a procedure in place for this to happen.