How to offboard a user in SharePoint

Transcript

Runtime 4:59. Created by the Cognillo product team. Narrated with an AI-generated voice.

0:00 Thanks for joining. Before we begin, just a disclaimer: this video was written by the Cognillo team, and this voice-over was AI-generated. In this video, we'll offboard a user in SharePoint. We'll find everything they can access, reassign the items they own, fix links that email them, hand their access to a successor, and remove them.

0:21 When someone leaves, their access, their files and their name stay behind in SharePoint. On Tasks, pick the site, here the Architecture knowledge base. The Leavers area has a task for each step of offboarding, and you can also find any task by searching in I want to.

0:37 Sandra Brooks is leaving, and David Cooper takes over her work. Start with Everything one person can access. Pick accounts, search for Sandra, and tick her.

0:51 The summary shows the job checks her direct grants, SharePoint group memberships, site collection administrator roles and sharing links. Nothing is changed. Run now. All ten thousand items on the site are checked in two minutes.

1:06 Twenty-five places. The site, five lists and nineteen files. Most of it comes through the Members group, but Handover Documents and the capital budget tracker were given to her directly. And hovering over a file shows a sharing link made just for her.

1:27 Next, her name is on the files she created and edited. Search for Replace them on items. Narrow it to the Abasca library, then type Sandra as the leaver and David as the person to replace her with.

1:43 The job adds three bulk edits: Modified By, Created By, and every person or group column. Dates and versions are kept, so the files don't look newly changed. Run now.

2:02 Every file is listed with what changed. One file was left as it was, because SharePoint blocked the save for another user on it, and a few were saved as a new draft version. The report says exactly why, so nothing changes silently.

2:16 Pages and menus often have links that email the person who left. Search for email links, and pick Email mailto links to them. Enter her address, and the address to send to instead.

2:31 Narrow it to Site Pages to keep it quick. The summary shows links are rewritten on pages, in documents and in the site navigation. Run now.

2:42 Found in the Quick Launch menu, and twice on the Project Contacts page. Each link now emails David.

2:51 Now hand over her access. Search for Replace one user with another. Pick Sandra as the user to replace, and David as the new user. The panel lists what is handed over, and what isn't. Links for everyone in the organization, OneDrive, Teams, and Entra ID groups stay as they are.

3:11 David gets every permission Sandra has: admin roles, group memberships, list, folder and file permissions, and her specific people sharing links. Then Sandra is removed from the site.

3:23 Run now. Every list, folder and file on the site is checked for her access, in about two minutes. Fifty-seven changes. David is in the Members group, and has the same direct access to Handover Documents and the budget tracker. Sandra is removed from the site collection.

3:47 Barbara Connell is also leaving, and nobody takes over her access. Search for Remove a person from everything, and pick Barbara.

4:01 Run now, and confirm. The confirmation says her SharePoint permissions are taken away, and can't be put back by the toolkit. Access through Entra ID groups stays. Found and removed.

4:16 Once their account is deleted in Entra ID, run Clean up orphaned users. It finds accounts that no longer exist in your directory, but are still in SharePoint, and removes them after you review and confirm.

4:33 Finally, History keeps every task you ran, with its full report. That's your record of exactly how this person was offboarded, and when.

4:44 Thanks for watching. Save these steps as a template, so the next offboarding takes minutes. And if you have any questions, email hello at cognillo dot com.